Cloud Computing
Among the technological platforms at our disposal, the cloud computing presents itself with radical premises: although on the one hand it can offer great opportunities, on the other hand it is a significant upheaval in the environment in which it enters, thus threatening the industry in the sector.
Already at its origins, and in a more consolidated way starting 10-15 years ago, information technology presented itself as a service to users, that is, as a preferable resource in outsourcing rather than in-house. The first computers were expensive machines, mainframes, so the organization didn't buy the whole machine, but paid to manage it and run its own software; however, the machine remained in the "service center" which offered the company this possibility.
With the technological evolution this dimensional constraint has come to fall: companies therefore pushed towards the creation of in-house software or the purchase of the same from specialized suppliers. Clearly this has led to an oversizing of the ICT section of the various companies, ultimately leading them to face the problem of whether the choice of producing their own software was too expensive.
The first companies to ask themselves this problem were the large companies, which effectively then aimed to move the entire ICT section outside, stipulating outsourcing contracts: networks, servers, day-by-day maintenance, software development, were no longer activities within the company and could be treated like any other service, including as regards the control and reduction of spending.
Outsourcing was successful because it allowed you to get the best quality service on the market. The company could not achieve that quality, because its view of the world was limited to itself.
However, this process required a certain skill on the part of the companies in entering into outsourcing contracts, in order to guarantee the quality of those very complex services that were purchased. ICT experts were therefore needed who could control the quality of the service and, therefore, only the infrastructures actually became unnecessary within the company. In adopting technologies from external suppliers, however, there is a negative consequence: it is not possible to keep the supplier under control, which over time tends to reduce quality, introduce rigidity and increase costs.
These considerations therefore push the companies to go back, that is to the possession of IT departments, or to create companies together with the supplier to which to outsource, so as to be able to maintain greater control over the service offered and the software owned.
And it is in this framework that the cloud computing.
From a conceptual point of view, the cloud computing was born from the idea of โโgrid computing, that is to use the power of computing distributed throughout the world in an efficient manner, that is by exploiting the unused. This idea is initially applied to sharing music files online, through networks where everyone is both a client and a server (Peer-to-Peer). The problem with this architecture is that it is not possible to identify the share manager, as it is impossible to determine which server is where the messages originate from. data collected.
This distributed solution has also been used in the scientific field, to support the power distributed computing. However, it requires high homogeneity among users, limiting the development of grid computing itself. Despite this, companies that have a large number of servers turn their attention to the grid, although driven by totally independent market needs (think of Google ed Amazon). The grid computing market is currently declining.
The idea behind the cloud computing is that users are service users, do not see how the service is implemented and work in an environment characterized by a virtualization drive.
Cloud Computing VS Mainframe: They are conceptually similar, but radically different in terms of hardware.
Cloud Computing VS Grid: the concept of peer-to-peer is no longer used.
Cloud Computing VS Outsourcing: The company does not supply its own information system.
The hardware for the cloud it is often made so that it can be placed in a container of 100, 1000, 2000 servers that are already optimized and cooled autonomously, ready to be put "for sale".
The modularization of the data centers allows separate and simplified management during the backup phase, especially considering that, having identical machines, the restoration of a backup is reduced to the transfer time of the data collected.
Il cloud computing is perfect for startups, as there is no need to manage the migration from old systems, which is usually very expensive. The logic of the Cloud Computing is in fact based on the concept of pay-per-use, that is to make people pay clients an amount proportional to the resources they use. Resources are instantly allocated by the infrastructure, so the use of resources is dynamic and depends solely on the needs of the moment. This allows to contain costs and grow dynamically together with the needs of the company.
From an economic point of view, in situations where the use of the cloud computing is not constrained, it has a benefit that fluctuates between 30% and 70% for the company. However, there may be constraints, which introduce an additional cost, such as the need to locate i data collected (for privacy or legislative reasons), or the need for customization of services.
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