What Is 'The Cloud' In Cloud Computing?

Whether it’s storing files in the cloud, listening to music in the cloud or saving pictures
to the cloud, more and more people are using 'the cloud.' For those who
haven’t quite caught on, 'the cloud' still means those white puffy
things in the sky. In technology, however, it’s something completely
different.

Here’s a breakdown of what the cloud is and how regular, everyday people are using it.

What Do People Mean by The Cloud?

The term 'cloud' is simply how a network or remote servers can be accessed via an internet connection store and manage information.

In other words, it’s a place other than you computer that you can use to store your stuff.

Before we had cloud storage services,
we had to save all of our files to our computers, on our local hard
drives. These days, we have multiple desktop computers, laptop
computers, tablets and smartphones that we may need to access our files from.

The old method was to save the file to a USB
key and transfer it to another computer or email the file to yourself
so you could open it on another machine. But today, cloud computing
allows us to simply save a file on a remote server so it can be accessed
from any machine that has an internet connection.

For a lot of people, the experience of accessing files from anywhere is like pulling it down from the sky, or a cloud.

How It Works

There’s quite a bit of complex infrastructure that goes into cloud computing, and luckily, you don’t need to understand all of it to use it.

You do, however, need to have a general understanding of internet usage and preferably file management as well.

If
you actively use the internet and create and save files to your own
computer, that’s all you need to understand how to use a cloud computing
service.

If you want to store, manage or take files from the cloud, you almost always need a personal account for security reasons.

Your phone, laptop, computer, or tablet will prompt you to create one if you don't already have one.

Free accounts, which most people use, usually just require an email address and a password. Premium accounts require credit card information and charge you a recurring fee.

Examples of Popular Services that Use the Cloud

Dropbox: Dropbox is like your personal folder in the sky (or in the cloud) that can be accessed from anywhere.

Google Drive: Google Drive is just like Dropbox, but it integrates with all of your Google tools like Google Docs, Gmail and others.

Spotify:
Spotify is a free music streaming service with a subscription option so
that you can enjoy thousands upon thousands of songs as often as you
want.

Choosing the Right Cloud Storage Service

Using a cloud storage service
can make your life a lot simpler, especially if you need to access and
change files from a number of machines, such as from home or from work.

Every
cloud storage service has its advantages and disadvantages, and no
service is perfect. Most offer free accounts as a basic and beginner
option, with the opportunity to upgrade to bigger storage and bigger
file options.

And if you already have an Apple machine or a Google
account (like Gmail), then you already have a free cloud storage
account and you probably don’t even know it!

Check out our review summaries of five of the most popular cloud storage options
today. There you can see what kind of free storage you get, what kind
of pricing is offered for more features, the maximum file size you can
upload and what kind of desktop and mobile apps are offered.







What Is 'The Cloud' In Cloud Computing?