What is the Cloud?

By Charles Miller

I am frequently asked to explain “The Cloud.” There are many different cloud offerings segmented based on use requirements; this column mostly addresses cloud backup for consumers. If you cannot spare the time to read these 500 words, please feel free to skip to the last paragraph for my succinct answer to, “What is the cloud?”

Over the last decade quite a few companies in the Information Technology (IT) sector have come forward with offers to store your personal files (documents, pictures, and so forth) in their cloud.  This is often a good solution for non-tech-savvy computer and smartphone users who have personal files they value highly, but not so highly as to prevent their loss by taking the time to back them up. Recognizing that many users never think of backing up their data until after it is too late, tech companies now offer various ways to do this automatically.

All of the big names in IT have gotten into the cloud business. Microsoft has its OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive). Apple has iCloud. Google has Google Drive. There are many others but for the sake of brevity I will focus first on these three. All of them provide a simple way to store your personal data in their cloud servers which are made up of remote servers you access via the internet.

Among the customer-facing cloud services, Microsoft was the first to start offering cloud backups to users of its Windows software in 2007. This permitted users to backup their data using the same methods previously available only to big business or at a great cost.

A few years later Apple jumped in with its iCloud storage to allow, among other things, iPhone and iPad owners to automatically backup their photos, contacts, calendar, and more to the cloud so that the loss of a phone would not result in the loss of the owner’s data.

Six months later, in 2012, Google got on board with its introduction of Google Drive. Among the many features of this service was being able to backup photos, contacts, and calendars from smart phones and other mobile devices that use Google’s Android Operating System.

The modus operandi for all three of these services is similar. You can have a small amount of storage space for free after which you either will be required to pay for extra storage or start deleting your files so you do not have to pay to store them.

Users are not limited to using only one company’s cloud since there is competition between the big three. Microsoft provides Windows apps able to access Apple’s cloud or Google’s cloud. There are apps to let MacOS and iOS users access Microsoft’s cloud if they wanted. Google likewise has this cross-platform access. What this means to you, the consumer, is that you may store your files in the cloud at Apple, Google, or Microsoft—then access them no matter what brand of computer or phone you use.

As promised earlier, there is a quick answer to the question, “What is the cloud?” The answer is, “There is no cloud.  It’s just someone else’s computer.”

Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident.  He may be contacted at 415 101 8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.