Category Cloud Hosting Updates

Wherever you look today, you see the CLOUD. Well! It’s the CLOUD COMPUTING that I’m talking about!

Some call it Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), some Software as a Service (SaaS) and others as a Platform as a Service (PaaS). Players like IBM and Google have already positioned themselves strongly in this arena whereas others like Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay and Salesforce.com are not far behind. Everyone is not only talking about cloud but also seriously considering the option of switching to cloud-based environment. Unlimited computing power and collaboration at a massive scale makes cloud a perfect solution for enterprises of all sizes.

Since Cloud Computing is still evolving, enterprises need to understand their needs and decide whether their business can tap the benefits of cloud or not. So let’s begin with the five most important questions they need to ask about cloud when evaluating the cloud environment vs. their business goals.

Key questions before you embark on cloud computing services:

1. Are you looking for on-demand dynamic capacity? Do you need high scalability in the way you run and manage your applications? If yes, then cloud computing is right for you. By leveraging hosted private clouds, you will get more flexibility and unprecedented control in allocating resources dynamically. You can quickly respond if there is an application request for more storage in a more flexible, highly dynamic, highly virtualized environment.

2. Is your business or industry demands stringent compliance needs? Regulatory compliance is a critical issue in today’s time. Non-compliance can damage your business and harm the image of the organization. The vendor you choose to provide cloud computing services may not have appropriate support for required compliance needs. Your data, which is stored in cloud, may be compliant in one location but not in another location. This may harm your data and impact your business goals negatively.

3. What is the preferred technology and platform for your organization? Your current technology, application framework or platform used in business will decide how easier or tougher it will be for you to migrate to cloud environment. The same application framework can be utilized to access the cloud-based service of a PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) provider. Migration from your existing platform or technology to cloud environment is going to be much more difficult than you can imagine. The issue of lock-in becomes more challenging when you think about changing your cloud computing service provider. So try to see the level of interoperability your existing IT infrastructure would require to adapt to cloud environment. With hosted clouds, the IT providers can make elementary changes internally in how their IT infrastructure is deployed and run to get the benefits of cloud computing.

4. Do you have limited budget? Have you got a very tight budget and can’t spend much on building expensive IT infrastructure? Then cloud is a tailor-made choice for you. The cost of entry to hosted private cloud is low. Hosted private cloud services are priced modestly. Not just that, Cloud computing minimizes or eliminates the ongoing costs of traditional on-premises applications such as software maintenance, patching and upgrades etc.

5. Where are your end-users located? If your end-users are located in a definite location, then they can be served with a nearby data center. But if they are spread across the globe then internet would be used as a platform to deliver your applications to the end-users. And this scenario provides you more hosting options and greater advantage through cloud-based solutions. With hosted cloud, applications are always current and the end-users can get an enhanced experience.

When you are choosing an implementation path for Cloud, make sure you are considering these questions and other key aspects (like cost, time to market, performance etc.) that you will need to tackle in a cloud environment. Choose wisely! If you have decided that your business could also benefit from the promise of cloud computing, the next step is to select a service provider you can trust.

NaviSite, an established leader in cloud-enabled services, offers NaviCloud, a unique cloud-based platform that meets your enterprise-wide hosting and application management needs. NaviSite’s inexpensive cloud computing infrastructure helps start ups and established enterprises manage their IT infrastructure, leaving more funds available for a number of attractive opportunities. You can leverage NaviSite’s recognized experience and expertise in cloud-based enterprise solutions.

Source by Saumya Aggarwal

What is Cloud computing?

Cloud computing is getting extremely popular these days. Especially if you have a high traffic website / web based application and you don’t want to spend too much into hosting high end dedicated servers – cloud computing / cloud hosting is what you are looking for,.

Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. Basically a cloud is a virtualization of resources that manages and maintains itself. Broadly classified under the three categories:

1. IaaS: Infrastructure as a service.
2. PasS: Platform as a service.
3. SaaS: Software as a service.

So how does a cloud hosting differentiate with other hosting? The most important diffence is that cloud computing is sold “on demand”. This also means that there is no binding on you to buy heavy duty hosting servers and be worried about how to manage, maintain and keep on paying for the extra resources where you don’t need any. This on demand service is typically sold by hour or minute and has no load on the customer to worry about the maintenance or paying for extra space or bandwidth. Significant innovations in virtualization and distributed computing, as well as improved access to high-speed Internet and a weak economy, have accelerated interest in cloud computing.

Typically there are two types of clouds – Public and Private. A public cloud as the name says – sells services to anyone on the Internet where as a Private cloud is more like a proprietary network or a data center that caters to a limited number of people for hosting services.

Infrastructure as a Service (IasS):

A successful example of cloud computing providers would be Amazon Web services that provides virtual server instances with unique IP address and blocks of storage on demand. An Amazon web service is extremely popular and apart from Amazon there are other reliable and efficient providers such as GoGrid and Rackspace. As the service involves users to pay as they need – its often highly beneficial and can be translated to other ulitity services used such as telephone, electricity and often this model is also called as utility computing. Benefits to the clients:

1. Stop worrying about heavy traffic and bandwidth requirements.
2. Pay as you go.
3. No need to buy high configuration servers from day one.
4. Low maintenance.

Platform as a Service (PaaS):

Platform-as-a-service in the cloud is defined as a set of software and product development tools hosted on the provider’s infrastructure. Developers create applications on the provider’s platform over the Internet. PaaS providers may use APIs, website portals or gateway software installed on the customer’s computer. Force.com, (an outgrowth of Salesforce.com) and GoogleApps are examples of PaaS. Developers need to know that currently, there are not standards for interoperability or data portability in the cloud. Some providers will not allow software created by their customers to be moved off the provider’s platform.

Software as a Service (SaaS):

In the software-as-a-service cloud model, the vendor supplies the hardware infrastructure, the software product and interacts with the user through a front-end portal. SaaS is a very broad market. Services can be anything from Web-based email to inventory control and database processing. Because the service provider hosts both the application and the data, the end user is free to use the service from anywhere. There are several successful SaaS model running all over the web.

Agile Technosys: Cloud computing

Agile Technosys has indepth expertise with Cloud computing especially with models of IaaS (cloud hosting) and SaaS (Software as a Service). Agile Technosys has been vital in creating some very complex SaaS models including some very niche domain areas.

With Cloud hosting – Agile Technosys has terrific experience with Amazon and GoGrid. As a matter of fact we recommend cloud hosting to every of our customers – which helps in lowering the overall project implementation costs.

Source by Poonam Narkhede

Here is a list of the Top 5 Cloud Computing providers. The key parameters used for comparing these cloud platforms include when the platforms were introduced, support for various operating systems/languages, current adoption levels of the platforms and the overall potential of the platform. A good understanding of the key cloud computing platforms is critical to understand the current state of cloud computing and the overall direction of the industry. This in turn is very useful while making a choice for an appropriate cloud computing platform. Please read the following article Comparing SaaS, PaaS and IaaS to understand some of the terminology used in this article.

Amazon
Clearly the market leader in Cloud Computing and primarily a IaaS vendor.EC2 and S3 are the two most popular services available as part of Amazon Web Services. They also have the most wide variety of services available as part of their cloud platform.

• There are indications that Amazon may have a total of 1.8 million deployed instances and showing 10% overall growth in deployments
• Indications are they had a total revenue of 220 million USD revenue from their Cloud business
• There are around 100,000 customers using Amazon Web Services

Rackspace
Rackspace which has long been one of the largest players in the managed hosting market quickly transformed itself into a highly successful Cloud Computing provider primarily as an IaaS provider. They have two key services Cloud Servers and Cloud Files which are the equivalent of EC2 and S3 from Amazon.

• Indicating 100% growth in Cloud Revenues from 2008 to 2009
• Added around 40,000 new customers in the last 4 quarters
• Cloud Revenue has been 56 million USD in 2009

Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com was one of the earliest Cloud Computing companies to get setup with a specific focus on CRM and functioned as a SaaS company.Salesforce.com first started in 1999 and has grown significantly from its initial launch with a continuous focus on CRM. Force.com was launched in 2007 as a custom application development platform as an entry into the PaaS market but has not been able to garner a significant market due its proprietary platform. Given the specific nature of the platform Amazon and Rackspace have been ranked higher in this list even though Salesforce has a higher revenue.

• Total of 55,000 corporate customers and 1.5 million individual subscribers.
• Total revenue of $1.3 billion for 2009

Google
Google made a late entry into the Cloud Computing business with two services, Google Apps which primarily targets the SaaS space and the Google App Engine which provides a PaaS model for businesses and individuals to deploy their Web Apps. They have quickly made a mark with both the platforms and have made significant growth in the overall cloud computing market.

• Google Apps has 1 million customers and an approximate revenue of $50 million
• Google App Engine does not have any numbers publicly available, since the paid version launched a year back they may need some more time before we get a sense of the adoption.

Microsoft
Microsoft was the last major player to enter into the market and as expected launched a platform Azure based on their Windows/Azure stack. While they have continued to claim that Azure is not tied to .NET, the expectation is the platform will see most adoption from Microsoft shops with a focus on .NET and Windows based technologies and platforms.

• Indications are that around 10,000 customers have moved to Azure
• Since the launch has been less than 6 months back its a little early to track adoption.
• We rank it high due to the high potential of the platform and tight integration with Microsoft based development platforms.

Conclusion
Amazon and Rackspace continue to be the key players in Cloud Computing with a key focus on IaaS as the core service they offer. Given the core expertise of these companies it is unlikely that they will venture into other aspects of the Cloud and they are unlikely to offer SaaS or PaaS services anytime soon. It is highly likely that all growth in the IaaS segment of Cloud Computing will be distributed between these two companies. Microsoft and Google are likely to be key players in the PaaS space clearly segmented between .NET and Java applications. Salesforce on the other hand is likely to remain a player focused purely on the CRM market and primarily as a SaaS provider.

Check our Blog Technology Trendz for more details.

Source by Kaushik

Cloud infrastructure is a platform which holds the development environments and within it you would find managed hosting environment where various applications are built. Here you would find that you can use outsourced services and you do not have to buy any software or any network equipment or space in the data center. Since here the suppliers normally bill any user on the amount of resources that are consumed therefore you would also save lots of money.

There are three basic service models in which you would find the cloud infrastructure. One such model is public cloud which is normally hosted offsite. Here you would find that various applications of various customers are mixed on the same network. Thus the costs as well as the risk of the customer are reduced and it also provides flexibility to the business

Private clouds are built for the use of only one client. Thus the client has control over the quality of the service, the security of the server as well as its own data. Also these clouds can be deployed in a data center or at a colocation facility. These clouds can be built and managed by a cloud provider.

Another variety of cloud infrastructures are the hybrid clouds. These clouds are made as a blend of private as well as the public clouds. The hybrid cloud models would provide you with external provision scaling and they maintain the levels of service during extreme workloads. These are effective also when you are handling the spikes during the workload.

A benefit of cloud hosting is that no matter what is the size of your business you would always get reliable and excellent hosting solutions which would cater always to all your needs provided by cloud hosting. They are also cost efficient and hassle free too. Nowadays, you would get various companies offering cloud infrastructure for your business.

Source by dwspriya

The CEO calls the CIO into his office and says “We needed to cut the capital budget this year. As we reviewed the capital expenditures, we discovered that your group spends 80% of the capital budget. We are going to cut your capital expenditures by 50% this year. And by the way I still expect have the implementation of our new CRM system and increase our productivity through the use of technology.” CIO leaves the meeting feeling as if he has be pushed into a small corner with less budget and high expectations of delivery. However, the CIO remembers that even though the capital budget has been reduced, the operating budget has be increased by 3%. Cloud comes to mind for the CIO.
Capital Expense(CAPEX) is the money spent to buy, improve or maintain a physical asset such as equipment, real estate or infrastructure. There could be tax benefits(i.e. depreciation) to organizations by having capital expenses. Operational Expense(OPEX) is an ongoing cost for managing a product, business or system.

It is not uncommon in tough economic times for companies to search for ways to save money as well as improve efficiency. Technology has matured in a way that solutions can be implemented as services similar to the way we purchase services from utility companies.

When organizations move towards a cloud implementation, often the cloud is an operating expense. There are some exceptions where the cloud provider will host physical assets owned and licensed by the cloud consumer, in this case the cloud consumer can classify the physical assets as capital expenses. A cloud provider will remotely host the IT resources for the cloud consumer to allow the cloud consumer to take advantage of benefits of capital expenses like depreciation and tax incentives. Organizations must review their budget and accounting structure of capital expense and operating expenses when considering the cloud. Cloud computing could be beneficial to organizations that do not have the funds to purchase the physical asset up-front. By moving to a cloud solution the organization only needs the funds to cover the operating expenses. Are you ready to make these decisions?

Source by Randy Adkins Jr.

One particular accounting organization saw online in this particular cloud based application distribution service support strategies provides, and happened on us to assist solve one common problem. The situation, how that you should easily accessibility their clients QuickBooks within the frequent period of time without seeking there that you should constantly replicate and snail mail a copy of the QB data therefore to their accounts, and after that wait towards accountant that you should quickly correct or transform their courses and send the data back to function on as part of your community all over again. Moreover dilemma, many of the clients appeared seeing on the internet of cloud based reasons and wanting to know about strategies to access their QB and other applications by way of anywhere.

The perfect solution: Shift this QuickBooks software towards cloud. The advantage with this accounting organization initiating this particular allowed associated with Tech Methods for build and as well customizes an answer to safely and securely deliver QB to firm’s clients, while together granting access towards firm devoid of the should be sending records forwards along with backwards.

Now these types of firms’ clients have at any place, any time access to their QB data along with the accounting organization has access on their client’s data to assist with Payroll, correct accounting problems, tax planning, etc.

Cloud QuickBooks hosting service is that you simply don’t need to adjust in it. It provides enough flexibility to modify and confirm on strategies of working. You don’t must provide it; it accommodates you by providing you several built-in characteristics like studies, kinds, estimations, and together with invoices, these all are totally customizable to fit your individual essentials.

Your own QB method is at the moment the progressive company remedy program that will facilitates your own overwhelming activities together with your complicated corporation functions in the direction of automated together with integrated approach. The approach can achieve your activities and also the streamline your present processes to aid relieve the problem off your current shoulders and also improve normal efficiency around the company. The pervasive option of QB in small company shows the most effective way important computer system computers have become in day-to-day operations around the company. What was previously carried proposed by outdoors carrier’s methods, such mainly because bookkeepers could possibly be reasonably achieved with method applications including click all people. The several abilities together with capabilities linked to cloud QB service provider solutions swiftly equal quite significant advantages which might do a large pile to suit your needs and your business.

An increasing a number of, individuals need to get access so as to QuickBooks remotely, for numerous factors. Its possible being going generally or several employees are often times in more locations, or the accountant together with bookkeeper wants gets use of. You can most assuredly post backups to help you each more, although quite a few files are often times receiving together big using the – notwithstanding the Trouble-free Enterprise alternative. Some accountants are sure to utilize that can Accountant’s a tautology; however your own accountant together with individuals features constraints. Therefore, the concept peoples can have got numerous locations and know more about the similar data file is starting to become much more prominent. One method is usually to utilize QB cloud service provider.

Cloud hosting service appeared decades back and several companies utilize it. If you’re the accounting necessities are very important, this is a fantastic selection. As extended when you’ve obtained Net know more about, you perform in your data file and may even have a number of them. For individuals who have really utilised QB previously, this is likely to unquestionably seem to be different, however, you should understand! You will get your computer system data taken with Online QB (and likewise vice versa) and in addition infrequently just some details changes this course you make a decision, so conduct invest time for it to examine Intuit’s reviews ongoing over and create a new details backup previous to switching: QB internet hosting service. Online QB doesn’t have everything will attributes in a matter of QuickBooks Professional, nor taking into consideration several consideration balances. If you’ve attained inventory together with need job/project remaining, this option will undoubtedly not conduct.

Cloud QuickBooks hosting service solutions affords the flexibility because of the Online QB; however you will definitely get the functionality using the entire computer QB: definitely far more powerful and feature rich as opposed to Online service or product. And, with the World Wide Web model this also hosted service or product; you won’t have the upkeep of your additional computer system or maybe server, so you minimize the IT service fees. If a number of them are often

Source by Amenda Ray

When it comes to being in charge of the financial aspect of a smaller business, taking risks is one thing you’re undoubtedly wary of. That’s why it’s annoying to feel like you’re losing out on beneficial new technologies just because you’re not sure how well they’ll work for your business.

Cloud computing is currently taking the IT industry by storm. It’s most touted as the perfect solution for big businesses looking to scale and save, but that doesn’t mean it’s not perfect for smaller companies too. Cloud computing is actually fantastic for organisations of all shapes and sizes – and, by choosing a trusty, reputable provider, you shouldn’t have to worry about adopting the service if your business truly doesn’t need it; a good provider will only recommend the services your company will most benefit from.

In any case, however, it is likely that cloud will be near the top of the list. Cloud computing is so adaptable, scalable and affordable that many companies will have a use for it. Perhaps you’re an online retailer and there are distinct times of year when you get higher surges of traffic – like fancy dress costume companies at Halloween or card sellers around Christmas or Valentine’s Day. With higher traffic surges comes a stronger demand on servers, which can overload and crash if they are faced with too many requests. When crashes happen during peak periods, it can be crippling for businesses. Cloud computing can help prevent this from happening as you rent out more or less server space from your provider, depending on your requirements.

Cloud computing can also be especially useful for small businesses because it can mean that you don’t have to furnish your IT department with expensive new servers and a great deal of hardware. By hosting in the cloud, you can skip the acquisition of physical servers and save a great deal of cash. What’s more, the cloud can have your business up and running straight away, making it a convenient and quick way to operate on.

Whether you’re thinking about the public cloud – where several users share computing resources via virtualisation technology – or you’d like to keep a little more control of your IT and utilise a private cloud – where the technology is set up as your own dedicated environment behind dedicated firewalls and isn’t shared with anyone else, don’t let having a small company hold you back.

In fact, it could be the very reason that the cloud will work so well for you, so why not explore your options with this technology?

Source by Adam Singleton

Deploying Google’s Gmail for my internet marketing business has allowed minimal and secure IT administration of my 8 websites (28+ email accounts). Supporting a mixed operating environment which includes Microsoft, Ubuntu and MacOS, multiple browsers, and document file formats from Microsoft Office, Open Office is made possible and easier with an in-the-cloud computing environment like Gmail.

So why would you consider cloud computing like Google Mail for your business, especially an SME (small medium enterprise)?

In a two words – security and compliance. E-mail security, web security and message compliance are the underlying benefits to solid business reasons to have your mail and office documents served through Gmail.

Compliance to Security and Retention Requirements

Whether your organization is 1 person or thousands of people in size, you are faced with accounting, legal and government regulations and standards that dictate acceptable levels of IT security and records retention for all electronic files and e-mails. Gmail can help ensure compliancy plus provide you with real business benefits in streamlining your document and email management. Deploying Google Mail is just smart business. Some benefits include:

1) Organizing and Filing (Archiving) your email the anyway you want it.

Google uses labeling as a way to file and organize your emails. You can tag an email with multiple labels. For example, an email from your accountant with tax information could be label as “Corporate Taxes”, “Accountant”, “IRS”, “Revenue Canada”. Gone is the restriction of having to choose only one file folder to which you move an email.

2) Keeping Email conversations or threads linked together.

Appearing like cascading file folders, emails on the same topic (subject) will be kept together in your inbox or to the multiple archived labels you have assigned. No searching for the email trail or thread of emails about a particular subject. They are visually represented like a group of stacked file folders.

3) A free unlimited storage repository for all your email and messages forever!
At 7 gigabytes per gmail user account and growing as of August 2008, the Google mail tagline is ‘ you’ll never need to delete another message’.

Takin’ Care of Business, instead of computer or IT Administration

Reducing the time spent on administration of your computer storage, security, backup and recovery allows you to spend more time building your business. Manage all your email accounts entirely from within one or two Gmail addresses. Once set-up, Gmail offers this low administration environment.

4) No Mail is downloaded or stored on your server, desktop, laptop or PDA. This eliminates any stress or administration angst associated with:

– searching for emails stored and scattered across multiple client devices – some emails on your PC , some on your laptop, some on your PDA

– scheduling backups of your email, contact list and documents

– recovery (and loss) of email & documents due to client device loss, failure or theft
– expanding storage capacity due to continuing email and document growth and retention
– remote or mobile access for all your email, attachments and documents

– managing, consolidating and keeping intact multiple email addresses and personalities
– off-site backup of select files for SOHO or Small Businesses

Document creation, management and simple online collaboration

5) Use Gmail online Office Suite to create, manage, store your business documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Read and write Microsoft Office formatted documents as well as all the open document variants. Securely stored at Google, eliminate HDD file storage and backup. No more MS Office licensing fees to Microsoft.

6) Store images and pictures using Picasa Web Albums. Manage your images on your PC using FREE Picasa Software – crop, adjust, special effects.

7) online chat and messaging integrated, stored and managed just like your email.

Reducing the complex e-mail security threats to your corporate data

8) Google yet again has an very intelligent SPAM filter that checks each message content and therefore does not arbitrarily blacklist the email address, just the specific email due to content. No emails are downloaded to your PC or an office application; therefore, no waste of bandwidth or risk of infected emails on your hard drive.

9) Google’s anti-virus checking is also performed away from your computer. All attachments are checked at the Google server for viruses and, if infected, flagged/moved to SPAM right away. No infected e-mail ever arrives on your computer’s hard drive.

Traditional server or computer-based email systems download ALL your email, passing it through a spam/anti-virus filter on your computer. This is a waste of bandwidth usage (downloading spam email) and, even worse, exposes you to the additional risk of having spam and virus-infested e-mails get closer to your data files on your computer hard drives?

So why you need to seriously consider using Google Mail for all your office needs?

– Complete office mobility – via any browser, access to your email, documents, images, chat

– Access anywhere, anytime through any browser

– No backups required of email, office documents or contacts

– Manage multiple user profiles and email accounts in one convenient place

– Includes Anti-Spam and Anti-virus checking away from your PC, Laptop or Server

– Gmail Free Unlimited file space

– Next to No Mail Administration.

Gmail is the perfect Mobile Office Utility for Small Medium and Enterprise businesses. Google Mail Cloud Computing environment will allow you to focus on your business operations and growth. Implementing the Gmail in-the-cloud computing model for your email security and compliance makes a whole lot of sense.

Keep your head in the clouds!

Source by Carl Chesal

The Cloud. Originally, it was just a metaphor for the internet, the area outside of your own network. That was how it appeared on the network diagram during college (and probably still appears, if Cisco has anything to do with it.). The past few years have brought new meaning to “the cloud”. It has gone from being a way to represent unknown complexity, to the buzzword for every information/application programmer in the known world.

The promise of “The Cloud” goes something like this: You will be able to access all your information simply by using your internet connection. All the processing and “grunt work” will be done by other computers(usually servers) located elsewhere. The data will be stored there as well, along with your user privileges. You will pay, based only on the amount of data/processing time that you use.

This is great, considering the fact that you could buy a very cheap netbook, for around $300 or so, and run all the apps that you are having. It is basically a thin client/server model that banks have been using for years, extrapolated over a huge network. One of the many purported advantages is the lack of hardware obsolescence. Right now, when a game with extremely high graphical requirements shows up on the horizon, gamers have to go upgrade their graphics card/physics processor and RAM to keep up.

If the game is being run over the cloud, via a high speed internet connection, and a game server is handling processing, then there would be no need to run anything but a low power pc,(it might even be running my beloved Ubuntu, as it would be platform agnostic). The server would simply translate the game into vectors. Essentially, you would be working with an interactive video of the game, rather than playing a video game. It’s a subtle difference, but one that would forever alter the gaming landscape. For one thing, you would no longer own a physical copy of the game. Rather, you would pay for a subscription for the game, and then unsubcribe once you lost interest.

This sounds like an ideal situation, but there are some very real problems with the model. Consider the fact that your gaming subscription, is say, $9.95 a month. You beat the game in the average of 8-13 hours that it takes to play the game through. It costs you $1 or so an hour for your experience. That’s not bad, for a pretty decent game. That’s cheaper than the $45-$50 you would currently pay for a new release on the PC platform. From a cost/benefit perspective, you win, at least in this situation. Now, let’s talk about the games that people play on a regular, shall we say, compulsive basis: Titles like Call of Duty 4, Starcraft II, HALO, any of the titles that have made loads of money at $50 a pop.

In many places, you buy these for the multiplayer experience, rather than the single-player, story mode. Now, let’s revisit the $9.95 a month subscription fee. Many people play these games each and every day, over servers hosted by the game manufacturers. The costs of hosting these games is built into the purchase price of the game. Under the subscription model, you will pay $120 for this game, over the course of a year, rather than $50 for a lifetime of play. Under the subscription model, you don’t own the game.

Now, let’s imagine you really like this game. The subscribers keep falling on this particular game. In fact, subscription levels are so low, that they have decided to drop this game altogether. Your favorite game has now vanished, and you don’t have a physical copy. Now, there’s always that whole “contact the developers, and pray they let you pay for a downloadable version”, but what would you do with it. Your hardware no longer has the specs to run it. Now, you have to go buy a $2000 machine, to run a game, that by this point would be in the bargain bin at $14.95 . You have been owned, to the tune of several hundred dollars.

That’s from a gameplay perspective. What about a business perspective? To a certain extent, most of us are already “cloud” reliant. We all use webmail, and our email is stored remotely. A recent outage of Gmail in Europe showed the vulnerability of this model. You’ve got your data stored next to your competitors data, and managed by someone else entirely. You are no longer managing the security of your organization. They take no responsibility in their terms of service for downtime, or lost business. In fact, this outage was caused by a minor software upgrade, rolled out across thousands of servers, worldwide. Imagine the profits lost, and problem caused by email being out for a couple of hours. What if you are using hosted documents, or your calendar is out? Think about the mass confusion that this would create in a large organization.

What if you are a graphic designer, using Photoshop CS7 over the cloud? This is your bread and butter. During a crucial project, the servers grind to a halt. You miss your deadline. Again, it’s out of your hands, but business still needs to be done. You could run an older local version, but the file format of the new version is not backwards compatible. Oh, and you pay $65 a month for this.

Now, let’s talk about something that is even more frustrating, and glaringly obvious: Your internet access goes out. Welcome to a serious problem. Now, you have zero access to your data, apps, and the like. This is not to say that there will not be any contingencies thought up. They will just be insufficient, and inevitably fail. Even if they don’t, however, remember this: The company that you pay the subscription to has your stuff. They can now hold it for ransom, should you forget to pay.

Even worse, they are only responsible for keeping copies of your work while you are a paying customer. Yahoo already deletes the data in accounts that haven’t been accessed in more than 6 months. While it is to the company’s advantage to keep an archived copy, in case you want to resubscribe, they are not usually under obligation to do so, and can change their terms of service at any time, just by sending you an email notification. There are inevitably hiccups along the way, and while these situations are far-fetched, they have to happen to someone. Are you willing to take the risk that it will be you?

While there are plenty of advantages to the cloud model, the disadvantages need to be weighed before subscribing to any such service. In terms of privacy, ownership, and reliability, the cloud model leaves plenty to be desired. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go upgrade my video card, and pay an outrageous price for a game.

Source by Kurt Hartman

QuickBooks hosting in a cloud environment is on e of the better ways in which small and medium business can deploy the Accounting application to impart greater flexibility of accessing the application anytime anywhere and in a collaborative environment. Further the security of QuickBooks database access and assured data backup that comes with QuickBooks hosting services is another plus point of the QuickBooks cloud based access.

QuickBooks Hosting , on comparison with desktop based access, has following advantages, which stands true for any Cloud based application hosting and not just QuickBooks Cloud.

QuickBooks Cloud is scalable: As against the desktop environment where the small business has to establish the complete IT infrastructure including well configured individual systems, Database backup facilities and online monitoring tools as well as dedicated IT infrastructure management professionals in place, QuickBooks hosting allows the software to be installed on central cloud servers and accessed by individual users as a desktop interface. The advantages are:

1. System up-gradation costs: For each software up gradation systems need not be reconfigured to meet the application requirement as the actual processing is anyway done on the latest cloud servers, thus saving costs and at the same time boosting network performance.

2. Provisioning free: Since any amount of users can be added quickly for the QuickBooks cloud Hosting service, there is no need to invest in idle IT and hence capital resources are saved.

Application Access flexibility: Rather than being bound to the office premises for accessing the QuickBooks application, QuickBooks hosting enables always on access through any online connection. Thus the internet becomes the LAN and turns the setting of local network for enterprise access obsolete. For business spread geographically this also means that they do not have to buy multiple licenses.

QuickBooks hosting besides providing anytime anywhere access also enables:

1. Platform Independence: QuickBooks hosting enables the application to be accessed across many browsers and platform thus enhancing the ways in which application can be accessed.

2. No need of Local network: Since the local network becomes obsolete, the small business saves costs on not only setting up the LAN but also saves on the costs involved in maintaining the network.

QuickBooks Hosting enables better security and backup: Data security in today’s  IT scenario needs proactive security management tools and QuickBooks cloud hosting enables best online security for small business through better monitoring and data backup features.

1. Multiple data backup: most small business lacks technical expertise for proactive data backup facilities and constantly monitoring them for threats. QuickBooks host have the elaborate mechanism in place for multiple data backup geographically spread over many locations for data security.

2. Online Network monitoring: The network is most proactively monitored by the QuickBooks Cloud Host for security using latest tools which may be out of reach for small business.

Collaboration with QuickBooks Hosting Services: QuickBooks hosting in the cloud enables collaboration among different users which naturally saves a lot of time and boosts efficiency of the small business and also saves on the precious scarce human resources.

1. The collaboration in the QuickBooks cloud environment is real time wherein different users simultaneously access their designated files and work upon it.

2. Users, if permitted, can work upon the files of others and make changes so that the face to face interaction is replaced by real time online collaboration and hence saving time.

Cost saving: Ultimately it is the Cost saving nature of QuickBooks Cloud Hosting that is of utmost concern for small business. QuickBooks Hosting services leads to costs saving as many functions involved in desktop based deployment are overtaken by the QuickBooks Host. :

1. No installation and up-gradations costs involved for the small business

2. Technical support are available as part of the QuickBooks Hosing package and hence it means no additional cost for the small business.

3. Free data back up and security offered by the QuickBooks hosting service provider.

Source by David Ricklan