Microsoft – Page 3 – Keep My Head To The Sky

Make no mistake; the cloud is the future of what business computing is going to be. Companies are now doing deeper investigations into how to use the cloud to increase profits and reduce costs. For companies like Microsoft Azure, this presents an outstanding opportunity as more companies move more of their computing tasks to the cloud.

However, this raises a question: if more businesses are moving to the cloud, where are they currently and how does it work right now?

Companies that are looking to move to cloud are largely looking to move computers and more that are currently in remote data centers and on-prem. When we say on-prem, what we mean is that the computers that do the massive processing and people who access that data are either on the same geographic campus or in the same building/complex.

Essentially, on-prem refers to being on the same premise as the person/people who are currently speaking.

Now, let’s connect this definition to the case above. The question was where are these companies currently, and how does that work right now?

Companies looking to move to the cloud in the future now have many computing resources on-prem, or in the same buildings as the people who utilize them. Examples include: on another floor of the same building, in the building next door, in a closet down the hallway, and more. The big computers (e.g., AS400 Mainframe, Cisco Nexus, Dell PowerEdge, EMC XtremIO, etc.) are usually in one or two locations if they are on-prem and all together in one big room. You may also find networking equipment in this location as well (e.g., Cisco Meraki, Cisco Catalyst 9300, Cisco Catalyst 8200 Edge uCPE, etc.).

So, in short, on-prem means at the same geographic location.

There are many definitions and explanations for the question, “What is the cloud?” These explanations range from NIST government documentation to various YouTube videos to books such as “Explain The Cloud Like I’m 10” and “Cloud Computing For Beginners With Examples: Dummies Guide to Cloud Computing.” In short, there is no shortage of explanations for what the cloud is.

In the spirit of these events, I want to share my explanation of the common question, “What is the cloud?” Keep in mind, what I am going to respond with is more of a technical approach to this. A way of looking at this is to say it is an explanation for the technical professional.

What is the cloud? The cloud is virtualization in a data center the company does not own. For professionals, we have an awareness of virtualization and what it can do. What is needed for virtualization is a central location, which has computing power, network power, and storage power locally available. With the cloud, virtualization can continue WITHOUT THE NEED TO HAVE A LOCAL computer, network, and storage power. Furthermore, you rent those items as needed from a cloud service provider (such as Microsoft for Azure) on demand.

So, think of cloud computing as using any device with an internet connection to run apps on a set of machines you rent by the hour of computing time – you can run the apps just as if you were directly working with a computer you own; but you don’t have the computer purchase, warranties, and other costs to use a limited amount of the time.

So, in short: the cloud is virtualization in someone else’s data center.