The Cloud. An interesting feature that has snuck into our daily lives- and I’m not referring to those fluffy white things in the sky. The Cloud, as defined by cloudfare, is a system “made up of servers in data centers all over the world” as it saves money for thousands of people and adds convenience for others. But what does that mean for people who use the internet regularly? Let’s take a look at a few instances where the Cloud is used, or what is known as “Cloud Computing” by DigitalCloud.
- File Storage
- Not to be confused with more “basic” storage systems like hard drives, external drives or USB drives. File Storages allows you to access and edit your files with ease just as long as you have an internet connection; some examples of these storages include Amazon S3, DropBox, and OneDrive. Unfortunately as previously mentioned, they will only work under an internet connection, so you may have to improvise with the classics in case you’re in a situation where the internet will not be available for an extensive period of time. Personally I haven’t used most of these services aside from OneDrive, but with the fact some of them can be easily linked to different emails or other services helps me find them in case I lose track of a file on my computer.
- Disaster Recovery
- Everyone’s going to want a form of “failsafe” for their data if something uncontrollably bad were to happen to it. Unfortunately, some systems might not always provide the security needed to save anything that could be lost to a failed save, file corruption, or even theft. DigitalCloud mentions that after seeing some research, at least 75% of businesses that don’t have a Disaster Recovery system or strategy in place end up failing within 3 years of said disaster. But with Cloud Computing, the difficulty in building your own Disaster Recovery system can be significantly reduced. By using a Disaster Recovery system, you can replicate your site with its data and save it for any “unsuspecting” disaster. I have never experienced the scenario of building and need a Disaster Recovery system, but I have seen those face the consequences of not having one ready. (This also reminded me that USBs exist and how to clean them.)
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