About Me

Understanding Smart City Technology

Urban areas around the globe are embracing the newest developments in modern technology by becoming smart cities. These cities integrate sensors and actuators and link them together to collect data. We were intrigued when we first learned about smart cities, so we began doing our own research to discover additional details and we wanted to share this information with others. When you read these articles you'll learn how smart city technology uses the data that's gathered to monitor energy usage in homes and buildings to analyze their energy efficiency. You'll also find out about smart transportation, which entails installing cameras in traffic lights to monitor the flow of traffic. We hope that when you read these and other articles on this site you'll gain a better understanding of smart city technology.

Search

Latest Posts

Understanding Smart City Technology

The Pros And Cons Of Cloud Storage

by Gina Reid

Cloud storage has become one of the buzzier words in computing, and it has many virtues. It's a good idea, however, to understand the pros and cons so you can assess whether your use case is a good match for the resources a cloud storage provider can offer.

Pro: Resilience

One of the main arguments for building your storage solutions on the cloud is that it provides resilience. Stored files are distributed across myriad instances, and that means it's much harder for even a catastrophic event to knock them out. Many cloud storage providers also maintain multiple data centers, ensuring that a total failure in one region also wouldn't be the end of their customers' data.

Con: Somewhat Less Control

Generally, most cloud services companies have a specific software stack they prefer to use. This means you may have to become familiar with their systems and configure your stuff accordingly. It also means you may have a bit less control over the environment. This can get a little tricky, especially if you want a Microsoft environment but the provider doesn't offer Azure.

Note that you can use a mix solution to achieve greater control. Cloud storage can be used alongside on-site storage, making it possible to maintain control of day-to-day services while moving things like backups and archives to the cloud.

Pro: Multiple Applications

In the cloud computing sector, it's common for providers to offer a range of potential applications. This means cloud services are rarely isolated to the classic use case of data backup. Instead, you'll usually find storage options available for databases, analytics, and other applications. This often providers a greater opportunity for customers to utilize resources, and that can make a huge difference if you don't want to invest in on-site systems.

Con: Internet Connectivity is Essential

A lack of internet access means you'll have no ability to access your data. If you have mission-critical components that have to maintain access to data at all times, it may be better to use cloud storage as a secondary component. This can be accomplished by moving less essential data to the cloud while keeping critical items in storage on physical systems.

Pro: Cost

It's hard to compete with the value proposition of storage in the cloud. If your company's growth in storage demands projects to be petabyte-scale 5 years from now but it terabyte-scale today, it can save a lot of money to operate in the cloud and scale up as the need increases.

To learn more about the benefits of cloud storage, contact a technology professional near you.

Share