Traditional business applications like Microsoft and Oracle have always been complicated and expensive. They need a data center with office space, power, cooling, bandwidth, networks, servers, and storage. And a team of experts to install, configure, and run them. They need development, testing, staging, production, and failover environments.
Cloud computing is a better way to run your business. Instead of running your apps yourself, they run on a shared data center. When you use any app that runs in the cloud, you just log in, customize it, and start using it.
Through SaaS (software-as-a-service), companies can access applications and large amounts of virtual computing power without buying it. Rather, the application is hosted offsite by some other company, which cuts maintenance headaches and most of the setup costs for users.
Why is this model called "cloud computing?" Some say it's because the computer functionality happens out there "in the clouds." Wikipedia says "the term derives from the fact that most technology diagrams depict the Internet or IP availability by using a drawing of a cloud."
Right now Im not sure if cloud computing will replace operating systems but keep in mind that all big companies are investing on it. Microsoft already launched Azure, cloud services operating system. The same happened with IBM, Google and Oracle. Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes that Operating Systems are going to be passe soon. The coming times will see web browsers evolving and becoming more and more feature rich. Windows operating systems who have been virtually ruling the OS market for close to two decades now, will eventually be phased out. There are already a few cloud OS out there like EyeOS for example.
The same way works Rackspace Cloud, a web hosting cloud platform provider that is already a real leader in the cloud. They offer cloud hosting and provide hosted exchange.
Cloud hosting is a scalable, cost-effective, shared server solution to allow particular website traffic to ebb and flow around major events, peak traffic times or specialized short-term product offers. Cloud hosting is very easy to set up and the cloud storage networks become a helpful means of keeping archives that won't bog down the daily database. At the same time, securing the internal information of a website and stabilizing its web platform with a managed, dedicated server guarantees that the web-based work can happen without a flaw.
The bottom line: Cloud computing is a simple idea, but it can have a huge impact on your business.
Cloud computing is on the rise. Cloud computing platforms may combine thousands of computers and storage networks for backup, among other things. Benefits of cloud computing include lower operational costs, quicker development times and access to increased computing power.