Understanding the Cloud

Cloud computing is nothing new.  The concept of relying on a grid or network of online resources for computing needs has been around for decades without becoming mainstream because clouds are expensive to build and maintain.

The cloud movement gained serious traction this week as Netflix announced it will move most of its online resources to Amazon’s Simple Storage Service, or S3.

In Netflix’s case, user queues and a massive movie library will be moved over to Amazon’s servers for storage.  When you download a movie from Netflix, you will actually be receiving the information from an Amazon S3 server.

With such a high profile web-based business turning to a cloud for storage, what does this mean for the future of cloud computing?

Up in the Air

For any business, big or small, cloud computing services represents a significant cost saving tool that outsources storage and maintenance to a third party.  While cloud networks are still expensive to construct, companies with global server networks are now focused on selling the right to use their infrastructure at an attractive price.

For most organizations, this is significantly cheaper than constructing their own cloud from the ground up, and the computing world is beginning to take notice.  If a business relies on a cloud service, all it takes is an internet connection to upload and access data while taking advantage of the same technical and security benefits a company like Amazon enjoys.

Netflix may be the biggest convert so far, but that doesn’t mean Amazon isn’t already a major player in cloud computing.  The number of individual items stored on Amazon S3 skyrocketed from half a billion in 2006 to more than more than 40 billion by the end of 2008.

Building to Scale

Cloud computing is eminently scalable.  If you run an online tax service, for example, your data load and bandwidth demands on January 1 will be a fraction of what you’ll experience on April 15 as legions of late filers scramble to beat the deadline.

You could build your own network with enough computing power and redundancy to cover your busiest week of the year.  If your network can’t handle that workload, your service may be slow or even unresponsive.  Or you could use a service like Amazon S3, which is already built to accommodate spikes in traffic without any interruption of service.

With proven advantages and cost savings, it seems like all cloud computing needed to become the storage method of choice was a big client willing to phase out their own infrastructure and climb on board.  Like it or not, Netflix may just be the impetus for a cloud revolution.

Banking on the Cloud

When we started building the First Bank and Trust Tuition Lending site, it soon became clear that cloud computing was the way to go.  With over 100 schools and over 20,000 families signed up for the online tuition application and payment service, demand on the system skyrockets every year as thousands of parents apply for loans shortly before the deadline.

Instead of building out for the largest possible number of parents that could be using the system at the same time, we transferred hosting duties to EngineYard, which leverages S3, allowing us to scale the amount of processing power for the system up and down as demand fluctuates.

After seeing one of our major clients benefit from cloud computing, we began looking for ways to utilize Amazon S3 for ourselves.  Mudbug Media has developed over 750 websites for orthopedic surgeons affiliated with medical technology provider Stryker Corporation, each of which features an assortment of videos.  With so many videos to store, we are in the process of moving our entire catalogue onto Amazon S3, putting valuable content at our fingertips without having to buy more disk space or tie up server resources.

One thing that is a safe assumption for the foreseeable future is a steady increase in online data as websites continue to evolve, and relying on cloud computing for data storage may play a big part in that evolution.