Adobe Creative Cloud for Fortune magazine by Charis Tsevis | CC BY 2.0
What is the cloud? That’s simple, a cloud is the white floating amorphous blob in the sky composed of liquid droplets and other chemicals. Oh wait, you meant the technical cloud? Well, it may seem complicated and convoluted, but understanding the cloud is fairly simple.
A few months back Mediafly published a blog outlining cloud computing (an excellent blog worth checking out!), but this time around we decided to look at what cloud storage is at its most simplistic form.
In his article “What Is ‘the Cloud’ – and Where Is It?” Adam Clark Estes does a fantastic job of breaking down the facts surrounding the mysterious “cloud.”
The term “cloud computing” refers to the sharing of data to improve efficiency. Where once the sharing of data required storing information in a floppy disk, compact disc, or a USB, now that information can be saved in the “cloud” through a number of different storage service providers.
Some of more commonly known cloud storage services are iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, or CloudDrive. They usually require some kind of membership fee to store your company’s data. The data stored with these services go to that company’s servers and can be accessed through various devices and locations. This is how mobility comes into play and why it can be beneficial for large companies.
The ability to access stored information from any location or device can increase efficiency and productivity. No need to pass along a USB with various programs to download, just download it immediately through your cloud storage. Better yet, that information will be easily accessible if transferring from one device to another.
Cloud storage is not foolproof. There is a measure of trust placed on the company storing your information. If the information being stored is sensitive and private, encrypting that information might be worth some consideration. Encrypting is just a way to further secure your information to prevent any high level hacking (think of it as a vault… within a vault… within a vault). Most enterprise-grade cloud storage systems offer encryption as a standard, or at their business account levels.
The future of storing your data with these companies can seem a little cloudy, but the increased mobility of accessing that information is still exciting. It is convenient, good for business, and can improve productivity. With that said, antiquated hardware storage is a thing of the past, and no company should be stuck in the past.
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