Over a year and a half ago, an article in Forbes proclaimed that cloud computing would lead to the Death of Hardware for many companies.
The next revolution in high tech is taking place inside the “cloud” of the Internet. Small outfits looking to do lots of computing in a hurry are not buying hardware anymore; they’re renting from established players that already operate vast networks of cheap computers. Time-sharing, a concept from the dawn of the computing age, is back with a vengeance.
Although this article is more than a year old, it’s interesting to see how things have changed and yet some things haven’t changed. Technology like this doesn’t evolve overnight and can take years to be fully developed, accepted, and adopted. What the article does a really good job of pointing out is that this isn’t a fluke when you have so many major Technology players investing tons of dollars into creating gigantic server farmers with much more computational power than even the largest technology companies need. Because this article is older it doesn’t mention all the new players that have jumped into the field since then, but it does give a lot of credit to Amazon and even Microsoft. Just to give you an idea of how quickly technology decisions are made, the article states that Google “has shown no interest in leasing out its vast infrastructure.” As we know now that is not how things have played out, as Google has jumped in as a major player in this market.
Once again the cost benefits are simply mind-blowing and with new big players jumping into this model almost monthly it’s just another assurance that cloud computing is the future.
There are multiple ways that you can jump into the clouds today and enjoy the cost savings. Most of you are already using cloud services and don’t even realize it. If you have an email account through Gmail or Yahoo you are technically leveraging the cloud. Same if you save and store photographs on Flickr or Shutterfly. And what about video websites like YouTube? This is considered cloud technology as well. A virtual tour is no different then any of these other services.
So how imminent of a death are you making your hardware? Living in the clouds definitely has a lot of advantages. Slow moving non-critical services is a great start and allows for great savings and it frees up time for your system administrators for what is critical. It is only a matter of time before the cloud is secure and stable enough to handle everything. Death to Hardware!
Photo: innovation by stanescoo