The history of Cloud Computing started in 1995. The idea of running an application through a browser came from the makers of Netscape. Salesforce was founded in 1999, before the term cloud computing was known. Salesforce developed a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, with which the contacts of a company could be optimized for sales and marketing. In 2007 Google launched Docs, a free online application with text processor, presentation tool, spreadsheets and calendar. Microsoft realized in 2009 that it could not stay behind. With Office Live, Microsoft offered storage for office documents. Only in 2014 did Microsoft switch to the well-known OneDrive. In 2015, the cloud became a household name with Apple's iCloud and Google's Drive. In 2014, 27% of Dutch companies already used paid Cloud services.
In 2019 that was almost sixty percent of the Dutch population. And this number only seems to be increasing. 85% of users work in the cloud to prevent data loss. Because nothing is more annoying than when your laptop with all your important files on it crashes.
The cloud is used by young and old, but the percentage among young people is by far the highest. No less than 82% of the participants in the age group of 18 to 29 years have an online storage for data. This is considerably higher than the percentage of older people. 44 percent of the age group between 60 and 75 years old uses the cloud. It also appears that 68 percent of the higher educated participants use the cloud, while only 44 percent of the less educated respondents do.
With the original Microsoft cloud, personal users had to purchase the Office package before they could start working in the Microsoft cloud. Today's cloud offers a completely different model: an application that is free of charge for small users. Do you want more? Then you pay for it. You can see that at the moment the applications are mainly used and have even become the standard in new industries.
For many companies, it’s adapt or disappear. Do you want to work effectively and efficiently? Then the cloud is a good solution. The infrastructure, security and applicability of the cloud is now so good that you as a company can no longer do without it. Working in the cloud also offers companies the opportunity to develop flexible business operations, in which they are less severely punished if it does not work. After all, you don't have the heavy investment in IT resources.
The cloud is so popular because it offers ease of use. It is future-oriented, offers a safe and scalable environment and everything is continuously monitored.
Personal
Learning to use the cloud is simple. Some computers, such as Chromebooks, already run entirely in the cloud. This development is expected to continue as applications continue to improve and the price continues to fall.
Business
It is very different how a company can use the cloud to increase your efficiency. The lack of knowledge has created a gap in the market for all kinds of consultancy companies that help to make the digital transformation of a company a success.
Management
Applications are currently changing often and quickly (think of updates). The management of a cloud system is therefore much less tinkering with cables, but much more the continuous optimization of the use of the cloud.
At 12Build we also work in the cloud. 12Build hosts its application at AWS Amazon Web Services, the world leader in hosting service. As a result, all data is stored in Frankfurt, Germany. By using redundant services (important components are stored twice to prevent downtime) we offer a scalable 'Platform as a service' solution. In short, this setup provides the necessary stability in services and security in data retention. In addition, this allows us to quickly expand the capacity with a high load so that the accessibility and speed of the application is guaranteed.