It can be said that cloud computing is the buzzword that has dominated the technology sphere in the last decade or so. In its simplest form, cloud-based technology can be described as the utilisation of data storage resources that are situated off-premises and compute resources.

This technological innovation has completely revolutionised the way in which entities manage, implement and process their data. It was customary for many years to store information on individual PCs or in the case of larger organisations, this was backed up on dedicated servers that were located on the same premises from which the entity operated.

The pervasive presence of the Internet redefined the technological landscape completely and introduced the possibility of remote or off-premise storage, and the opportunity to make computational resources available for any demands your company may require. This shift is particularly important when one considers that progressively more sophisticated software applications require a substantial amount of storage space and computational infrastructure to handle new demands efficiently. As a result, centralised options became increasingly impractical and inadequate. Conversely, it is possible to purchase unlimited amounts of storage space in dedicated cloud facilities in a convenient manner, and process computation-intensive applications using compute resources, always in line with your current workload.

Since users can select any devices and software they need at any point in time, they are empowered in becoming more self-sufficient (self-service provisioning) and given the opportunity to pay for the resources and infrastructure they’re actually using (pay-per-use).