November/December - Albany Colonie Regional Chamber of ...

Playing the
Cloud Game
Can Cloud Computing Save
You Time and Money
There used to be a time when having
your head in the clouds was a bad thing,
but these days it might be the place to be.
“Cloud computing” is the latest buzzword
in a technological environment that grows
and changes at lightning speed. “If you ask
ten different people what it means, you’ll
get ten different answers,” said Adam Wills,
president of TurnKey Internet, a Captial
Region-based cloud computing provider.
“The cloud” is the
internet, and you have
probably used cloud
computing without
knowing it. When you
use a web-based email
account such as Gmail
or Yahoo, your email
is “in the cloud.” The
software and storage for your account is
not on your computer but resides on the
service’s computer cloud, and
with an internet
connection, you can access it from any
device.
Cloud computing refers to applications
and services hosted and maintained by a
data systems provider that uses the internet
to share those services on demand with a
remote end-user, usually for a price. Among
other services, the provider maintains the
systems, updates software, and provides
physical and internet security for the
information. Hardware and software that
used to be installed on each computer
in your shop instead live in the cloud
managed by your cloud provider. Because
it is service-based, you pay only for the
services you use. As business grows or
changes, you simply adjust
your service
contract to match. This allows businesses
of all sizes to focus on what they do best
while leaving the computer headaches and
expenses to someone else.
“Cloud computing is popular now, because the technology has grown more
sophisticated and flexible, allowing companies to outsource their software and
infrastructure more reliably and at a better cost point.”
Deb Tabacco, principal at Transcend Technology
“In some aspects, the cloud is a new
name for things we’ve been doing already,”
remarked Deb Tabacco. Deb and business
partner Paula Mantey are principals at
Transcend Technology, a management
consultant firm that offers IT management
services, development
of IT strategies, and
internal and external
auditing to businesses
and accounting firms
that require IT risk,
process and internal
control specialists.
“Businesses have
been hosting software and offering
hardware and storage services over the
internet for years. The cloud is popular
now, because the technology has grown
more sophisticated and flexible, allowing
companies to outsource their software and
infrastructure more reliably and at a better
cost point.”
Wills describes TurnKey’s
infrastructure as a grid of
computers,