Hello, and welcome. In this video, I'll be
talking about the cloud, and cloud storage. So
what is the cloud? We use that buzz word
a lot in IT, we hear a lot, whether it's
commercials for an iPhone, or Microsoft talking about their latest operating system. We
tend to hear this term, the cloud, all
over.
It becomes really mainstream, even people who don't really know what the cloud
means, and abusing the cloud. So the cloud just refers to remote servers that are
off site, and the software and services
that run on them. That's all it is, just as
simple as that.
So communication with these remote
servers and services is performed over
the internet, so since they're remote and
off site, of course the only way to
access those is, over the internet. So the
term, the cloud, has become an
increasingly popular buzzword in the
technology industry, along with cloud
storage and cloud processing. Many
applications that we utilize are labeled
as cloud-based, or they say they're
running in the cloud, or they're cloud
powered. Essentially, all of those
buzzwords, mean that those applications
are, in some way or another,
communicating with, or relying on, the
work of remote servers, via the cloud. So
why use the cloud? Well, one of the big
reasons is, that by leveraging servers
that are off site, applications are able
to perform more advanced tasks, and more
intensive tasks than could just be
performed on our own devices. So with
cell phones, accessing the internet more and more all the time, tablets, and smart watches, and even PC's,
the power of what can be done on a
server, is significantly increased over
what can be performed on a lot of these
handheld devices. So by taking advantage
of the cloud, we're able to kinda leverage
some of that
power that's stored off-site. So of course, the big catch with this, with the cloud in
general, and any of this cloud
functionality, is the fact that the
clouds require the internet,
without the internet, the cloud is
essentially useless to us. So speaking
specifically now to cloud storage, cloud
storage is a service model where data is
stored and maintained in the cloud. So
just as the cloud requires the Internet,
cloud storage also requires the internet,
since the data is being stored remotely.
So cloud storage is extremely popular,
I'm guessing that each of you have
probably, in one way or another, utilized
cloud storage whether you've realized it or not. There are hundreds of cloud storage
providers, some really popular ones are
Dropbox, One Drive, and Google Drive. There are a
lot of other services, as well, take
advantage of cloud storage. In addition
to these applications that are really
dedicated to cloud storage, that that's
what they're labeled as, as this is a cloud
storage application, there are a lot of
applications that aren't labeled as cloud
storage applications, but they're enhanced
by cloud storage. So I've listed some examples here, so one of those is, if you play on an
Xbox, for example. Xbox automatically
stores your game progress in the cloud,
so if you're on the latest Xbox
console, the Xbox One, you don't even get
prompted, you don't get asked, it just
automatically does it in the background.
So it takes your save progress, your
game progress, if I complete the
first level of a video game, on the Xbox
One, I can go over to a friend's house I
can log in on my friend's Xbox, and my
save data will automatically be synced using
cloud enhanced functionality.
Another one, Evernote, is a very popular
application for keeping track of notes,
Evernote stores your notes in the cloud.
Microsoft Office, built right into to
Word, Excel, etc.
Microsoft Office supports saving your
documents directly to the cloud. And
another really popular one, of course, is
Apple's iCloud service, which keeps
Apple's devices in sync, utilizing the
cloud, so if you have an iPhone, it'll sync
up with your iPad, which will sync with your MacBook,
et cetera, et cetera. So they were really
good infrastructure there as well.
