It is no secret that I’m a big supporter of the idea of Cloud Computing. Cloud Computing is new/er to the IT world and is evolving every day. Now one thing to note is the world is still very far away from actual cloud computing.
The idea of cloud computing is to have everything sitting in the cloud and computers becoming dummy terminals. This means that internet access has to be wide spread. While we are not going to be at true cloud computing in the near future we can still take advantage of another aspect of it.
The Advantage
Being able to scale up, down and sideways at any moment is spectacular. Bringing the power of a large infrastructure to those not fortunate enough have a server farm.
The Downside
At first glance cloud computing looks fairly affordable especially when looking at per hour pricing. Even once you do the math it still looks reasonable, until… you need cpu cycles. Once you need processing power the cost go through the roof and a dedicated server becomes a better option.
The Verdict
Take a hybrid approach. Use a dedicated server/s as the primary server and supplement with cloud server/s or services. Where the cloud is at today it is more of a supplement to your workhorse IT resources, though I do not see it being this way for long. As more competition comes into the cloud and technology evolves price will go down, and I can’t wait!