Cloud computing: data and applications in the fog

2010/01/01 Leturia Azkarate, Igor - Informatikaria eta ikertzaileaElhuyar Hizkuntza eta Teknologia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Internet
• Softwarea

(Photo: ©iStockphoto.com/Andy Lin)

The modern Internet browsers, using techniques such as AJAX and CSS, offer the possibility of building websites with a high degree of interaction and the Internet connections are getting faster, so the cloud computing is increasingly used: the execution and storage of applications and data in the fog, the Internet network.

Working this way has several advantages: working with the same data from different places (from work and from home, for example), sharing documents with others, saving on software... But also disadvantages: privacy (many companies, for example, do not like your data, those that can be confidential, make them available to other people), slowness with respect to your computer, the inability to work when there are connection problems, the lowest availability of applications, etc. Some services are totally free, others are paid and others limited in free version but can be improved with payment. Cloud computing is also a reality with its good things and problems.

Multiple uses

The best known example of cloud computing is email. In fact, there are many people who use web mail services like Hotmail or Gmail. In them the messages are not in our hard disk, but in the servers of the provider, and the application of management and sending of messages is nothing that we have to install in our computer, but the HTML code and Javascript of the provider that runs in the browser.

Another common use is storage. There are several services on the web that allow us to store our data and documents like Dropbox, Filebox or Skydrive. In addition to offering the possibility to share documents among several people, we can usually synchronize these virtual warehouses with the hard disk of our computer, which allows to work from different places or computers.

Another type of conventional cloud computing is that of office. There are numerous websites to store, edit and share our documents, spreadsheets or presentations. When editing, they may not have as many options as applications that are installed on the computer, but they are enough and too many for many cases. Perhaps the best known of these services is Google Docs, but there are many others: Zoho, ThinkFree, etc.

In addition to those already mentioned, there are other types of services: storage and editing of images, backups of our online data, appointments, tasks and contacts, etc. It can be said that we have web versions of almost any application. In fact, there are services that allow to replace an entire computer --operating system, hard disk and applications-- online, for example eye-OS.

A future trend?

In view of the latest technological trends, it is expected that in the coming years the use of cloud computing will increase. For example, smaller computers called netbook are increasingly being viewed. Its hard drives and capacity are not large, but they are perfectly prepared for connectivity, that is, for use on the Internet. Therefore, they are ideal for the use of online applications.

On the other hand, Google is making a clear commitment to cloud computing, since, as is normal, it has many services of this type (Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Wave...). In this context, one must understand the movements he has made lately. For example, it has released the Google Chrome Internet browser, which makes loading pages faster and running the Javascript code to better run the fog applications. And recently presented the Google Chrome OS operating system: It is an operating system based on Linux, whose only application is the Google Chrome browser. Soon they want to put on sale the computers that incorporate this operating system, with which only fog services can be used.

Cloud computing will surely never totally replace conventional desktop applications and operating systems, but it seems its use will increase. In the coming years we will see coexisting traditional computing with the cloud, and in each case we will use one or the other.