Try cloud computing for enhanced back-up

more data nowadays.
Imagine to wake up one day with all your computer data wiped out, what if it’s that end of year financial report, or maybe it’s the e-mail exchange server or that priceless wedding video or photo slide show. No amount of money can console you, fortunately if you still have the hard drive, maybe data recovery will help you out. The easier solution though would be to back up! Whatever it is, it’s of uttermost importance that you back up your data
In plain English data back-up is the process where one saves information on a separate device like data tapes, DVDs or external hard drives. This has proved to do the trick quite well as it gives one a fall-back should the computer crash for whatever reason.
Imagine the September 11 disaster, how about the Haiti earthquake or maybe a small fire which burns down the whole building, it’s traumatising, but after the storm settles down life and business has to go on. With this kind of back-up, unfortunately, it will just sound like no back-up at all, all your hardware and software back-ups would have burnt down to ashes but don’t despair, IT has not given up on invention
Cloud computing is what IT has always needed, it is the way to increase capacity, reliability and capabilities without the need to add more infrastructure, new staff training or licensing new software.
The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet. Basically cloud computing is using the Internet as your main engine for storage, processing and communication. To dig a little deeper, cloud computing is composed of three different service providers, namely Saas, Iaas and PaaS.
Saas stands for Software as a Service, this is where you are provided access to an Internet application via your browser without the need to manually install the software first. Imagine you have travelled out of town and you think of editing a good design plan of a house but you left your laptop. You do not need to first buy or install a programme like auto cad to use the computer. Simply go online with any computer or portable device and use Google apps which will do the trick without any installation or minimum hardware limits. You don’t even need a computer with Microsoft word to type a professional document. The cloud has better equivalent programmes.
IaaS is an acronym for Infrastructure as a Service. You might necessarily be needing to buy hardware or computer servers for your business but with this service, the provider gives you a renting like scheme where you actually pay for the service you only want to use. Just like our water bills. Assume you had 10 gig of very important data you wanted to save or send to a friend in another continent, IaaS is the solution. You only pay for what you use.
Suppose you wanted to market different farming products of all the farmers in your region and manage the actual stock of the products in real time. It will be only cheaper for you to join a popular service like Amazon then you are up for a good sale. You are using their servers for storage and their software to manage the sales.
PaaS (Platform as a Service) is more of a developer-oriented service where you are allowed to tweak pages for the interfaces you prefer. This includes creating pages using standard web technologies, logic controller to change the look and feel for your interface or change how your clients login. If you are the client this gives you a more compatible platform for your software without the need to download plug-ins or enhancements as the platform is already made for you.
Although Iaas and PaaS are still in their infancy, full-blown applications like Google Apps, have been leading the market for years especially popular applications like Google chrome, Gmail, or instant messages.
For back-up online storage, companies like IDrive, laCie and Salesforce are leading the market. IDrive is actually giving out for free the first 5 gig of storage. They will only charge you for the extra capacity henceforth. Utility applications are also offered such as email Spam filtering and virus scans. Issues of data confidentiality, security and privacy will obviously be raised but most of these cloud companies offer enhanced data security with 128-bit SSL encryption on transfers, 256-bit AES encryption on storage with a user defined key that is not stored anywhere on their servers. Simply put, this is good enough security.
Personally I do not like Outlook emails. The idea of being forced hook up to a wire whenever I need to read e-mails is too rigid, that’s why I migrated and mapped all my outlook e-mails, and yes you can receive your Outlook message on Gmail, Yahoo or Imapped mail service providers.
In a good move to catch up with the clouding world, Microsoft launched its own much-awaited Office 365, on June 21. Microsoft Office 2010, a predecessor to Office 365 had failed to make enough impact on the market although the package was well packed, but pricey.
Office 365 full version is now the next version of BPOS, Business Productivity Online Suite. It runs exchange online and share point online based on the Office 2007 version. It also ships in with Lync online, which is an upgrade to office online and also supports voice communication. Office 365 offers the option to access word or excel among others through office web apps. The online version of Office or the full version can be delivered via subscription. Office 365 comes in different configurations options, starting from email only which costs US$2 per month to the most sophisticated option which supports voice communication via the Lync server for up to US$27.
According to IDG news, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said Office 365 is designed for business of all sizes and more than 200 000 small to medium companies have tried the beta test version from both PC and mobile browsers, complementing the need for mobility.
So with the beauty of cloud computing, this simply means you won’t need to go and buy the whole new Microsoft package when you only want to use excel. All you will simply need to do is go online, and for just US$2 you can now run the new application online.
No doubt, Office 365 is a responsive application of cloud-based enterprise collaboration from giants and niche vendors like Google, Cisco, IBM, Vmware. Google Apps has been leading the world of online apps and Microsoft is simply validating the application Google actually pioneered.
Microsoft has offered 99,9 percent uptime service level agreement that means it should be able to offer Internet access 24/7 to its application. Unfortunately Office 365 is not compatible with the older version of Office 2007 Service Pack 2 and below, including Office 2003 and 2000 so Microsoft again will force its clients to upgrade.
l Toneo Ndebele Rutsito is a compTia hardware, cisco certified network engineer and linux administrator
Email:[email protected]/ [email protected]