“I think this is the start of something really big! Sometimes, that first step is the hardest one and we’ve just taken it!” exclaimed an overwrought Steve Jobs while launching the first iPod. It is never new and always equally exciting when someone, somewhere in the world reinvents technology and re-defines it! As rightly quoted by Godfrey Reggio, “It is not that we use technology, we live technology!” Any small, medium or large enterprise today is widely dependent on technology and IT operations is an integral part, and I won’t call it a hyperbole if I term it the breathing system of any organization today.

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      Not only are IT operations becoming regularly important but also it’s meaning, scope and range are dynamically and swiftly diversifying. There was a time when LAN was young, but even before it could age and physical servers could establish their firm footing in smaller organizations, a much convenient, cost-effective option dived in which we today call – Cloud Computing! I still remember, back in 2014 when I was still doing my Inter CA and I first heard this term – Cloud Computing, I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly did it really mean? Did it mean that some data would just go up the clouds and stay there? Or did it mean that now I wouldn’t have to worry about the storage constraints on my desktop and could load unlimited games? Well, it wasn’t too late when I finally understood what Cloud Computing really meant and it was truly in these Covid times when I realized what it really does. The kind of ease, comfort and convenience Cloud has brought to people and organizations to work virtually is unmatched and the cost at which it comes, it equally unmatched.

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      When traditionally, huge capital investments, unprecedented maintenance and storage costs went in keeping and maintaining a physical server, less than 10 percent of that now goes in maintaining data on cloud. This is of course subject to which kind of cloud we prefer to maintain – private, public or hybrid but many huge public cloud providers like Microsoft, Google provide seamless and secured service at a very affordable cost. What makes Cloud Computing really effective is the ease of storage and transferring data. Though securing data on a potentially invisible storage place always becomes a matter of concerns for data owners, there have already been some commendable security measures and organizations such as Cloud Security Alliance, trying their best to secure the Cloud data. While like as in any other technology, Cloud Computing comes with its pros and cons too, but what today matters more is how it is supporting, helping and smoothening the working of organizations seamlessly, with its employees scattered and miles away. It in some way is surely a valued contributor to the government by ensuring keeping the wheels of the economy running even in these testing times of lockdown, to the entrepreneurs and business owners by inducing them to analyze a long-term vision of remote working and saving on a lot of fixed costs in ways of investment in office space and infrastructure, to the students by not breaking their link, spoiling their year or hampering their education, to the techies by inspiring them to work more closely on reinventing Cloud, just to keep us excitedly waiting what’s more in the store for us.

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      While, a completely new technology might be awaiting, but till it rolls in – let’s explore and enjoy this phase and era of Cloud Computing, gathering a lot of stories to be told to our grandchildren for how, something since centuries known for its source of rain, became more infamous for us as the future of data storage!