Mexico. Westcon-Comstor's business unit and one of the leading Cisco technology wholesalers, explains how Cloud Computing affects people and organizations.
The benefits of digital transformation for companies, represented by Cloud Computing are undeniable. These include the possibility of greater competitiveness, increased productivity, greater agility in processes, account growth and operational efficiency.
The concept of Cloud works mainly on computing techniques that depend on resources shared by the Internet. For this reason, resources are necessarily entered remotely into hosting premises by a large audience among officials, suppliers and many other users who receive permission to enter the applications and software, which they need for their activities. It is evident, therefore, a great interaction between computers, the Internet and the use of Cloud Computing in situations in which many times the individuals themselves do not perform them consciously.
A good example of this is the use of e-mail services, such as Google's Gmail, which allows an organization and online access, without specific software that overloads the physical device. Not to mention cloud storage services with their countless providers, such as OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox, among others.
A very interesting way for both programmers and developers is the use of GitHub, a programming platform that allows each programmer to individually save their online codes in a dedicated workspace. This resource also facilitates team programming, once several programmers who act together in the same project can save versions of their works, which are entered by other authorized users, without causing disruption to the developers or stopping the work in progress.
For organizations, Cloud Computing meant a big move by allowing some challenges, especially in terms of the physical infrastructure of the teams, which were faced in a staggered manner, attending to their seasonal or growth needs. This was because, in the traditional model, the company made the purchase of software to be used both in the operations of the company and also by the team. It was also the responsibility of the organization to purchase equipment, servers, etc., so that all the functionalities of the applications work correctly. In many cases, only robust and expensive equipment managed to run these applications, limiting the flexibility of the software.
The impact of this for the company was a considerable effort to solve technical problems, with the hiring of specialized personnel for such tasks. Meanwhile, Cloud Computing uses a different approach. By using Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) models, which are core cloud computing technologies, today it is possible for companies to contract that service, act without the need to acquire and periodically renew the licenses of use for programs or invest a large part of the budget in computational and maintenance resources. With the Cloud, everything is under the responsibility of the Cloud service provider, which must guarantee its operation 24 hours a day and with one more advantage: the company only pays for the resources used.
The relationship with work was also modified and mobility for employees is a key word. Through authorization, the organization is able to enter the necessary software in its day-to-day management and teamwork, in addition to the applications available to meet its needs. In this case, the teams need to have an Internet connection and a computer or device to enter those environments and do their job.
The impact of the Cloud on the day to day of organizations also affects their culture, especially work processes. In this new system, the responsibility of individuals increases, since Cloud Computing allows remote work, establishing new relationships. On the other hand, a disadvantage of the model should be mentioned: it eliminates labor, which would be necessary to keep the software and hardware running correctly.
Last but not least, there is a question of digital security permeating all those interactions. Specialists say that the security of Cloud Computing depends a lot on the security of the cloud server. In this way, it is necessary to be attentive to the security levels implemented by the server of the providers of these services. Those that use high-tech cryptography algorithm in Cloud Computing are referred to as the most secure. The storage of sensitive data and information should be entrusted to cloud storage servers that are considered secure.
