- If there's one place where cloud computing
has made a huge impact, it's in the world of applications.
For decades, guys like me had to drive to the software store
and buy a box and pull out floppy disk or later optical disk
or later thumb drives,
and we go into this process of installing our software
and then we ran our software, we bought the software,
and it was okay, I mean it worked.
But because of the cloud,
we can do some new things with the applications
we hadn't even considered before.
One of the big areas that really have changed things,
is in the world of synchronization.
Today we use cloud storage like crazy.
Every operating system
has their own cloud storage solution.
iCloud for Macs, OneDrive for Window systems.
Google Drive for everybody.
And even third parties like Dropbox has made a huge impact
on your ability to just put stuff on the cloud.
What a convenience, that I don't have to worry about
being with one particular laptop or one desktop,
I put something on the cloud, I log in and I can get to it.
That's fantastic, but if you're going to be doing that,
you have a big issue of synchronization.
Let me show you what I'm talking about.
Okay, so I've actually installed the Dropbox tool
on my system here, but I'm going to go ahead and sign in,
and it's going to ask for a confirmation.
I got my phone here, don't worry about it.
And it loves me.
So I could open my Dropbox,
but what I'm more interested in doing
is getting it to update.
So I want you to watch right down here.
You see, the little Dropbox right here,
you see the little circle in blue there.
What's happening there is,
I'm going through a synchronization process.
This is the big deal when it comes to
any form of cloud storage,
is synchronization is key.
Now if I'm the only person using a particular folder
in the cloud, it's not that big of a deal.
But it can be a huge deal if multiple people
were accessing something at the same time.
And different types of systems have
different ways of dealing with it.
Dropbox for example, if two people open up the same file,
if one person saves it,
it will be saved as what is called a conflicted copy.
Now, other ones will have different ways to do it.
You can even configure it, like for example,
with OneDrive you can say whoever saves last wins.
Little things like that.
So it's always a bit of a variance.
So we have to be careful when it comes
to the different types of synchronization
that are going to be taking place.
The other big thing that comes into play
with applications is the concept of, a lot of things
that we used to do locally, we now do off-site.
Probably the biggest single one is email.
For years, I was always working with my local emails server
that was in my office.
And that was where we took care of all our email
and stuff like that.
Those days are pretty much gone.
For example, I'm a big believer in Office 365.
And if you take a look, this is actually my email.
Yep, that's me, michaelm@totalsem.com.
This is, you can see it's in a web page.
So that makes my life a lot easier.
I still have the configuration issues,
but now if I want to configure my server,
I go online and I set up configuration in there,
creating new email accounts, whatever I might need to do,
and I don't have to deal with the physical server.
I throw it up on the cloud, and my life is a lot easier.
And it's not just email,
for example if you want to get groovy on off-site,
here is an example of a off-site domain controller.
So my actual domain, instead of running my own local
domain controller, I just throw that up
on the cloud as well.
And it actually saves me a tremendous amount of money,
by doing that I'm just up on the cloud,
I got everything I need, I can log in,
it's absolutely magical in terms of the amount of workload
it takes for me, by just putting these things off-site.
The last one if you really want to get cool
when it comes to off-site, is a off-site virtual desktop.
In this case what we are talking about
is opening up a web browser,
and actually getting to your desktop itself.
So if I wanted to see a virtual desktop,
I look something kind of like this.
So you can see I'm in a web browser,
but it's still a Windows desktop.
Pretty cool, huh?
So that be the case, I don't even care what device I have,
I could always get to my desktop on a tablet,
on a Mac machine, it doesn't matter.
I can get to my Windows desktop using virtual desktops.
The other place where applications really come into play,
is the concept of streaming applications.
So, traditionally the cloud has been nice because at least
I can have an application that's going to be showing up
as a web app or I could download applications
from the internet, that was true.
But streaming kind of comes between the two.
So probably a best example of a streaming app
would be something like, for example,
take a look right here.
So, here is actually PowerPoint online.
Now it's streaming because I don't have the full app here.
It only pulls down what it needs as it needs it.
So, streaming applications just aren't for things like
desktops and laptops running Windows and OS10
and stuff like that.
It also works in the world of smart devices,
so smart phones and tablets also have streaming.
Now, how the streaming manifest,
would be different depending on your OS.
But for example, if you take a look right here
on my Android machine, here's a popular game, Clash Royale.
Now I can go ahead and install it as you see there.
Or if I want to, I can just click on try it now,
and oh it's a noisy game,
I'm going to turn down the noise.
And it will just go ahead and start the game.
So there's no actual installation involved.
So streaming works both for desktop and laptops,
as well as in your smartphone and in your tablet world.
(light jazz music)