Comparison of office solutions in the cloud in case of Office 365 and Google Apps

Računalništvo v oblaku je postalo eno izmed vodilnih IT rešitev v mnogih podjetjih. Predvsem zmanjševanje stroškov, izguba potrebe po IT specialistih in lokalnih strežnikih je za podjetja dober razlog za prehod na oblačne storitve. Podjetja s celotno infrastrukturo v oblaku se lahko osredotočijo na svojo primarno dejavnost in prepustijo vzdrževanje in posodabljanje strežnikov ponudnikom oblačnih storitev. Prehod v oblak je prinesel nove potrebe po orodjih in storitvah, s katerimi bi zaposlenim olajšali delo v podjetju in bi se lahko odrekli veliki količini fizičnih dokumentov. Tukaj nastopijo pisarniške rešitve v oblaku. Veliko podjetij se je poglobilo v razvoj teh pisarniških rešitev, ki med drugim vsebujejo ustvarjanje datotek in predstavitev, shranjevanje le-teh v oblak, lažjo komunikacijo in sodelovanje z drugimi zaposlenimi in veliko več. S tem ni več potrebe po fizičnih pisarnah, saj pisarna v oblaku posamezniku omogoča dostop do vseh informacij preko prenosnega računalnika, tabličnega računalnika in tudi pametnega telefona preko internetne povezave. Tudi če so te oblačne storitve za uporabnike zelo privlačne, tako za podjetja kot tudi za druge uporabnike, je v ozadju vedno vprašanje varnosti in zasebnosti. Glede na to, da točno ne vemo, kje se fizični strežnik nahaja in kdo točno z njim upravlja, je tveganje zelo veliko, vendar ponudniki teh rešitev dnevno izboljšujejo njihove rešitve in uporabnikom omogočajo varno uporabo. V diplomskem projektu smo poleg teoretičnih izhodišč, kaj je računalništvo v oblaku in kaj so pisarniške rešitve v oblaku, predstavili tudi dve vodilni podjetji na tem področju: Google in Microsoft. V praktičnem delu smo opisali obe podjetji ter na kratko razložili nekaj storitev, ki jih v sklopu svojih pisarniških rešitev v oblaku nudijo. Ti rešitvi sta Googlov Google Apps in Microsoftov Office 365, usmerjeni na brezplačni rešitvi, in sicer na strani Googla brezplačno za vse, na strani Microsofta pa brezplačno za študente. Na koncu smo rešitvi še primerjali po številnih značilnostih in ugotovitve tudi zapisali.Cloud Computing became one of the leading IT solutions in many companies. Reduced costs, loss of the need for IT specialists and local servers, are a good reason for companies for the transition to cloud services. Companies with their whole infrastructure in the cloud can focus more on their primary business and leave the maintenance and updates of servers to cloud solution providers. The transition to cloud computing has brought new needs for tools and services that would facilitate the work for employees in the company and negate the need of physical documents. That is where office solutions in the cloud occur. Many companies have worked towards the development of office solutions, which include upon others the creation of documents and presentations, saving them in the cloud, easy communication and cooperation with other employees and a lot more. Whit these the need for physical offices vanishes, because the office in the cloud offers the user access to all information via a laptop, tablet and smart phone trough an internet connection. Even if these cloud services are very attractive for users, for companies as for others, there is always the question of security and privacy in the background. Given that we do not know exactly where the physical server is and exactly who operates with it, the risks are very high, but the providers of these solutions daily improve their solutions and enable users a secure usage. In the diploma project, in addition to the theoretical bases of what cloud computing is and what offices in the cloud are, we have also presented two leading companies in this field: Google and Microsoft. In the practical part we described the two companies and briefly explained a few services that are within their office cloud solution offers. These solutions are Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365, focused on the free solutions offered from Google that is free to all, and the Microsoft solution free of charge for students. Finally, we compared the solutions according to a number of their characteristics and wrote our conclusion down