The Trend of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing technology is not something new.  When you first registered your Hotmail or Gmail account many years back, it has already existed, not to mention all the social media websites like Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin, where you create and host your personal data over onto their servers.  

IBM mainframe computer

IT development trend has always been a scaling down process. For example, it started from mainframe (1950s) to minicomputers (1970s) to PCs (1980s) to laptops (1990s) and later to tablets (2010s). The path software developers underwent was also in this sequence, offering solutions first to big organizations, later to the small ones, and lastly for personal use. But for cloud computing, the sequence is the reverse, which involves a scaling up process.

There are two different modes of reception for individuals and corporations for technology and cloud computing adoption. Normally, individuals would embrace technology faster and more freely than corporations if not due to the fact that the computing power was too expensive to acquire in the past. And the size of IT devices mattered too. When Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969, the computing power they used was only as good as today’s iPhone. Who would reject an iPhone if they can afford one?

How to hit the right button for cloud services?

For the consumer market, the term cloud computing shouldn’t be of their concerns and in fact might never cross their minds. Just like how they picked up on the iCloud concept effortlessly, starting to use it as though it is second nature to them.

But when cloud-computing technology moves up to corporate level, there are processes and crucial issues for consideration. Hence the migration becomes a very tough decision, particularly when they have to deal with the idea of letting a third party vendor host their classified data.  

In short, cloud computing is a term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that is often used to represent the Internet in flowcharts and diagrams.

For Amazon Web Services and GoogleApps, they provide IaaS and PaaS with development tools respectively for developers to host their services for customers; they are not situated in the front line for direct interaction with users.

But for our TimeTec Cloud in the Software-as-a-Service cloud model, we provide the hardware infrastructure (even though it is via Amazon’s cloud computing power), the TimeTec software application and the interaction with the user through a front-end portal. Because we host both the application and the data, the end user is free to use the service from any location.

In fact, cloud computing in SaaS model is a highly integrated and sophisticated service. Yet, it has to be simple, in the perspective of users. That’s the biggest challenge, for all SaaS providers, including TimeTec Cloud.

by Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ