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Cloud computing bound to be universal - Google
The cloud computing revolution, in which businesses access technology-enabled services on the internet, is a universal phenomenon, visitors to Gitex were told this week.
- By Natasha Marrian, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:56 October 22, 2008
Dubai: The cloud computing revolution, in which businesses access technology-enabled services on the internet, is a universal phenomenon, visitors to Gitex were told this week.
Google head of enterprise for Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa Jesper Frederiksen said the revolution was inevitable.
"The shift to this model is inevitable, it's going to happen, it will happen in all countries. It's a question of when and how soon it will happen," he said, presenting a talk on Google Apps, the search giant's contribution to cloud computing.
Frederiksen said the revolution is similar to the change which took place in power generation a hundred years ago.
Analogy
"If you went back 100 years and you ran a factory and you wanted to have power running to allow you to produce goods, you would have to have your own steam generator, your own water mill or your own generator. That was extremely complicated," he said.
"The analogy is exactly what we have with IT [information technology] today. Most businesses, whether banking or construction or manufacturing, your main focus is not to provide IT services. The only reason why you bother with IT is you want to enable your business to do certain things. So that is what the big shift is about.
"We will be moving to a model whereby we are no longer running these water mills and steam plants by ourselves we have someone else do it for us. We will plug into a grid and we will have computing power delivered to us by some very large data centres that will provide us functionality at a fraction of the cost and it will be as ubiquitous and natural as switching on a light," Frederiksen said.
The revolution is driven by the increasingly rich web experience users are becoming accustomed to. The browser environment can now provide flexibility, interaction and functions which previously required a powerful desktop computer.
Another driving force has been the increased high-speed connectivity to the internet. "We have a huge growth in bandwidth. We are definitely in a market where we will get more capacity, we will get more throughput and lower latency," he said.
Connectivity was a fundamental requirement and the UAE was ahead in this regard, poising it to join the revolution which, he added, was still in its early stages.
Providers in this area include Google, Amazon, Salesforce, Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. It has already been adopted by major companies such as General Electric and Procter and Gamble.
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