These days, every second article and the newspapers are heralding that how everyone and everything should be moved into the cloud. Despite this, several individuals are still confused about 'the cloud' and are still unsure of its leverage and risks. As per the ongoing trend in the industry, there are several IT firms that are moving their business data into the cloud's virtual environment of pooled network and resources.

This confusion and reticence has barred people from adapting cloud computing solutions due to its hyped advancement and power. As a matter of fact, cloud technology is not new and has always existed with us in some form or the other. Basically, most of us are a regular Internet user, which means that we are already using the cloud in one way or another.

Let's take a look and examine how cloud technology is the part of our regular life:

- Collaboration: With revolutionized Internet, we are able to work together and share data with each other with just a few clicks. Be it anything like sharing presentations, documents or files with friends, family and colleagues, whether they are sitting at a computer next to you or on the other side of the world. You might be familiar with document sharing service, like Google Docs, or a file hosting service, like SkyDrive to share the desired files and content with a group of selected people you know, then you have been using the cloud.

-Storage: One of the key usages of cloud is for storage. There are a large variety of storage options that keep on appearing each month. Advanced applications like Dropbox, Google Drive and MediaFire enable you to store your files and access them from anywhere through the cloud. By this, cloud technology might start sounding more familiar to you. Utilizing cloud storage can be a great way to store your files and to free some space on your own computer. Using this service would mean to store a backup of desired files like documents, videos, audios and so on with the ease of access at any time.

-Entertainment: You may have not realized that several forms of entertainment prefer the powerful platform of cloud server to reach new audiences. A large proportion of Internet users will spend time in watching their favorite TV shows online or films on demand. The cloud means that large amounts of data and files can be stored and accessed by a huge user base which is a perfect solution for media-streaming websites and services.

-Communication: Email is another one of the simplest ways of using the cloud. Most web based email programs, such as Hotmail or Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo Mail, are counted as the most efficient form of advanced cloud computing. Your emails and contacts are not stored on your local machine;instead they are stored in the cloud, which enables you to check your email from anywhere. The cloud is a key component in many forms of internet communication.

-Social Networking: Many social networking sites like Facebook or twitter are also the best example of usage of cloud technology. With every single status update or post, tweet, you are using the cloud without even a realization about it. In order to keep their services available and reliable, social networking sites are associated with the cloud based service.

You may not think that you are using the cloud in your day to day life, but it is highly probable that you are making use of it without realization.