What is Cloud Computing?

This is a very good question, because depending on who you speak to, there are many different responses to this question. If you talk to Google they have one response, while companies like Microsoft and VMware have a very different approach to the cloud.

From our perspective there seems to be two industry agreed cloud definitions.

Software as a Service

You pay a provider to deliver a service to you, how they deliver it is largely irrelevant and is usually charged on a per seat per month basis.  Most providers of this type of service have guarantee to keep the service you have subscribed up a certain percentage of the time. (SLA)

Computer Resources Made Available

With this approach your cloud provider makes available logical resources (usually servers) and you can load whatever software you require on them to perform the function that you want.  This is usally charged on a monthly basis, based on the physical resource required, eg, how much Disk, CPU and memory.  As you can imagine, this in a large organisation with some services can work out to be more cost effective than the software as a service approach, but also carries the burden that you (the customer) have the responsibility of keeping the service (that you loaded) running.

The primary business benefits appear to be;

• The ability to purchase a service (example Email) without any upfront capital

• No ongoing resources required to manage the service ongoing (Software as a service)

There are many things to consider when looking into cloud offerings and for our customers the most important consideration is "risk to the business"