| By :
Dirik Hameed
The IT arrangement in a traditional corporation provides employees connection via local area network. The savings over the paper system are incalculable. The ability to contact a travelling supervisor electronically before her return is a tremendous advantage. But standard arrangements do not allow true real time collaboration, for that extra capability one has to upgrade to a cloud server. Implementing a trial from a cloud hosting provider is a large undertaking. A demonstration using simulated data and programs, however, will not challenge the system adequately. To discover how well it will work, it must be evaluated under the constraints of real operations. The fact that interacting with other agencies no longer entails sending letters or packages means near instant feedback, a tremendous increase in efficiency. But the handling of an ever increasing mountain of electronic forms, spreadsheets and databases has recreated the problems a paperwork filing system once was. Regardless the format, it still has to be stored, then found and retrieved for later use. The problem with storage space is real, as time moves forward, the amount of information a company accrues expands, and whether it is on a hard or flash drive or a disk they have to be purchased, cared for and filed. New desktops come with more random access memory and storage space, but new programs require more, as greater sophistication and features are developed. This adds to the cost of analysis and daily operations. The real concern is not just that more space is needed, but the devices require infrastructure. Security for sensitive or proprietary knowledge to prevent outright theft, damage or denial of service can not be ignored. Every machine with this valuable information must also be physically safe and have back-up power supplies. The main reason to consider a new way to handle the global connection is what it means to the work itself. Network meeting software has made it possible to share documents and files while conversing with video streaming, but the products being shared have all been completed offline. Live interaction with the applications and software online in real time is not a function of these programs. When a group of people, each with unique expertise, work on the same problem, they do so independently, then get together to discuss future steps. In order for this collaboration to work, each member has to have the same or compatible hardware, and the data must be the same for each. As they manipulate the data, change assumptions and reach conclusions which could change the direction of the inquiry or solution, the project is modified. For all the other members to get the updates, time must be set aside for incorporation of all the individual input, much like the old way. The premise of an innovative information technology paradigm shift is to have a central server host all the data, software and applications, and multiple remote users have access to it simultaneously or independently. Determining how much better collaboration is when there is no need to replicate original and update information is the proposed advantage for switching to cloud servers.
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