Questions to a Weatherman

and a GeekA Cloud The Cloud

LET’S ASK A WEATHERMAN AND A GEEK TO EXPLAIN THEDIFFERENCES BETWEEN A CLOUD AND THE CLOUD.

A cloud isThe Cloud isa visible mass of

just a fancy name forcondensed water vaporCloud Computing. In

Laymen’s Terms it translates to:

virtual servers available over the Internet.

floating in the atmosphere, typicallyhigh above the ground.

Being a weatherman is a tough job. When things are good, you are everyone’s favorite person, but when things are bad, they are REALLY bad. People may blame you for a ruined picnic or wedding day, but we all know that it’s really not your fault.

The same is true for the computer geek, or Infrastructure Support Specialist. They are the weathermen of this new technological atmosphere known as The Cloud. They can forecast The Cloud’s capabilities, and warn us of any impend-ing complications that may arise. Like the Weatherman, the Computer Geek may not have all of the predicting power of a magic 8 ball when it comes to things that may go wrong in The Cloud.

Physical Device

Physical Server

AltostratusCirrus Cumulus

Stratus

THERE ARE 4 Basic Types of Clouds

It’s All Very

TECHNICAL

Clouds Are Very Nice Remove The Nerdy Stuff

These clouds can produce rain, snow, and fog, and play a big part in thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and the temperature of the earth. Clouds are actually very nice and get a bad rap for “raining on your parade”. It’s not actually their fault at all. They don’t always get along so well with their step brother Wind, or sister-in-law Temperature, and are often teased by the mean kids at school. In their free time, they can be seen impersonating anything from horses to Jesus.

If we remove all of the nerdy stuff, it boils down to this: starting with a physical device like a traditional computer or cell phone, you save your data (things like bank statements, love letters, or pictures of your first dance recital) like you normally would – FILE – SAVE AS. Simple. Now here’s the tricky part, and the part that takes a little bit of imagination. Instead of that picture of you in the bathtub being saved to the computer, it gets transmitted over the Internet to another physical server thousands of miles away in a fully secure location. The space in between your computer and the physical server is the Cloud. No matter what, unless you are a tech geek like me, it will never fully make sense. All you need to know is that it is an easy, convenient, and fully secure place to store your precious data.