Cloud Computing

Years before when someone registered and used Hotmail i.e. in the 90’s or early 2000 – it was an email  service which was on cloud.

Cloud is nothing but a server/ application which is installed in multiple servers spread across geographically interconnected with each other – so that any one of them can serve user requests if any of the other server fails….

In addition to this – sometimes some of the servers/ application require additional processing power for rendering user requests on time. Bringing multiple physical servers together enables one application to be spread across so that additional processing capabilities which is now available in combined form can be utilized.

Now combining processing capabilities with high availability and then making it available as a subscription based service on a monthly basis enables many of the users/ companies to manage its cashflows more effectively plus it also takes away the management headache of maintaining costly servers and storage at their own datacenters/ server rooms.

Cloud now has been differentiated into multiple areas- but essentially it’s the above.

SaaS: Software as a service. This means that the required software is installed on sets of servers spread across the internet and can be accessed at a certain cost payable monthly…. For example MSOffice can be accessed at a cost of Rs. 500 – Rs.900 per month rather than having to pay lumpsum amount upfront to buy the same.

techRIDGE is into the following Cloud Services.

Exchange Online, O365, Windows Azure from Microsoft

Cloud based backup solution from Acronis, Microsoft, Dell.

O365 enables users to access office including exchange email, winword, powerpoint, excel, outlook, MS Teams, One Drive etc. as a subscription based service. Data is stored onto the cloud and can be accessed from upto 5 devices using the same licenses from anywhere in the internet.

Exchange online allows 50GB of email mailbox per user with archival, backup, antimalware protection, multiple subdomain etc.

Windows Azure is a cloud based OS platform where people can create their own virtual servers… Application servers/ database serversetc.. and pay based on the processes or resources utilized. This ensures that one does not need to go in for huge capex investment for server hardware etc…

Cloud based Disaster Recovery Solution: Many customers want to keep their primary systems within their network. I.e. their database servers or application servers to remain within the boundary of their office. But with compliance, availability of data and dependency on digitized information increasing day by day many organisations want to have a disaster recovery setup wherein if there is some disaster at the primary Datacenter or server room – the data is safe at some other location and if required it can brought online within hours. But again these customers do not want to set up their own Disaster Recovery site as creating a DR site and managing it is expensive.. Hence they prefer to have data  replicated onto some server in the cloud. Hence cloud based DR solutions are playing an important role mainly in the SMB segment.