Skype explains once again the changes in its architecture and the move to the cloud

During the last few years Skype has been abandoning the P2P protocol on which it was based in favor of a higher load on its servers. The change was and continues to be controversial due to the change it entails in the channels that follow our communications and the privacy problems associated with the new model. Therefore, from the company now owned by Microsoft, they do not waste any time trying to explain their reasons.

In a new article published on the company's blog Mark Gillett, CVP of Skype, again justifies the change in architecture in the fact that more and more people use Skype from devices other than PCs, such as smartphones and tabletsWith them they have to face issues such as their autonomy or the quality of mobile connections. This has forced the company, not only to improve its P2P system, but also to entrust part of the work to the cloud.

The biggest change came with Skype for Windows 8. That's when they started using the cloud to help users distribute messages and calls. Although the shift is not yet complete, as users continue to evaluate bandwidth, connectivity, and security to select the best path to communicate, cloud adoption is well advanced and represents the biggest change in Skype architecture in its 10 years of life.

Allocate part of the resources to the cloud also has added advantages The people at Skype say they can now introduce new features, such as video messages or the next synchronization of our conversations on several devices at the same time.And those are not the only changes introduced in recent months, there is also the adoption of Microsoft accounts or the possibility of making and receiving calls from Outlook.com.

The problem is what happens to the data from our calls that the company needs to collect to perform those tasks. After the PRISM scandal and the NSA wiretaps, Skype has been one of the services in the spotlight, so it never hurts to remind us how seriously they take their responsibility with the data they collect. From Skype they assure that to protect them they use all kinds of security mechanisms, starting by saving only part of the IP address and continuing by encrypting the names of the Skype accounts that they store.

No wonder. Skype users send billions of chat messages every month and add up to billions of minutes of conversations every day.Such a stream of communications is a gold mine for overly curious government agencies. User trust and the success of the service depend on the efforts made by the company to guarantee the privacy of all these communications.

Via | Skype Big Blog