May 05, 2014

The term cloud computing is everywhere! In simplest terms, it is a mechanism to storing and accessing your data and applications over the internet instead of your computer’s hard drive. The cloud is a figurative expression for the internet and it is the next stage in the internet’s evolution. There are various vendors like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon to name a few, who provide a platform to host your organisations application and data. The other day, I was reading an article on cloud-computing and it stated “No hardware. No software. No headaches.” – this is very true, because with cloud computing, you can eliminate these headaches as you are not managing the hardware, software and other infrastructures. That’s a headache for an experienced service provider like Microsoft, Google and Amazon. These providers offer services such as HaaS (Hardware as a Service), which means they will maintain the required hardware for the data and application that you are hosting and SaaS (Software as a Service), which means they will host the required services that your organisation requires. For instance, these providers can be used to host your organisations' CRM application. The use of the cloud does create several information protection challenges, however, traditional platforms at most organisations have significant information risks that can be reduced by moving to a more highly scaled and automated environment. Cloud environment can be categorised as either private cloud or public cloud.

Providers such as the aforementioned offer a public cloud service. Public cloud is a computing model where the providers offer a range of cloud services to a wide customer base. A public cloud is implemented within the corporate firewall and the internal IT department controls it. A private cloud is designed to offer the same features and benefits of public cloud systems, but removes a number of objections to the cloud-computing model including control over enterprise and customer data, worries about security, and issues connected to regulatory compliance. If you're interested in learning more about cloud computing, New Horizons offers the following courses that may interest you:

• 10750 - Monitoring and Operating a Private Cloud with System Center 2012
• 10751 - Configuring and Deploying a Private Cloud with System Center 2012