Up Up and Away

There is a joke that suggests that cloud computing – the highly heralded 'new thing' in the business world – has in fact been around for a long time, in the form of the internet. It's not a particularly good joke, but it does serve to highlight that sometimes the most useful things are right in front of us, it's just a case of seizing the opportunity and using them.

When it comes to cloud computing, the opportunity is definitely being seized. Companies all over the world, from the biggest tech companies like HP, to some of the smallest start-ups are using cloud computing to fulfil their IT requirements.

The great advantage of cloud computing is that it's cheap, and scale-up able. You don't need to spend a lot of money buying your own banks of servers and getting the technicians in to sort everything out, in fact, you can get started with just a little bit of effort and be up and running in a day. Then, as you grow, it's easy enough to buy a little more server space and have your IT grow with you without upscaling issues.

Another advantage is that cloud computing works perfectly with modern technology. Things like laptops, netbooks, tablets, smartphones and everything else are suited for people on the go, and as the technology that people own is almost always more advanced than the technology that they use in the work place, people want to use these things for their work. With cloud computing you can access information wherever you happen to be, you don't need to be logging onto a central mainframe in an office somewhere.

Whilst cloud computing is undoubtedly useful for businesses, it's also great for individuals. With so many different ways of accessing information, people want to be able to get at everything in one place, it's part of the reason why Facebook has been so successful – you can access it from anywhere. Cloud computing solutions from everything from phone books to calendars are a great way of staying organised wherever you happen to be in the world.

Cloud computing does, however, take up quite a lot of internet bandwidth, because there's so much information being passed across the internet rather than through internal networks. Accordingly, it's important to make sure you've got a good, quick connection and for domestic users, Sky are offering some great deals on everything from broadband to digital TV at the moment so they may well be worth a look.

Cloud computing is, undoubtedly, the future of the way we use computers and information, so even if you're not interested in it just now, it's definitely worth keeping in mind.