If you’re a couch potato like me, chances are you’ve seen the recent Windows commercials with their proclamations of, “To the Cloud!”

So, white and fluffy precipitation masses aside, what’s a cloud in terms of computing?

Cloud computing began decades ago, but the buzz around it has been growing exponentially over the last couple of years. Millions of people are working within the clouds every day, many without even realizing. Recently, cloud computing caught major heat with security issues sparked by the now infamous Sony Playstation hack that occurred back in April – but we’ll get to that in another blog. First let’s find out what cloud computing is, and why it makes sense for businesses and their clients.

What IS a Cloud?

Internet clouds are expansions of the Internet where data and information are stored, constantly expanding and contracting as that data and information change, just like actual clouds expand and contract as the air becomes more saturated. Cloud computing allows users to sit back and not have to worry about “hooking up” to the Internet; it serves the information to the Internet so users can do things like check email and log into social networks anytime, anywhere – and it allows businesses to reap the benefits in the form of reduced costs, access flexibility, customization and more.

Think about the water and electricity in your home: you probably don’t analyze how those things get there. They’re just there. But there because of a complex chain of inner systems working to instantly provide you with those things. Clouds are similar, only instead of not having to fetch your own water or physically hook up your own electricity, cloud computing makes it so businesses don’t have to spend time and money on expensive hardware installations and clients can, for example, quickly and easily purchase products on your website or find and interact with your company on Facebook.

Taking Your Business “To the Cloud!”

Businesses are spending more time and money on the traditional infrastructure of engineering and design than they have to. Clouds can cut back on that time and money by helping a business separate the IT infrastructure from the business’ other necessary operations when the Cloud is assigned customized engineering and design resources to maintain and update, thus reducing overhead and allowing more room for the company to create or take on new projects and concentrate rather on being fresh and innovative.

Google, HP, Microsoft and Amazon are among the most popular cloud service providers in the world. At Organic Workflow, we use Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a web service that makes it easy to compute within that cloud as information expands and contracts (that’s where “elastic” comes into play) — without having to purchase new, multiple servers – that alone saves money for the business (us, in this case) and the client (you)!

And this is really cool – the amount of storage actually used is what’s actually paid for; when more storage is necessary, more money is put into the Cloud service, and vice versa. Plus, forget about the time and money spent on setting up those fancy infrastructures; within minutes, we’re set up on a server with the storage capacity we need to customize a project. All you’ll need is a working computer with the Internet, and you’re ready to work. Without the Cloud, the entire process can take a lot longer; the more time spent on setting things up to make programs function, the more your business is set back.

Now, Bring On the Benefits.

Financially, it makes sense. You don’t pay for Cloud services upfront. Rather, it’s paid for incrementally as space is used, which means you only spend money on the storage you actually need, as you need it.

There’s lots of storage space. Small businesses can take advantage of Cloud-based backup, IT services and the fact you can move email and web servers over to the Cloud, which also saves money and provides a flexible, reliable solution to storage.

You get a personalized touch. With the use of Clouds, we can build customized applications for you that are user-friendly. This works especially well for us, since we pride our work on client customization as a key to success, and Clouds make that customization even easier to apply. Through the Cloud, we can even set you up with automated tasks so that you can order product, manage site content and receive event reminders.

Clouds are eco-friendly. Since you only pay for what you use, your computers will use less energy, thus saving you money and potential repair costs for overworked PCs.

You can get more mobile. Want to work your business from your iPhone? Want your employees to be able to work from home? Clouds make mobility possible so you can be more flexible with how, where and when you and your company work.

IT can be more innovative. Clouds handle the engineering and design infrastructure, and so your IT department won’t have to update servers or handle the same software issues they used to. Alternatively, your IT team may no longer be necessary, which means you can cut down on staff, thus saving costs.