What is the cloud? Where is the cloud? Are we in the cloud right now? These are all questions you've probably heard or even asked yourself. The term "cloud computing" is everywhere.

In the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the internet instead of your computer's hard drive. (The PCMag Encyclopedia defines it succinctly as "hardware and software services from a provider on the internet.")

Ultimately, the "cloud" is just a metaphor for the internet. It goes back to the days of flowcharts and presentations that would represent the gigantic server-farm infrastructure of the internet as nothing but apuffy cloud, accepting connections and doling out information as it floats.

What cloud computing is not about is your hard drive. When you store data on or run programs from the hard drive, that's called local storage and computing. Everything you need is physically close to you, which means accessing your data is fast and easy, for that one computer, or others on the local network. Working off your hard drive is how the computer industry functioned for decades; some would argue it's still superior to cloud computing, for reasons I'll explain shortly.

The cloud is also not about having dedicatednetwork attached storage (NAS) device in your house. Storing data on a home or office network does not count as utilizing the cloud. (However, some NAS devices will let you remotely access things over the internet, and there'sat least one brand from Western Digital named "My Cloud,"just to keep things confusing.)

For it to be considered "cloud computing," you need to access your data or your programs over the internet, or at the very least, have that data synced with other information over the web. In a big business, you may know all there is to know about what's on the other side of the connection; as an individual user, you may never have any idea what kind of massive data processing is happening on the other end in a data center that uses more power in a day than your whole town does in a year. The end result is the same: with an online connection, cloud computing can be done anywhere, anytime.

Let's be clear here. I'm talking about cloud computing as it impacts individual consumersthose of us who sit back at home or in small-to-medium offices and use the internet on a regular basis.

There is an entirely different "cloud" when it comes to business. Some businesses choose to implementSoftware-as-a-Service(SaaS), where the business subscribes to an application it accesses over the internet. (ThinkSalesforce.com.) There's also Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), where a business can create its own custom applications for use by all in the company. And don't forget the mightyInfrastructure-as-a-Service(IaaS), where players like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Rackspace provide a backbone that can be "rented out" by other companies. (For example, Netflix is a customer of the cloud services atAmazon.)

Of course, cloud computing is big business. Our partners at Statista created this chart in February 2020 showing Amazon's dominance in the $100 billion a year business. That, of course, was a month before the COVID-19 coronavirus shut down a lot of businesseswhich then transferred their cloud computing to the home, seamlessly for the most part.

But that's in the US and thus represents only a slice of the cloud pie. If you take the worldwide use into account, the market is worth far more. It was $272 billion in 2018, and expected to be worth $623.3 billion by 2023, according to Markets and Markets.

When it comes to home use, the lines between local computing and cloud computing sometimes get blurry. That's because the cloud is part of almost everything on our computers these days. You can easily have a local piece of software (for instance,Microsoft Office) that utilizes a form of cloud computing for storage (Microsoft OneDrive). Microsoft also offers a set of web-based apps,Office (aka Office for the Web), that are web-only versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote accessed via your web browser without installing anything. That makes them a version of cloud computing (web-based=cloud).

Some other major examples of cloud computing you're probably using:

Google Drive: This is a pure cloud computing service, with all the storage found online so it can work with the cloud productivity apps: Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Google Drive is also available on more than just desktop computers; you can use it on tablets like the iPador on smartphones, which have separate apps for Docs and Sheets, as well. In fact, most Google services could be considered cloud computing: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, and so on.

Apple iCloud: Apple's cloud service is primarily used for online storage, backup, and synchronization of your mail, contacts, calendar, and more. All the data you need is available to you on your iOS, iPadOS, macOS, or Windows devices (Windows users have toinstallthe iCloud control panel). Naturally, Apple won't be outdone by rivals: it offers cloud-based versions of its word processor (Pages), spreadsheet (Numbers), and presentations (Keynote) for use by any iCloud subscriber. iCloud is also the place iPhone users go to utilize the Find My iPhone feature when the handset goes missing.

Dropbox: This service has been a simple, reliable file-sync and storage service for years, but is now enhanced with lots of collaboration features (which will cost you and your business, as the free version has gotten a bit skimpy).

Slack: Yes, it's considered cloud computing if you have a community of people with separate devices that need instant messaging/communication. The poster child for that is Slack, but you get the same from Microsoft Teams, Workplace by Facebook, and more. Read about them in 17 Alternatives to Slack.

The aforementioned file-synchronization/backup service, and others like Box, IDrive, and SugarSyncall work in the cloud because they store a synced version of your files online, but they also sync those files with local storage. Synchronization is a cornerstone of the cloud computing experience, even if you do access the file locally. For more, check out our roundup of theThe Best Cloud Storage and File-Syncing Services for 2020.

The primo example of a device that is completely cloud-centric is theChromebook. These laptops have just enough local storage and power to run Chrome OS, which essentially turns theGoogle Chrome web browser into an operating system. With a Chromebook, almost everything you do is online: apps, media, and storage are all in the cloud. Because of that, they tend to be inexpensive and that's made them incredibly popular for education. The latest, made since 2017, will even run Android apps.

You can even try a ChromeBit, a smaller-than-a-candy-bar drive that turns any display with an HDMI port into a usable computer running Chrome OS. Asus still sells one.

What happens if you're somewhere without an internet connection and you need to access your data? This is one of the biggest complaints about Chrome OS, although its offline functionality has improved.

The Chromebook isn't the first product to try this approach. So-called "dumb terminals" that lack local storage and connect to a local server or mainframe go back decades. The first internet-only product attempts included the oldNIC (New internet Computer), theNetpliance iOpener, and the disastrous3Com Ergo Audrey. You could argue they all debuted well before their timedial-up speeds of the 1990s had training wheels compared to the accelerated broadband internet connections of today.

That's why many would argue that cloud computing works at all: the connection to the internet is as fast as the connection to the hard drive. At least it is for some of us.

In a 2013 edition of his feature What if?, xkcd-cartoonist (and former NASA roboticist) Randall Monroe tried to answer the question of "Whenif everwill the bandwidth of the internet surpass that of FedEx?" The question was posed because no matter how great your broadband connection, it's still cheaper to send a package of hundreds of gigabytes of data via FedEx's "sneakernet" of planes and trucks than it is to try and send it over the internet. (The answer, Monroe concluded, is the year 2040.)

Cory Doctorow at boingboing took Monroe's answer as "an implicit critique of cloud computing." To him, the speed and cost of local storage easily outstrips using a wide-area network connection controlled by a telecom company (your ISP).

That's the rub. The ISPs, telcos, and media companies control your access. Putting all your faith in the cloud means you're also putting all your faith in continued, unfettered access. You might get it, but it'll cost you. The more bandwidth you use, the more it costs.Maybe you trust those corporations. That's fine, but there are plenty of other arguments against going into the cloud whole hog. Consider the potential for crashes. When there are problems at a company like Amazon, which provides cloud infrastructure to big name companies like Netflix and Pinterest, it can take out all those services. And more. When Amazon's S3 service got mis-configured in 2017, it took out a hefty chunk of the entire internet across the board. The problems typically last for only hours, but that's not much consolation at the time.

To be honest, it doesn't matter. Cloud computing may be a little bit like the Wild West, where the rules are made up as you go, and you hope for the best, but it's here to stay. The money made by the cloud is immense, the ease of use speaks for itself.

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What Is Cloud Computing? | PCMag

In many situations, using cloud computing and edge computing at the same time can lead to the best overall outcome from a performance perspective.

Discussions about the relationship between cloud computing and edge computing have a tendency to present the cloud and edge as opposite types of architectures and to treat them as an either/or proposition.

This isnt the best way to think about cloudand edge. Although there are key differences between cloud and edge computing,the cloud and the edge dont compete with each other as much as they complementeach other.

The differences between cloud computing andedge computing boil down largely to where workloads are hosted.

In a conventional cloud, data and applicationsare housed in large data centers located within a public cloud vendorsnetwork.

In an edge architecture, workloads are hostedin a location that is closer from the perspective of the network toend-users than is a traditional data center.

Its worth noting that the definition of edgecan get a little messy because there are many possible ways to build an edgearchitecture. Sometimes, an edge environment runs directly on end-user devices.In others, it looks more like a traditional data center populated byconventional servers, which happen to be closer to end-users than traditionalcloud data centers.

Cloud computing tends to be morestraightforward from an architectural perspective. Although there can be somevariation in which cloud regions and zones teams use to host workloads, allpublic cloud environments rely on conventional data centers that arecomparatively distant again, in networking terms from end-users.

Although cloud and edge computing arefundamentally different types of architectures, cloud vs. edge is notnecessarily the best way to think about them.

In many cases, it makes sense to use bothcloud and edge at the same time. Cloud data centers can host workloads thatdont require the minimal latency and high reliability of those hosted on theedge, while edge infrastructure handles those that do.

By pairing cloud and edge together, organizations can leverage the scalability and ease of deployment of cloud environments while still achieving high-performance goals that cloud data centers cant always support due to network latency issues.

This isnt to say that you always have to usecloud and edge at the same time. Its entirely possible to host applications ordata in the cloud without also running an edge environment. Its also possible although less common to use edge without using a public cloud.

But in general, using cloud computing and edge computing at the same time can lead to the best overall outcome from a performance perspective. The only big downside is that it can be harder to manage a cloud environment and an edge environment at the same time, although platforms like Kubernetes simplify this by making it easy to deploy applications to both types of environments from a central management plane.

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How Cloud Computing and Edge Computing Fit Together - RTInsights

GlobalData research has found the top influencers in cloud computing based on their performance and engagement online.

Using research from GlobalDatas Influencer platform, Verdict has named ten of the most influential people and companies in cloud computing on Twitter during Q1 2021.

Ratan Jyoti is the chief information security officer (CISO) at Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, a banking company handling small bank businesses. He specialises in areas such as cybersecurity, risk and governance frameworks, and cloud and digital security.

He previously served as CISO of Vijaya Bank, a financial services company for nine years, where he handled security operations for the bank right from highlighting risks, to defining the security strategy, policies, and procedures.

Twitter followers: 26,932

GlobalData influencer score: 100

Kevin Jackson is a cloud computing and cybersecurity expert currently serving as senior vice president channel sales for Total Network Service (TNS), a developer of blockchain-based technologies that enable the adoption of digital assets and digital securities.

Jackson also created the GovCloud Network, a safe AWS region which helps customers and US government agencies to accommodate their workflows effectively and with transparency.

Twitter followers: 70,157

GlobalData influencer score: 79

Ronald van Loon is the principal analyst and CEO of the Intelligent World, a network of analysts and influencers who share information and opportunities in the technology sector. He specialises in technologies such as internet of things (IoT), big data, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, 5G, and predictive analytics.

Van Loon is an advisory board member and course advisor at Simplilearn, an education management company, offering online learning courses on various areas such as cloud computing, data science and big data.

Twitter followers: 240,344

GlobalData influencer score: 75

R Ray Wang is the principal analyst, founder and chairman of Constellation Research, a technology company that offers guidance to companies on the adoption of disruptive technologies. He specialises in areas such as AI, business models, customer experience, matrix commerce, engagement strategies, and big data.

Wang also hosts DisrupTV, a webcast on enterprise technology and leadership, and contributes to his blog raywang.org, where he writes articles on business strategy and technology.

Twitter followers: 132,293

GlobalData influencer score: 67

Shane Brighton is a customer solutions architect at KCOM, which develops and distributes communication and integration services across the UK. He specialises in technologies such as cloud, data, voice, and other digital solutions and helps businesses scale their value through technology investments and strategies.

Brighton previously served as lead customer solutions architect for the IDE Group, a managed service provider dealing in a broad range of IT and technology products that ensure smooth and safe transition to the cloud.

Twitter followers: 8,692

GlobalData influencer score: 66

Holger Mueller serves as vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. He specialises in enterprise software trends with focus on future of work, cloud, Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and big data. Mueller has over 25 years of experience in purchasing, selling, and executing enterprise software solutions.

Mueller earlier worked as vice president products for NorthgateArinso (NGA), a human resources and payroll services company, where he was responsible for products such as euHReka apart from shifting product offerings to cloud architectures.

Twitter followers: 46,350

GlobalData influencer score: 65

Sandy Carter is the vice president of Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud computing platform that allows businesses to leverage what they need at low costs. She specialises in areas such as ecosystem development, sales, strategy, and marketing, apart from having expertise in technologies such as cloud, mobile technologies and IoT.

Carter is also the chairman of the board of Girls in Tech, an education management company focused on encouraging women to enter the tech space and build start-ups.

Twitter followers: 81,121

GlobalData influencer score: 63

Giuliano Liguori is a digital transformation leader and the creator of Digital Leaders, a management consulting firm dealing in innovative strategies that help businesses transform through emerging technologies. He offers innovation management and digital transformation services to help scale the digital products of businesses.

Liguori is also an executive board member of the CIO Club Italia, a technology firm that allows professionals to exchange information and knowledge related to technologies.

Twitter followers: 30,612

GlobalData influencer score: 62

Bill Mew serves as founder and CEO of the Crisis Team, a crisis management firm that helps companies mitigate risks and recover from data breaches. He specialises in areas such as fintech and govtech and has worked with both small and large firms.

Mew was a former cloud strategist and evangelist for the UKCloud Health, a cloud provider offering digital health solutions to improve patient outcomes.

Twitter followers: 15,314

GlobalData influencer score: 61

Jo Peterson serves as the vice president cloud and security services at Clarify360, a digital enterprise consulting firm that develops and sources solutions for managed cloud, co-location and edge, cybersecurity, and connectivity. She has over 20 years of experience in cloud deployments and IT infrastructure.

Peterson is a member of the Forbes Technology Council, a community comprising CTOs, CIOs, and technology executives. She also served as director of the converged cloud and data division at Teleproviders, a telecommunications company.

Twitter followers: 61,610

GlobalData influencer score: 61

Methodology

GlobalDatas influencer identification framework identifies influencers based on relevance; size of network, connections and followers; engagement levels with their content and analysis and input from sector experts. Influencers are then evaluated on a series of specific topic-related keywords used over the period and weighted by engagement metrics.

More:
Top influencers in cloud computing in Q1 2021: The top individuals to follow - Verdict

As more organisations move their applications to the cloud, Hays Steve Weston says CIOs must find staff with the right cloud-based skills to optimise their migration strategies.

You may be one of the 81pc of business leaders embracing the cloud because youreconcerned about missing outon the many benefits it will provide to your organisation.

However, such rapid expansion has created a shortage of qualified cloud professionals and CIOs need to address this skills gap alongside a range of other issues to facilitate a seamless cloud migration.

As a first step, you need to devise a detailed operational plan that encompasses the benefits of cloud computing for your specific business, the applications you should and should not run on the cloud, and a detailed proposal of how you intend toimplement your migration.

For instance, a lift-and-shift migration takes an on-premise application and then replicates it to the cloud with no modifications to its design or architecture. Alternatively, you may want to change an applications performance before moving it to the cloud this is known as a re-architecting approach or application refactoring.

Hybrid cloud solutionsare another viable option for some businesses that need portability between public and private clouds. Also, consider the fate of your legacy applications, business drivers and cloud economics.

There are a handful of natural inflection points for moving to the cloud, including relocating your offices or data centres, developing a large set of new applications and implementing a more robust infrastructure upgrade.

You will also need to pick the right partner for your migration, with cloud platform services, infrastructure and application vendors forming the three main types of cloud migration partner. You may even consider working withall three partner typesto find the most effective solution.

You will need to evaluate the skillset of your staff when you start to plan your cloud migration. Vital cloud-based skills could be lacking, according to a 2017Microsoft UK Cloud Skills Report, which stated that 3,500 organisations in the UK could be hampered by a lack of qualified staff in the near future.

Moreover, the report revealed that 83pc of technical leaders believe cloud skills are critical to the digital transformation of their organisation. As a result, its imperative to migrate in the right way and with the right people.

So, if your IT operations team does not have the experience to manage your applications in the cloud, you will have to upskill your existing workforce or hire people with the relevant experience.

A managed service provider can also run your cloud applications in the early days and teach your IT operations team how to get to grips with your new infrastructure.

However, you will still need to find the right candidates with the right skillsets to optimise your cloud migration. For instance, your operations team should be familiar with at least one major cloud computing service. If they are well-versed in one stack, that knowledge can be transferred easily to design software for other stacks.

The underlying foundation of any cloud infrastructure is based on web services and APIs, and experience in virtualisation, storage and networking is also key for designing and operating applications.

Finally, I would recommend that your staff need to understand methodologies, including disaster recovery, high availability, fail over and redundancy, to keep your cloud service up and running.

Major cloud providers, including Google, AWS and Azure, continue to roll out new artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning services. So, IT professionals with advanced data science skills and cloud-native AI technologies will be key.

Also known as function as a service (FaaS), a serverless architecture eliminates the need for developers to provision and manage the underlying infrastructure for building and running their applications.

Serverless architectures are a relatively new phenomenon butmany experts predictthey will replace containers and DevOps (development operations) in the near future.

The flexibility of the cloud allows you to choose different hosting environments based on cost, performance and other features.

As a result, IT professionals need to expand their cloud computing skills across multiple providers.

Many organisations are now building cloud-optimised applications to benefit from its automation and scalability. Cloud skills related to DevOps will also continue to be sought by organisations that build these native apps.

The demand for cloud security skills shows no signs of stopping and, as such, you should recruit candidates with a deep knowledge of provider-native security tools.

Key areas to cover include protection against incidents, incident detection and incident response. This will drive a DevSecOps agenda that prioritises security across your infrastructure management, plus continuous integration and delivery pipelines.

Remember: there is no simple, one-size-fits-all solution to an enterprise cloud migration, so do not underestimate the time, effort and risks it presents. Technically, moving your applications to a cloud-based infrastructure is not overly demanding, but the continual running and managing of that service with the right contingency plans in place represents a huge operational challenge for any CIO.

An enterprise cloud migration relies on more than just the infrastructure it uses its success depends on the skills of the people who implement and manage your cloud-based strategy now, and in the future.

By Steve Weston

Steve Weston is the chief information officer at Hays. A version of this article originally appeared onHaysViewpoint blog.

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Finding the right talent for your cloud migration strategy - Siliconrepublic.com

Dublin, June 02, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "North America UPS Battery Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Regional Analysis by Product Type and Application" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The North America UPS battery market is expected to grow from US$ 150.64 million in 2020 to US$ 346.06 million by 2028; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 11.7% from 2021 to 2028.

The rising advantages of UPS battery in data center is expected to surge the North America UPS battery market. Increase in data-related services, and growing trend of cloud computing and virtualization have escalated the demand for data centers across North America, eventually magnifying the demand for UPS. Cloud-based services require to be online to provide services, which is surging the need for UPS systems. North America, especially the US, hosts numerous colocation facilities and data center service providers.

In the US, major data centers have been established in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle for the West Coast; New York/Virginia for the East Coast; and Dallas/Miami in South/Central and Chicago. There are 1,975 colocation data centers in North America, including 1,798 in the US and 176 in Canada. Colocation providers are highly inclined toward remodeling their data center UPS solutions and speeding up their IT processes to meet the customer demand for rapid data delivery.

The life expectancy of a UPS in a data center is ~10-15 years. Lead-acid battery works for ~3-6 years, while lithium-ion battery lasts ~10 years or longer. Due to these advantages of UPS batteries, companies are highly focused on designing advanced battery systems for data centers. Thus, the escalating deployment of UPS batteries in data centers due to their advantages such as high energy-efficiency, high performance, and low weight is bolstering the North America UPS battery market growth.

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected North American countries, especially the US. North America is a frontrunner in terms of the development and adoption of new technologies due to favorable government policies to boost innovation, presence of huge industrial bases, and high purchasing power especially in developed countries such as the US and Canada. Hence, any impact on the growth of industries directly affects the economic growth of the region.

Based on product type, the North America UPS battery market is segmented into lead-acid, lithium-ion, and others; the lead-acid segment led the market in 2020. Lead-acid batteries feature better reliability when deployed in uninterruptible power supply systems. In case of large power applications, wherein weight is not a prime concern, lead-acid batteries act as the most economical choice.

In addition to the cost-effectiveness, high tolerance, low internal impedance, and other performance benefits make them an ideal choice for small-scale power storage systems such as UPS systems; large and grid-scale power systems; and starting, lighting, and ignition power sources for automobiles.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Introduction

2. Key Takeaways

3. Research Methodology

4. North America UPS Battery Market Landscape4.1 Market Overview4.2 North America PEST Analysis4.3 Ecosystem Analysis4.4 Expert Opinion

5. North America UPS Battery Market - Key Market Dynamics5.1 Market Drivers5.1.1 Growing Emphasis of Li-Ion Battery5.1.2 Rising Advantages of UPS Battery in Data Centre5.2 Market Restraints5.2.1 Issues Regarding Failure Associated with UPS Batteries5.3 Market Opportunities5.3.1 Growing UPS Applications5.4 Future Trends5.4.1 Increasing Digitalization Fueled by Government Favorable Initiatives5.5 Impact Analysis of Drivers and Restraints

6. UPS Battery Market - North America Analysis6.1 North America UPS Battery Market Overview6.2 North America UPS Battery Market - Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million)

7. North America UPS Battery Market - By Product Type7.1 Overview7.2 North America UPS Battery Market, by Product Type (2020 and 2028)7.3 Lead-Acid7.4 Li-Ion

8. North America UPS Battery Market Analysis - By Application8.1 Overview8.2 North America UPS Battery Market, By Application (2020 and 2028)8.3 Commercial8.4 Residential

9. North America UPS Battery Market - Country Analysis

10. Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on North America UPS Battery Market10.1 North America

11. Industry Landscape11.1 Overview11.2 Market Initiative11.3 New Product Development

12. Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/od625l

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North America UPS Battery Market to 2028: Increase in Data-related Services and Growing Trend of - GlobeNewswire