The Cloud and I

Welcome back as we tumble into instalment part trois. This time, we explore the storage phenomenon that is ‘Cloud technology’ – no, not the tiny pieces of dust that float in the air when vapour condenses!

The verbatim description of this storage revelation is as follows; ‘Cloud storage is a cloud computing model in which data is stored on remote servers accessed from the internet, or “cloud.” It is maintained, operated and managed by a cloud storage service provider on storage servers that are built on virtualisation techniques.’

Why should we all have an understanding of Cloud?

It’s worth noting that there are two main commercial providers of this service/platform that Kainos subscribe to; namely Microsoft Azure and AWS (Amazon). There are also two ways in which Cloud can be used; Public and Private, our preferred approach being Public. The main differentiator between public and private clouds is that you aren’t responsible for any of the management of a public cloud hosting solution. The data is stored in the provider’s data centre and the provider is responsible for the management and maintenance of the data centre.

So why Cloud?

As a result of the large-scale projects we undertake as a consultancy, there are huge amounts of data being transferred between storage servers. ‘The cloud’ makes these projects more efficient without worrying about installing huge physical storage systems for each job and/or location.

As with ‘conventional’ storage methods this data is still encrypted and secure – despite initial reservations from parts of the industry. The old guard are slowly moving towards the cloud as a natural progression, understandably for larger players who have a global presence this will take more time to transfer across too, however it is plain to see this is inevitable for all as we move into tomorrow’s world.

Surely it’s not all positive?

This all sounds great and a ‘no brainer’ for businesses to adopt, No? Well it is mainly positive with the only main con being possible downtime. Cloud computing makes your business dependent on the reliability of your Internet connection. When it’s offline, you’re offline. If your internet service suffers from frequent outages or slow speeds, cloud computing may not be suitable for your business – less of an issue for medium to larger companies.

Kainos have always been and will remain early adopters of ‘new tech’, this approach not only sets us apart for the competitors but offers the most efficient solution for the most important group – our customers.

I hope this has given a simplistic explanation of the cloud, plus the how and why companies like Kainos can use this every day as a preferred method of storage.

Want more? Some of our engineers have written about Cloud and different elements of it in more depth. Check out a couple of my favourites.

• Migrating to the Cloud part 1 and part 2 
• Managing the Cloud 

You’ve read about the basic elements you need to succeed in digital services projects, next we delve deeper into what happens when these are built and up and running. Join me next time for an insight into digital transformation projects and the scalability of these……until then stay safe!