People talk about “the cloud” all the time these days, but what do they really mean? There’s no agreed-on definition, which can render some conversations nearly inscrutable. We can’t pretend to have the final answer-if there will ever be such a thing-but here’s how we think of “the cloud.” (And now we’ll stop quoting it.)
At a basic level, many people seem to equate the cloud with anything that’s online or with the Internet as a whole. That’s not incorrect, since everything in the cloud does take place online and is on the Internet, but it’s also not helpful.
Cloud Services Replace Local Hardware and Software
It’s more useful to think of the cloud as a way of referring to services made available over the Internet as a replacement for hardware or software on your Mac. These services largely fall into three broad categories: storage and backup, data syncing, and apps.
- Storage and backup: To add storage directly to your Mac, you’d
- connect an external hard drive or SSD. Cloud-based services like Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, and OneDrive all provide the same basic function-more space to store data. Of course, they also go further, providing syncing between your devices and sharing with other people. Plus, just as you probably use Time Machine to back up to an external drive, you can use Backblaze to back up to the cloud.
- Data syncing: Before the cloud was a thing, syncing your
- contacts, calendar, and email between two Macs generally required either special software (like ChronoSync) or going through the export/import dance. Cloud-based services for such bits of data-including Apple’s iCloud syncing for Calendar and Contacts and Google Calendar-make it so the same information is available on all your devices all the time. They often provide a Web-based interface as well so you can access your data from someone else’s computer.
- Apps: An app like TextEdit runs on your Mac, but cloud-based
- apps like Google Docs provide app-like functionality while running in a Web browser. These days, many things that can be done directly on a computer can be done in a Web browser: word processing, spreadsheets, image editing, video streaming, video chat, and more.
- Cloud Services Rely on “Cloud Computing”
Apps on your Mac use its processor and memory. You might also have used a network server; you use the apps on the server over the network, but they’re running on that particular server. In contrast, cloud services run on massive clusters of computer resources spread across many computers and even multiple data centers. When you’re typing into Google Docs, the processing resources that make that possible don’t come from a single computer dedicated to you-they’re provided to you and millions of others simultaneously by Google’s worldwide computer clusters.
Pros of the Cloud
There’s a lot to like about the cloud and what it makes possible:
Cons of the Cloud
Of course, not everything about the cloud falls into the silver lining category. Some problems include:
We’re not here to sell you on the cloud in general or scare you away from using it. In today’s world, there’s almost no way to avoid it, nor should you try to do so. Hopefully, now that you have a better idea of what the cloud really is, you can make more informed decisions about which cloud services can improve your technological life and which ones won’t.
Originally published at https://grovetech.co on June 22, 2021.
