Cloud computing is the newest and greatest thing to come to computing. The Cloud has proven to be extremely useful in many applications, it allows extreme flexibility for people to back up their data and work from virtually anywhere they have a network connection. Just about any big tech company has their own version of the Cloud and for good reason too.

From tech giants like Google all the way down to hardware manufactures like Asus, there are many companies trying to offer consumers Cloud storage.  This is for good reason too, it is an enormously amazing investment opportunity for such companies. Take a look at this Chromebook with a very appealing price tag which has merely 16 gigabytes of storage space.

The reason Chromebooks have limited storage space is simply because Google has invested heavily in storage themselves and they intend on users using their cloud services. When many people think of the cloud they tend to picture that all their data is just floating around in, well, the clouds. In reality, that data is actually stored somewhere on physical hardware owned by these companies.

I for one have a strong feeling in my gut  that in the future these companies will place monthly charges or opt out agreements (which are a whole other beast that I intend to cover in a later post) in order to keep your data from being shared with third parties or backed up forever. I also can see the potential that the cloud has, which really puts me in a predicament. Luckily though, it is possible set up a cloud of your own!

There exists plenty of open source Cloud computing software out in the world that allow you to turn nearly any machine into your own personal Cloud such as Openstack. It is definitely worth looking into.

What is your experience with the Cloud? Please share in the comments!