Alan Alcesto: Let's Talk Tech
A fancy term in technology has been thrown around with little understanding. Whether you are "harnessing the power of the cloud" or "utilizing new cloud technology," you may find yourself asking what exactly is the cloud? You often hear about storing data on a cloud, but what does that mean? You would think that you are storing your pictures, documents, and music into the sky and it is just floating around up there until you access them. Whether or not you understand what the cloud is, most people are already using it through social media sites or apps like Dropbox.
Applications that use a cloud is referring to a service that uses cloud computing. Much like how a cloud in the sky is comprised of multiple elements (hydrogen and oxygen), but appears as a single object from afar, a computing cloud is made up of a huge network or servers that share resources. Keep in mind, a cloud isn't a physical object, but a collection of servers. So when you take a video on your iPhone and upload it to a Google Drive, you are essentially storing that picture on multiple servers and it can be accessed at any time on any device connected to the internet.
Well then why is cloud storage services beneficial? A lot of cloud services provide a base amount of storage space and require a monthly or annual payment to utilize these services. You can technically purchase a new hardrive that can store hundreds of times more data and at a lower price than a subscription to one of these services. Well, that may be true, but you need to consider the flexibility and security of using a cloud storage service. Imagine the bolt of lighting struck your computer and fried it. All your data would be lost with your hardrive, and you would be out of luck. With cloud storage, even if an entire server farm went up in flames, all your data would still be safe. As mentioned earlier, your data is stored in multiple servers, multiple times to prevent data loss. Having your data on multiple servers allows you to access your documents on any device at any given moment (so long as you are connected to the internet).
When you purchase a hardrive you have a set amount of storage. If you run out of space on your hardrive, you purchase another hardrive. There are those awkward moments where you need to store one more file, but are out of storage on your hardrive. Can you justify purchasing a new hardrive for one more file? You set on that awkward quest of searching through your computer of old files you could part ways with. You are burdened with the difficult choice of deleting the 50 pictures of your cat or an episode of your favorite show. With cloud storage you don't need to make these difficult decisions. Cloud storage services provide almost an ulimited amount of storage. Often times these cloud storage services give a minimal base amount of storage, and by upgrading your service you can increase the amount of storage you have at your disposal. This way you can increase or decrease the amount of storage you are paying for according to your current position without wasting storage.
Don't get me wrong, cloud storage is an amazing tool to use, but like everything on the internet it can be vulnerable. Cloud services are known for being hacked, exposing our personal files and documents to the world. In more recent stories, Apple's iCloud was recently hacked in 2014. This caused hundreds of celebrities' personal photos to be leaked to the internet. Comedically enough the internet named the catrastrophy "The Fappening".
Hopefully this post was able to shed some light on what is the cloud and cloud storage. We were able to talk about the benefits of the cloud in terms of flexibility and security.