Cloud Computing

Evan Rager

Dr. Schuett

English 102

19 April 2011

Cloud Computing: Next Step to a Computerized America

The topic of cloud computing is an interesting one. Recently, America has taken several steps further to creating a theoretical society through the Internet. A lot of people don’t understand what this “cloud” really is. As popular author Nicholas Carr said, cloud computing is going to lead to a “World Wide Computer,” one that will know everything about us from how we use it (“Part 2”). Is this just a great advancement in technology? Is it something we should be afraid of? Cloud computing could result in the majority of the population trusting in a single, unknown “external party” (Ryan 36).

As Han Yan explains, the term cloud computing means that “the customers do not own network resources, such as hardware, software, systems, or services; network resources are provided through remote data centers on a subscription basis; and network resources are delivered as services over the Web.” This implies that eventually we will need nothing but our computers to do almost, and eventually entirely, anything. There are already numerous applications run through the cloud on the Web as it is. As noted by Yan, Sun Microsystems started running what is known as a Software as a Service (SaaS) for customers as early as 1999. These SaaS’s are one of the many services that the cloud can provide. Now companies such as Google are producing hardware, for storing data, and other systems as services. All this information is being held by the seven major cloud companies: Google, Salesforce, Microsoft, Zoho, Yahoo, Rackspace, and Amazon (“All kinds of clouds”). We do still have room for storage on our computers, but soon Microsoft, among other companies, will design a computer or desktop run completely from the cloud. No one would obviously be forced to buy it, but it would be cheaper, and if it catches on and becomes a trend it could lead to a future where all of our computer data...