All you here about now a days is cloud this, cloud that. But what actually IS the cloud? Most people don’t understand it so don’t worry as you are not alone.

The cloud or cloud computing is about storing your data (personal or business) on the internet. This allows you to access the data from anywhere, just like you do a web page. It doesn’t matter if you are working from home or at the beach on holidays you can access the data and even collaborate with colleagues just as if you were sitting in the office.

If may sound futuristic but email services such as Gmail and Hotmail (now Outlook.com) have been providing this service for quite a while now. With Gmail and Hotmail none of your emails are actually stored on your local device as they are stored in the cloud on Google’s or Microsoft’s servers allowing you to access them anytime you like.

Netflix is another cloud provider. Netflix allows you to access movies and television shows stored remotely on Netflix’s cloud server any time you want. Netflix even remembers what you watched and where you were up to every time you login (even if you are on a different device).

Where is all this data stored in the “cloud”?

They are stored on another computer in a large data center that is connected to the internet. These data centers are huge and contain rows and rows of servers and data storage.

In terms of location, the US is a popular site, but the machines can be located in any location in the world and may even be in multiple locations to provide redundancy – if problems occur at one location, the other location still has a copy.

With some cloud providers you can choose your preferred location. This helps with local privacy laws and can increase speed of access (as the data doesn’t have to travel as far across the world).

So cloud computing can provide better collaboration, security and redundancy.

Ready to take advantage of cloud computing? Give us a call on 08 8326 4364 or at

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. Or check out our other article on “When Is You Business Ready To Move To The Cloud“.