Cloud computing: The new game changer
July 28, 2011
Like gravity, cloud computing is invisibly shaping our changing world. Mobile, affordable technology with third party data storage, delivered to you, via the internet in real time. Where is all this data? Somewhere in the clouds?
Actually it’s somewhere in a data storage facility that a company like Facebook or Google has built. Real steel and concrete buildings that need to power up, cool down, back up and quickly deliver the mountains of data we all generate.
Consider the figures laid out by a report published in 2008 by The Climate Group & the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, called SMART 2020. The report gives a glimpse into the ever-growing demands for PCs and mobile device worldwide.
By 2020, they estimate: 4 billion PC devices online with laptops overtaking desktops, nearly 5 billion mobile phones (almost double the current number).
An Oct. 27 article published by Greenpeace International states, “… A lot of digital life now exists online on “the cloud”, whether its email, streaming video, or our Facebook status updates. The cloud is run, in part, by these massive data centres and these huge facilities are amongst the fastest growing sources of electricity demand. In fact, if the cloud was a country, it would be the fifth largest in the world in terms of electricity use.” That’s the bad news.
Here’s the good news. Cloud computing makes rapid social transformation possible as never before. Pano Xinos, Associate Director, Private Cloud Solutions at Bell Canada, makes the case for cloud.
“Facebook and Twitter are a good example of how such tools have already been used to further democratic change in Northern African and the Middle East. I would go out on a limb and predict that we will see more services/tech start-ups/initiatives serving the developing world over the next 10 years. It can be a (the?) technology that can help lift the poor out of poverty.”
Life altering, affordable technology, brought to the world’s poor and creating a web of micro entrepreneurs and micro consumers. It’s literally a worldwide revolution that is democratizing commerce.
Xinos continues, “…Cloud, as it relates to the developing world, presents an interesting opportunity on two fronts. First, the ability to reach a large proportion of the world’s population who use mobile phones (whether they are basic phones or smartphones) for all aspects of day-to-day communications. In fact, mobile phone penetration in developing countries outpaces personal computers/laptops and broadband internet access… So the use/sale of apps on mobile devices and advertising therein to reach consumers becomes much more important.
Second, the nature of cloud computing is such that barriers to entry for entrepreneurs can be reduced because the cost of leasing scalable compute power on demand is so much lower than acquiring and maintaining physical servers. This simple fact can empower a generation of entrepreneurs in developing countries to market products and services to citizens of the developing world that are relevant and pertinent to their social context.”
After fire and the wheel, cloud is the new game changer. When we’re not busy chasing despots from power, we’ll be banking, sending vital medical stats to central diagnostic centers, recording video, scanning QR codes and becoming micro entrepreneurs. The possibilities are as endless and expansive as the universe itself.