Introducing the Cloud
‘The Cloud’ is a term many people use often, but not very many of them understand
what it refers to.
Documents are often said to be in the Cloud, as are pictures, songs and any other
type of data file. In addition, things are said to be stored in the Cloud, and certain
software and hardware uses ‘Cloud-acceleration’. However, talking like this only
strengthens the idea that the Cloud is some mysterious piece of technology. It also
gives people the impression that the Cloud is somehow ‘up there’, and is not a
physical thing.
This is not the case.
The Cloud is a term used for any kind of off-site processing or storage. Basically, large
companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook own huge server farms in
remote places. These server farms are massive, and incredibly advanced: servers are
basically really powerful computers that form the building blocks of what we call the
internet.
Let’s look at an example; the Amazon server farms are in:
•
Northern Virginia
•
Northern California
•
Oregon
•
São Paulo
•
Ireland
•
Germany
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Singapore
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Tokyo
•
Seoul
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Beijing
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Sydney
Each of these server farms is massive (the size of several footballs fields), containing
incredible amounts of processing power. This is where information is stored when we
say it’s ‘in the Cloud’. The same applies to the huge server farms owned by other
major technology companies.
©2016 Citizens Advice
DMC Etude1/Jan17/v1
Using the Cloud is essential when someone uses the internet. The Cloud allows
people to upload and download data that their hardware simply would not be able to
handle otherwise. Tablets and smartphones only have relatively small storage; the
only way we can use them to capture so many images and videos is by backing
everything up on the Cloud, which is another way of saying we back-up our data on
these physical server farms that are often thousands of miles away.
Cloud-storage
This is when we store data on these remote server farms.
Cloud-hosted
This is when a website or program uses one of these server farms to provide their
processing power. Lots of websites and programs use this, because it means a small
company can start up and rent processing power from the Cloud instead of having to
spend millions on their own servers.
Cloud-accelerated
This is when a program uses the Cloud, which remember is just another word for
hardware that is far away, to help it run faster and better. For example, if you are
using a tablet like a Kindle Fire, the browser is cloud-accelerated. You can search for
something, and this request is actually sent to the ‘Cloud’. The searching and
processing is done here, and then beamed back to the tablet. In this way, the tablet
serves as just a screen for the processing that is actually being done in the Cloud. This
sounds great, but means that without internet access some programs that don’t seem
to need the internet still run extremely slowly.
Security
Using the Cloud means that your data is stored externally by a third party. This
includes every website you visit, every picture you post, and every internet search you
input. Nothing, literally nothing, you can do can delete this information.
This is how the police are able to access people’s mobile phone and internet data for
use in any court action, as this data is stored externally whether or not people delete
it or even destroy the device it was linked to.
©2016 Citizens Advice
DMC Etude1/Oct16/v1