The Sunday News
Sithabile Gandi Ndlovu
THERE is a variety of emerging technologies that are present in today’s world offering a world of opportunities and advantages that make running a business today a little less stressful. Technology has truly transformed the way many businesses are run and definitely for the better, although there are many misconceptions that have been derived from emerging technologies such as customers finding it impersonal when technology is meant left to handle customer service related situations.
Today I will discuss two types of emerging technologies that most of us are already familiar with namely Cloud Computing and Instant Messaging.
Cloud computing often referred to as “the cloud” is the delivery of on demand computing resources such as applications all the way down to data centres over the internet, usually on a pay as you go scheme. Cloud computing is a service that is readily available and users have a variety of packages, options and prices to choose from allowing them to enjoy the benefit of varying options, collaboration, better access to analysis material, increased productivity and reduction of costs.
The 21st century is commonly labelled as a thrilling time characterised by exceptional technological and knowledge advancement. Cloud computing facilitates in organisations online and mobile collaboration. This is done through storage of shared, documents and files, access to a range of online application tools. There has been a growth in companies and these have become separated both geographically as well as culturally. Multinational companies such as FedEx Express, Coco-Cola and McDonalds are all examples of companies that are American co-operations but have operations in more than one country. Such companies generate enormous amounts of data that is then transformed to information for both analytical and operational purposes. Cloud computing provides a world of opportunities for such companies, they benefit from the remote maintaining, management and backing of data, which gives users the flexibility to store and access files online unconventionally from any location in the world with the use of the internet. There are three main types of cloud services that organisations use to improve their operations namely IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. The services are used in the following manner in organisations:
– IaaS, Infrastructure as a Service, by definition is the provision of virtualised computing resources over the internet. With this service organisations do not incur costs for infrastructural components such as servers and networking hardware. The organisation simply leases infrastructure from a third party such as Amazon Web Services that offers services such as Simple Storage Services. It deals with virtual machines and used mainly in organisations with a large number of users (that are usually into research).
– SaaS, Software as a Service, this is favoured among organisations, it allows them to pay for the service as they go. A lot of research and planning is usually done prior to the implementation of SaaS. It is an alternative way that can be used by organisations to access software as compared to traditional methods that involved purchasing software outright and loading it onto a particular device. This is a favoured method among many organisations as costs are significantly cut.
– PaaS, Platform as a Service is a service that allows programming languages, frameworks, libraries, services and tools to be managed and delivered by the cloud. PaaS is also responsible for the creation and displaying of applications. Infrastructure including network servers, operating systems and storage are also managed and controlled. The organisations has control over deployed applications and configurations settings.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (Nist), came up with the definition “cloud computing is a model for enabling on-demand, access to a pool of shared resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Nist also came up with some essential characteristics that must be considered to render a service cloud computing such as, on demand self-service, the ability for end users to sign up and receive services promptly, broad network access of services via all standard platforms such as laptops, mobile devices, and desktops. In addition to that resources must be pooled across multiple customers, service must be capable to cope with peaks in demand and delivered as a utility service.
There are a number of advantages for organisations that are associated with the use of cloud computing such as:
– Increase in mobility. Documents, files and applications can be accessed from any place on any device this means faster exchange of information and employees also enjoy the convenience and flexibility of working outside the office, and on the same document with core workers regardless of their geographic location.
– There is also no need to worry about storage space, which is a big concern not only for big organisations that handle large amounts of data, but also to the everyday Jack and Jill it gives us piece of mind too.
– There are no hardware costs as processing power is supplied by the service providers, no initial set up costs, also quick to deploy and you pay only for the services you want to use, which is great when you only need a service for a short period of time. Updates are usually free and automatic and the usage is very flexible, additional storage and services can be requested and the discretion of the user. Cloud computing is also compatible with multiple devices and can be customised to fit the specific needs of the organisation.
Numerous organisations have decided to go the cloud computing route and more triumph year after year post this transition. Industry leaders have proven that the cloud can spur innovation, expand business information. Two companies that have taken cloud computing by storm and shown the endless possibilities it has to offer and how businesses can use the cloud as an opportunity to increase revenue include Netflix and Xerox. Netflix is the top movie and series streaming platform, on average on a week night Netflix accounts occupy over a third of all internet traffic in North America. Xerox offers a cloud printing solution that allows users to access printers from anywhere.
Common cloud computing services include iCloud from Apple, that allows users to store music, documents, photos and other files via Wi-Fi and these can then be accessed from any device. iCloud data can also be synced with your google account. Microsoft is the leading global provider of cloud computing services for businesses of all sizes. Microsoft, Amazon and IBM are among the top three vendors.
To be continued . . .
