What's in 'the cloud?' A look at costs and benefits
20.05.12
Cloud computing has the potential to provide a boost for small- and medium-sized enterprises in Europe, as long as concerns about data privacy can be overcome. That was a key message coming out of a Science|Business’ seminar held at the European Parliament on 9 December.
In the past five years, cloud computing has emerged as a standard industry model: storing data or running software in a ‘cloud’ of servers maintained by someone else, rather than on your own office computers. As the idea has spread, governments have started to consider the policy implications – and the Science|Business discussion focused on the potential economic impact in Europe. The session was held by invitation of Ivailo Kalfin, a Bulgarian member of the European Parliament and vice chair of its budget committee.
So what are the potential benefits of cloud computing? Essentially the cloud provides computing resources that users can access as and when they need them, in the quantities that they require. SMEs can therefore avoid large up-front capital expenditure for data storage capacity or a big network infrastructure and simply pay for what they use. “The cloud helps SMEs proportionately more,“ said Mark Lange, Senior Policy Counsel at Microsoft. “Large companies have had access to some type of large computing infrastuctures for years. But now SMEs with limited computer competences suddenly get access to supercomputers.”
Source: Science Business
