What are the software or hardware requirements? What are its capabilities?
This is where the heart of cloud computing lies. The entire idea behind cloud computing is to remove the taxing limitations of hardware on the user end. With cloud computing, you can eliminate barriers such as processing power, memory usage, and physical memory storage on your device. No longer are expensive chips, memory, or graphics cards an expensive set back to users. You can now focus your resources on the basics and have the cloud run the processes for you.
Chromebooks, mini laptops, and tablets are becoming the future for this reason. Now you can buy a laptop for under $200 that can run all the programs and applications that an expensive system can. Instead of your device running and executing programs, the information is computed at the cloud servers and is sent back to you. In a way, the only limitation you have now is bandwidth. To put this into perspective, think of “Watson”, the IBM computer that was dominating the score board and beating out even Ken Jennings in a race for the right answer. That computer was nearly the size of a small warehouse and needed coolant to run. A couple years later now you can search for Watson and see their creators holding tablets with the Watson logo on it. It is no longer necessary for us to have huge hardware on our person when we can send the instructions through the internet for Watson to compute and send back the answer with little to no lag.
This is why cloud computing is so amazing! Think about the possibilities you can have for your business or students. Provide an internet capable device to someone and they are ready to go. Why do you need to have $300 i5 chips in your device when there is a device out there that is 500 times more powerful ready to tackle your instructions. Think of all the people who can’t afford a $2000 laptop but can easily obtain a $150 Chromebook. Think of all the businesses that can’t afford server storage, space for them, and massive data centers, but can now outsource for cheaper prices than ever before. Cloud computing has literally opened the doors for millions of businesses and students around the world.
What is the downside or limitations of cloud computing?
After talking about the benefits of cloud computing, I feel that I must talk about the limitations it currently has. The one main issue I see right now with cloud computing is bandwidth and internet access. If you don’t have access to these tools, you don’t have access to cloud computing. An analogous situation is happening to my fiancé right now. On an iPhone, there is a personal assistant named “Siri” that you can ask a variety of questions. The answers are not on the iPhone itself, so the question must be sent to the cloud (Apple’s servers) where it is decoded, answered, and then sent back to the iPhone. My fiancé just asked about siri about the football games today, but the phone came back with an answer “I’m sorry I can’t answer any questions right now”.
Without the proper bandwidth and internet connectivity, cloud computing is all for naught. This is why there are some people still stuck to the old ways. The computer example for the new high school for instance; What happens if we bought Chromebooks for the whole school and the internet goes down? You now have a ton of useless computers (for most purposes) until the internet is turned back on again. This is an issue that is constantly being dealt with in a number of ingenious ways. Type a quick search for these strategies and you will be dealt with sometimes humorous solutions including free 3g across the globe that is provided by weather balloons.
