Bryan Lazaris
Although, awareness in designers regarding the cloud computing arouse quite late. They came to know just few years back what cloud computing can do for them, how it can help them; but it is better to be late than never. The web or graphic designers have been on the curve of this emerging trend over just the past few years.
Cloud computing is buzzing word today in IT industry due to its power and efficiency; a general cloud setup may contain a large server farm that can connect as one central “storage” or “cloud computer” hub. Now, web hosts have also begun offering cloud packages where you need to pay only for the bandwidth and storage space you use. We are going to cover some of the newest apps and tools utilized within the cloud which when adapted or implemented by web designers in their work flow can make a lot easier to deal with their task. So, have a look over these:
Sharing Files and Data
USB drives are the popular means to transport files and data form last many years and it is still in fashion. Although the use of USB drives has not become outdated, many other means for transporting data and files from one place to another have also been dramatically discovered. There are several online resources such as Pando and Dropbox etc that offer a free and paid account for new users. Actually what happens, while using these online resources, you are basically setup with a free chunk of cloud hosting which you can access similar to FTP. It serves as the breeze to copy, move, and delete files from within your account. Not only that, you can also share certain files or folders with friends and between different computers.
The advent of CloudApp has made things quite easier for web and graphic designers by offering free account which is perfect for storing .zip archives, small images, music, or other digital knick-knacks of data. Now, they can keep their graphics or art works safely and securely as each file is keyed into the database with a unique short URL which makes sharing ten times easier as compared to past means.
Mac OS X and iCloud
Previous year, i.e. in 2011, co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, had addressed some of the more interesting aspects of a technology, dubbed iCloud, which was tied into the idea of cloud computing having several promising features. It should be noted that only Mac OS X Lion users can avail the privilege of iCloud as only they will have the setup process available. Once getting signed up to iCloud.com, it will become your go-to web application for all your synced data including your contacts list, calendar, text messages, photos, and even your own custom e-mail address.
Besides these, iCloud service will also sync with any iOS devices such as iPhone or iPad/iPod Touch.The web designers using Windows and Linux will not be able to utilize the above mentioned features. But, they should not be disappointed as one of the best alternative to this is PHP/MySQL or RoR which is enough to program their own cloud-based storage and e-mail client.
Web Servers and Storage Services
From the above contents it must have become clear to you that the ability of cloud to juggle file sharing and storage within itself is quite useful, but now the question arises that what about hosting the entire website and database within the cloud? If it will be done, it will certainly revolutionize the entire job of a webmaster in just a few short years. You would feel surprised to know that Amazon Simple Storage Service, i.e. Amazon S3 is one such beautiful innovation which can take a lot of server load time to constantly push images to the many users requesting your page. This extraordinary innovation offers an excellent alternative where the content is moved off your own local server and run through Amazon, you just have to pay for the data used each month; you don’t need to pay any fix rates. All these shows that the entire cloud-based application is extremely scalable get fit with the environment.
Where to Go from Here?
As we know that cloud computing and VPS (Virtual Private Servers) differ in the fact that “cloud” is composed of multiple servers running as one computation device while all VPS setups are a few different accounts running on one physical server. But the major problem with cloud cluster setup is that it is extremely expensive; so now question arises that where to from here, what is the alternative to it, etc. When it comes to the costing, it is expected that with the downfall in the cost of web hosting, bandwidth prices will also drop. So, next to cloud computing, fiber-optic networks will be the better option as it has made data transfer almost instantaneous to the point where one can create & edit Word and Excel documents right from within any browser.
Conclusion
The above presented ideas clearly explains the impact of cloud computing everywhere not even excluding designing field. You have clearly seen, how it is progressing into our everyday lives, web designers even continues moving towards a fluid cloud-powered future. With the advent of cloud computing, hard disks are becoming cheaper and the cost for web hosting is also dropping dramatically. It is expected that in a few years, it will rule over the entire industry.
