Cloud Power !

I am a freelancer, I work with several customers online day in and day out. I work with other freelancers to collaborate online, find new ways to achieve our goals. Share our knowledge, troubleshoot and solve problems. I still remember the day in 2003 when I first designed the webpage for the very first time using Microsoft Frontpage and Macromedia Dreamweaver (before Adobe acquired it in 2005). 

Lot of things has changed since then. Today, anyone can build a web app or design a website with little to no technical knowledge. Atleast that’s what I feel. Not sure if it’s because of my increased understanding of technologies over the years or because of the latest and newer technologies being so simple. I would think it’s the latter, I was too smart for Dreamweaver even back then!

I work as a technology consultant and I have experience designing Virtual infrastructures particularly 

VMware View, ESX infrastructure, Citrix XenApp, XenDesktop Infrastructures, assessing the existing infrastructure and providing recommendations. I work with my clients to develop technology road maps for them.

Cloud based tools that I use or used in the past – GitHub, Heroku, Google Apps, Evernote, Keen.IO, Moqups, Dropbox, OneDrive, Office 365 and ofcourse Windows Azure.

Cloud and cloud computing has been the buzz word in the technology space for quite some time. Some companies are slower to embrace while other companies do it with caution. Use it or make others use it but you can’t ignore it. I am listing out few of the advantages I see and have experienced embracing the cloud services in different levels.

Collaborate in the cloud

Cloud based applications can be used at any time anywhere on any device, this leads to greater collaboration within team, particularly for businesses with remote employees. As the future of work is getting innovative in terms of letting employees chose what device they use, companies are allowing their employees to bring their own device to connect to corporate network. 

As the gap between offline desktop applications and online web apps is getting narrower by the day. Businesses can use cloud services to access everything from simple data backups to more sophisticated 

Customer Relationship Management Systems and Logistics.

You can share documents with your team, share it without having to exchange emails with attachments. 

You can share and work on documents at the same time as others and never worry about checking out the files and uploading. Try Microsoft’s Office 365, it’s a cloud powered office. 

How has cloud helped me collaborate?

I work with my team seamlessly when I am in office or on the go. Have my team work on the same mashups or mockups at the same time without worrying about the versioning. Sharing documents and collaboration have become so easier. 

Scalable

Resources and computing capacities are dynamically scalable to the extent that businesses could scale up during peak-usage periods and scale down as required. Consider this eg., Cricket Association like BCCI(Board of Control for Cricket in India) anticipates that there is going to be a massive traffic to their Online ticketing portal for the upcoming IPL tournament. With cloud power, they can easily scale up their computing powers for this peak periods of usage and scale back down later.

How is this feature helping?

I was working with one of the gaming company, one of the challenges we faced was during the quarterly tournaments when we would need all the server muscle power. It was challenging when we had to ramp up our infrastructure, increase the server capacity, add additional RAM, processors to the servers, provision new servers in preparation for this tournament. With cloud services, it has become so much easier. With just few click of a buttons, we were able to increase the server capacity for this peak usage.

Cost-effective

As the demand for the greater corporate flexibility increases, businesses are finding innovative ways to cut costs. By enabling companies to move applications, data and infrastructure from their own premises to cloud is proven to be cost-effective and reduces capital investment significantly.

How?

For startup companies and Small and Medium size companies, it’s even more compelling proposition. Few have the IT staff to maintain expansive data centers or even small server rooms. Even if they do, they would rather focus on growing their business.

Right partner

Cloud services are multiplying. The key is finding the right partner that can help your company unlock the benefits. There lies the potential complication. As businesses embrace cloud services, they also need to understand the services offered. Not all Cloud services vendor have support for all applications and technology. One should look for a vendor who can provide all solutions and variety of solutions and flexible pricing plans. Check out Microsoft’s Azure, they are providing One-Month free trial.

If you are a startup, check out this link - http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/offers/ms-azr-0057p/ 

For other businesses, check out his link -http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/ 

I cannot stress enough on this, you wouldn’t want to juggle around to call each cloud service provider every time you have a problem. Choose the right partner and reduce complexity. 

Cloud is here to stay and yes, cloud is for everyone!

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About Ananya