In the Cloud

Anywhere, anytime.

This is what the cloud promises its user. But what exactly does it mean?
Cloud computing is a server or system that is fully established online. Users can access their information from the server literally on-demand. As of late, cloud computing has become increasingly important, not only for the individual user, but for corporations as well. On an individual level, cloud computing can be seen for GoogleDocs, where an individual can have all of his or her documents and files stored through this one server. However, on a larger scale, we can see systems such as Salesforce, SAP, Citrix, Lightspeed, amongst others who propose similar solutions, but in a different manner.

Let's take a look at Salesforce for a minute (since I have first-hand experience with this system). Salesforce is used for companies to track many things within the institution. In my experiences, I have used Salesforce to track client information, input my weekly hours into the system, run reports, and communicate with my co-workers. In terms of tracking client information, we can track information from both an internal level (budgets for their projects and hours inputted), to external (client personal information such as, email, phone numbers, etc). This is extremely beneficial because as users, we are able to see the progression of the client & keep all the data on them in one space. Further, weekly hours can be be categorized into specific segments (billable, non-billable, and by project). Through this, we can see that the maintenance of worker hours is made automatic and simple. Finally, a user can run reports from topics such as marketing, to clients and even worker hours.

However, what I have mentioned here is not the most important aspect of a cloud based server. As employers are slowly permitting their employees to work from home, this cloud based system (since it is accessible through the internet) allows for users to do just that!