An Introduction to the Cloud
Tech Talker demystifies “the cloud” and explains why it’s a good idea to take your data to the skies.
Listener John H. brought up a great question today: “What is ‘the cloud?’”
Technology has a ton of terms and abbreviations and “the cloud” is a very vague term that I will demystify in this episode.
In layman’s terms, the cloud is essentially the internet. So when something is stored “in the cloud” it is actually stored on the internet. If something is “cloud computed,” that means the information is processed on the internet, and so on.
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Why Do We Use The Cloud?
But the real question is why do we use the cloud? Why is it better to store information and to do computing on the web rather than directly on our own computers?
I’ll preface this by saying that I am a huge advocate of the cloud. In fact, my job aside from being your favorite https://techtalker.quickanddirtytips.com/ is optimizing businesses so that they can run efficiently, securely and globally – on the cloud.
So back to the question, why do we use the cloud? Well the answer is mobility. Now that the world has smartphones and laptops, files can’t just live on one device. They have to be shared, portable, and accessed on the go. This need for both personal and business use has sparked the cloud revolution.
Let’s take file XYZ for example. If I upload it to a website such as https://www.dropbox.com/ or https://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-other-programs?T1=t4, you could say that it is in the cloud. Now you can access it from your smartphone, laptop, or really any computer or device with an internet connection. It’s just that easy.
On the flip side, if you had that same file stored on your desktop, the moment that you walk away from your desk, you no longer have access to it. And even if you had some sort of remote access to your computer, it would still need to be on in order for you to get at your file!
Where Does The Cloud Store Your Files?
So now your file is in the cloud and you can easily access it from anywhere – great! But where is the file exactly?
In the past few years, large companies such as Google, Microsoft, and /tech/computers/whats-new-with-itunes (to name a few) have created enormous data centers around the world. These data centers hold information within servers, which in turn hold your personal data, or a company’s data. The whole goal of a data center is to make your information secure and available to you whenever you want it. It goes without saying that just about every data center has the most sophisticated security system that you would be hard pressed to find in a James Bond film—and I’m not just talking about physical security! Unfortunately, there are computer deviants whose sole goal is to get at your data, and the only thing more impressive than a data center’s physical security system is its virtual one!
Is Your Data Safe in The Cloud?
But why data centers? For starters, your data is much, much safer in a data center than in your house. Data centers store information on hard drives, and the data on each hard drive is backed up on another hard drive in the data center, so if one drive dies, your data is still safe. And even if a whole data center goes down in flames, there are backups to their backups all around the world. Not to mention that each data center has been engineered to survive almost any disaster that man or nature can throw at it!
That’s impressive physical security. But many people have reservations on keeping their data somewhere they cannot physically see. I’ll admit, this one took me a while to reconcile with also. But once I learned how the cloud works, all my reservations went out the window, and I’ll tell you why. Most online backup solutions, services, and programs will encrypt your data on your home computer before sending it to a data center. What this means is that your data is already scrambled, encrypted, and locked before it ever leaves your home computer. So even if someone were to break into a data center and steal every shred of data, all they would have really stolen is a bunch of random zeros and ones that would take millions of years to crack. Good luck, /tech/computers/anatomy-of-a-virus!
Let me also mention here that I believe we shouldn’t simply rely on the cloud to store all of our data. It is important to have many copies of your data, just in case. I personally use two /tech/computers/how-to-back-up-your-computer-data, an external hard drive and the cloud. That way, if my house burns down and I lose all of my computers and hard drives, I’ll still have everything online to restore from. And when zombies rise up and take over the world and every data center becomes overrun and I’m the last of the living, I can sit back, crank up the generator, and have all my videos backed up and good to go!
Here are your 4 Quick and Dirty Tips for the cloud:
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The term “the cloud” refers to storing or computing something on the internet
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Keeping files and information on the cloud allows you to stay mobile
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The cloud offers exceptional security both physical and virtual
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Most cloud services encrypt your data before it even leaves your computer, so even if a hacker were to get your data, it would be unusable.
So whether you like the cloud or not, that is the direction the technology industry is headed. In fact, in one way or another I bet every one of my listeners has some information stored on the cloud. For example, if you use Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, or https://www.facebook.com/qdttechtalker, welcome to the cloud!
Have a question about anything in this episode or a suggestion for a future podcast? Send me an email at techtalker@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email or post it on the Tech Talker Facebook wall.
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About the Author
Tech Talker demystifies technology and cutting edge devices so that even the most tech illiterate can understand what’s going on with their computer or gadget — and what to do when something goes wrong.
