Cloud Computing: Connect, Store and Share Data from Anywhere

In the past few years, we have witnessed the boom of smart devices. People are buying smartphones, tablets and notebooks like crazy. The future looks great for electronics industry, but what about users? Think of a situation like this- Mr X owns an iPad, MacBook and an iPhone. He stores different data in different devices and one day he brings iPad to the office but forgets the laptop! How can he access the data that he stored into the laptop for presentation?

Many people may have gone through this trouble and that is why, computer engineers started thinking about a solution. Can data be accessible from anywhere? Several companies like Microsoft (SkyDrive), Google (Drive) and Apple (iCloud) found an answer and that answer is cloud computing. Now we can sync data from different devices, access it from any device that is connected to internet and more importantly share it with anyone we wish to.

You may not realize it, but even Gmail is a cloud based service. Once you upload and send a picture, document or MP3 file to anyone, that data remains in your account and you can access it anytime even if it’s deleted from your hard disc.

That is how our individual small data cloud connects to a mother could and create a large database for everyone. Imagine that your college is storing thousands of student details on Google Drive and individually you are also storing your mark sheets to make sure that you never lose it. If you forget the Drive account password and lost the hard copy of mark sheet, call your college and they will share a copy within minutes. Cloud computing keeps your hard disc space free and protects the data from malware, virus and hackers.

Another huge benefit of this service is data sharing security. Users can decide with whom they want to share something and restrict the permission for editing as well.

Lets see how a could computing works in real life. If you own a Widows 7 computer, Widows 7.5 phone, then once you download a song in your computer, it not only shows up in the computer’s Zune player, but gets synced to all the devices. That means the same song is immediately added to the Windows phone play list. Now, when you take an image using the mobile, it’s immediately uploaded in the SkyDrive, Microsoft’s own data cloud. You can access those images by going to SkyDrive from any PC without touching the phone.

I know some of you must have started thinking, how much it costs? After all, if I can store everything without worrying about my hard disc, it must be pretty costly. Contrary to the popular notion, cloud computing is quite affordable. For 50GB storage, iCloud charges $8.33, for 100GB, Google Drive charges $4.99 and for 52GB space SkyDrive charges $2.08.

Cloud computing is not only good for common consumers, but business houses as well. Large companies can store their data on cloud and use it anytime. For instance, a web design company can store all the completed design projects in Google Drive and share it with clients once they send the final payment. This facility can also be helpful for demonstration. Instead of carrying a laptop for presentation, the BDMs can go to a client’s office, open any computer and extract hundreds of design samples from Drive to impress prospective clients.

Cloud computing offers endless possibilities and breaks the “storage” barrier. If you are using cloud computing, there is no need to carry data, because it glides with you.