Do you know we use cloud every day in our daily lives?

Cloud is changing our lives in many ways without us even realizing it . Right from the file storage mediums like Dropbox , Google Drive, to social media platform like Facebook, Twitter ,Instagram ,LinkedIn; checking your emails ,messaging apps like Whats App and Telegram are all based on cloud infrastructure or use cloud as a storage medium .The production company and platform NetFlix also uses cloud to stream their data within minutes to the user. The latter! Its easier than ever to pay your bills , check account balances, or buy something online without even leaving the house. These services we’ve implemented in our lives without second thought are all could services.

They may be vastly different in purpose than social media, but because you can access them through the internet to share, save or gather information, you’re working in the cloud. What most people might not realize is that the cloud has migrated into everyone’s life in some way, shape or form. Whether you realize it or not, you are using the cloud at least once a day for any number of services!

Let me walk you through some of the examples:

• While using e-mail, our data gets stored on the cloud server of the e-mail providers and not on our computer. Since your email information is stored in the cloud, you could access them on any computer or other devices connected to the internet.

• All the pictures and videos that we post on the Facebook gets stored on the cloud system of the Facebook. Just imagine how many words or photos are posted in these platforms every day. In fact, there are more than 5,000 tweets posted on Twitter every minute. That’s 500 million tweets each day! So, what is cloud computing use in these social media platforms? They help this platform store huge amounts of data. The traffic within these sites is incredibly heavy. But, cloud computing helps them handle this traffic. Furthermore, cloud computing also allows users to log in their accounts on any device.

• Videos that we watch on the YouTube are stored on the cloud system .This is the reason we can watch them anytime and from anywhere.

• All the digital photos stored on the sites like Picasa and Flickr are actually stored on the cloud servers of these sites .

• In normal SMS, your message data is stored only in your device. But with messaging apps that use the cloud, you could access your information on any device. This is one of the examples of cloud computing uses. With normal SMS, data could be destroyed once your device is destroyed. But with messaging apps that use the cloud, your data is safe even when your device breaks.

• Google Docs is also an example of cloud service. With it , users can upload documents , spreadsheets and presentation to Google’s data servers and edit them using the Google application. File recovery is also included in the examples of cloud computing.

• Applications such as Netflix and Hulu have been streaming movies and television shows to your laptop or TV for years now, taking advantage of cloud technology in the process.

• Chatbots are virtual assistants anyway. It is their job to know your preferences so they could serve you well. When you ask your Siri or Amazon Alexa to play a song, they will take note of it. You might get surprised when your apps started to suggest other songs of the same genre. To store huge amounts of people’s information, these chatbots use cloud computing.

• Other examples include cloud-based entertainment service like Sony’s PlayStation Network and Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Gamers connect remotely to servers managed by Sony, Microsoft, and game manufacturers/developers to compete with and against other gamers from the around the world on a daily basis.

At this point, the cloud has moved beyond the cool phase and is something everyone is using. Sounds Fun isn’t it.

But what exactly is cloud? And how does it work?

Vaquero et have stated,” Clouds are a large pool of easily usable and accessible virtualized resources (Such as hardware, development platforms and/or services).

Cloud computing has been coined as an umbrella term to describe the category of sophisticated on-demand computing services initially offered by commercial providers, such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft etc.

It denotes a model on which a computing infrastructure is viewed as a “Cloud”, from which businesses and infrastructure access applications from anywhere in the world on demand. The main principle behind this model is offering Computing , storage and Software , “as a service’.

The Greek Myths tale of creatures plucked from the surface of the Earth and enshrined as constellations in the night sky. Something similar is happening today in the world of computing. Data and programs are being swept up from desktop PCs and corporate server rooms and installed in "the compute cloud."

The Cloud delivers computing and storage resources to its users/customers. It works as a service on demand policy. Cloud computing is a new business model wrapped around new technologies like virtualization, SaaS and broadband internet.

Cloud computing has been around for approximately two decades and despite the data pointing to the business efficiencies, cost-benefits, and competitive advantages it holds, a large portion of the business community continues to operate without it. According to a study by the International Data Group, 79% of businesses are already using cloud technology in one capacity or another, and 18% say they plan to implement cloud-computing solutions at some point. Flexibility and speed are the primary reasons why we all are opting for cloud.

These are just some of the examples of cloud computing uses among businesses and our everyday life.

So, what is cloud computing in our lives? It is almost everything. From file management to communications. Cloud computing’s flexibility allows it to find use in almost every aspect of modern life. Not to mention it makes our work efficient too!.