Changes to computer thinking. Today, we are in the middle of a resolution in business computing. In around 2700 BC, Sumerians invented the abacus to make arithmetic easier, faster, and less prone to error. Since then, mankind has been inspired by the power that technology has to change our lives.

From Leonardo da Vinci’s first drawings of a mechanical calculator in 1502 AD to Charles Babbage’s difference engine in the early part of the 20th century, there have been paradigm changes in thinking, each time significantly advancing our relationship with technology. As thinking became more abstract, the more the advances in technology have accelerated.

Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers realized that the meta software should live separately from the body, or hardware. And arguably the most significant democratizing innovation in our human history was when Tim Berners Lee saw neural networks rather than physical or electrical parts, and from that devised a system that enabled distant computers to communicate with each other anywhere.

To understand technology’s current revolution which has culminated in online cloud backups, we have to go back to 1879. When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he immediately knew that his technology had the power to change the lives of every person on the planet. The light bulb was an amazing invention but there was a problem. There was no publicly available electricity. Less than four years later, Thomas Edison had built the first power stations in London and Pearl Street, New York.

People didn’t want the power station, they wanted the light. You could say this realization was the first true “light bulb” moment. Utility is the foundation of the largest single change to computer thinking this century; a change so great, you could compare it to the computing equivalent of the Industrial Revolution, a revolution that was fueled by utility.

It started with water; wheels were used to grind flour or power machines. It wasn’t exactly scaleable, factories had to be built at the source of that power. If the business grew and needed more power, it would have to upgrade to bigger wheels or up-sticks and shift the entire factory to a more powerful river.

Steam-power meant factories could move away from the river, but workers were still needed to run the power station. Every worker on the power supply was one not working on the output of the factory, so when power, electricity, and water became a utility, industry had what it needed, when it was needed. This meant the power station workers could spend time making better use of the power, and making the factory more productive.

Now, as with water, electricity and gas, computing is also a utility. It is a resource to be switched on and of. Users consume and pay for as much as is needed, when it is needed. This is the essence of cloud computing. Utility-based computing enables businesses to exactly aligned technology expenditure with requirements, bursting instantly from one, to tens of thousands of users, and back down again. Information technology departments can dynamically scale processing, memory, and storage, only ever paid for the amount that is used.

Before the revolution, in the dark ages of computing, companies bought technology based on what they guessed they might need in three years time. If they bought too little, they ran the risk of having underperforming systems, meaning unhappy customers and possibly lower profits, so it was better to buy more just in case.

Today, any sized business can have access to the security, compliance, transparency, scalability, and reliability of systems which, until now, have only been affordable to the largest companies on the planet. Like the pioneers of the Industrial Revolution, the businesses of tomorrow understand that the power of technology lies in what it delivers to them and their customers.

Today, successful businesses need to serve their customers faster and better than ever before, and they need to empower their employees with the latest technology.

Business needs communication, collaboration, customer relationships, enterprise resource, logistics, finances, and human resource software. These essential services are the light bulbs of modern computing; and Databarracks is your power station. Databarracks; switching on the light bulbs of tomorrow.