Four reasons why business will take to the cloud
Published: 14 May 2009 10:51 BST
...the next generation of serious web applications develop an offline component in addition to the standard online component.
That offline functionality stores the application locally and caches user data, so any hiccups during a web session or connectivity outages will not interrupt work. Then when internet connectivity is restored, any work and changes made offline are simply synced with the online version of the application.
3. Ubiquitous mobile internet access
While offline functionality will be necessary for web applications in the cloud to go mainstream, significant progress will also be made over the next five years in making internet access virtually ubiquitous — or at least available anywhere you can connect to a cell tower.
The spread of the WiMax and LTE competing 4G wireless standards will bring broadband internet to remote locations and will introduce true mobile broadband connectivity to cars, buses and trains. This spread will help remove one of the psychological barriers to cloud computing: the idea that you can only use it when you are at a desk with a high-speed connection.
The arrival of more powerful and versatile smartphones and netbooks, combined with ubiquitous mobile broadband, will open up new possibilities for cloud computing that will surpass most of what is available with standard software clients — and do it at a lower cost.
4. Moving capex to opex
Speaking of costs, that brings us to the main reason why IT leaders will eventually adopt cloud computing. Scaling servers up and down is very expensive. Most IT departments buy as many servers as they will need during the company's estimated peak capacity. However, they do not need all that capacity most of the time, so many servers sit idle.
With cloud computing — and its cousin, utility computing — the equation changes. When a company needs more capacity for a peak period, it can simply buy those resources on demand. When business slows and the company needs less capacity, its bill goes down because it is using fewer resources.
In financial terms, this facility allows a company to move much of its infrastructure costs from capital expenditure (capex) to operating expenditure (opex). Capex costs are often tightly controlled since they involve depreciating assets. The advantage of using opex is that you can increase or decrease spending much more quickly and carefully.
Credit: Four reasons why corporate IT will embrace cloud computing from ZDNet.com
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