Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing in Business

Question: Write about theAdvantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing in Business. Answer: Introduction Information technology has emerged as a major ingredient of business and economic activities, analogous to air and water which are essential to biological life. The information technology has become so much pervasive and essential to our lives that we sometimes fail to recognize how much we are dependent on it now. The information, data, and knowledge resources are apparently free or incur least cost in the virtual world. The basic elements of conventional information technology such as hardware, software, network, etc. that used to be concerns of business owners are no more the focus. Now, concept and idea driven approaches to the use of Information technology are in the forefront, and the facilities of cloud, fabric, and outsourced online IT services are the centers of business solutions (Stikeleather Fingar, 2012). Because of its ease of use, and the motive to outwit the competition, the cloud computing service has gained popularity. Many business applications are available in the cloud space and innumerable companies are making use of it. The user company need not develop or maintain a cloud, which is often developed by a cloud service provider, who has invested in the cloud infrastructure. For example, Amazons cloud infrastructure is used by many business organizations (Ha, 2009). Although the cloud computing is useful in increasing the competitive advantage of a company, the cloud service is available to those users who has access to internet on real time basis (Miller, 2009). Cloud computing is useful in conditions which matches the specific needs and resources of a company. The cloud computing has various advantages and disadvantages which needs to be ascertained in order to reap its benefits to the fullest possible extent. Scope of this Project It is indubitable that cloud computing can offer huge benefits to the businesses. Cloud computing is an on-demand service that is set up in a remote location and can be accessed through internet. An integrated service in the cloud is due to the unique configurations of IT resources in the virtual world or in the distributive computing network. The architecture of cloud computing is often uses highly abstract resources, has flexibility and scalability in deployment of the services, uses shared resources such as memory capacity, processing speed, database , etc. (Yang, Huang, Li, Liu, Hu, 2017). There are several alternative models available to the business organizations who intend to use cloud such as pay as you go, software as service, platform for developing new applications, etc. There are many advantages to enterprises by using the cloud systems, and there are disadvantages too. This research is intended to identify the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing, so that the community that is associated with cloud can base their decisions for implementation and policy making. Literature Review Objectives One of the reason the cloud computing has proliferated fast is that business community perceives it as better than other computing systems. Wang Laszewski (2008) has identified one of the reasons behind the preference for cloud computing as the cloud interfaces do not put demand on the business organizations to change their working habits or systems. On the other hand, the grid computing, an alternate to cloud computing requires the users to learn the required commands before using the service. Possibility of virtualization, the application development and use of computing is simpler in the cloud (Weinhardt, Anandasivam, Blau, Ster, 2009). Cloud computing offers different types of services in different models. The three frequent models are SaaS, HaaS, and IaaS. The first one is software-as-a-service (SaaS), which allows the users to pay as they use the software, the second model hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) permits the businesses to buy processing speed over the web. And the last model is infrastructure-as a-service (IaaS), which allows the cloud users to pay for a specific technology that is suitable for the need of the business. All models of cloud services have firewall and anti-virus features attached to the services (Haag Cumming, 2010). The objective of the literature review is to identify the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing and to spot the research gaps that can be addressed in this research. Comparative Analysis Some of the major advantages of Cloud computing in business are gathered from the researches. Cost Efficiency Viswanathan (2017) explains that Cloud computing is a cost-efficient approach to use, maintain and upgrade Information technology for business applications with respect to conventional desk top software systems. One of the major costs in maintaining software system is the license fees for multiple users; the cloud offers drastically reduces the license costs and other IT expenses such as annual maintenance fees, up gradation fees, etc. Control of costs is partially in the hands of the business owners, because they have various options of paying such onetime payment, pay as you go, etc. The starting fee for cloud services is reasonable and affordable to smaller firms which intend to use sharper computer applications (Evangelinos, Hill, 2008). Unlimited Storage A cloud service generally provides large storage capacity to its users, which can be reckoned as unlimited. Till now, no data processing job was hindered due to lack of storage capacity. Also, it is easier to upload and transfer huge sets of data accumulated in the day-to-day operations (OGRAPH, Morgens, 2008). For example, Amazon Web Services is renting out storage space in units of gigabytes for a monthly price, which turns out to be cheaper, and the processing service is also offered at CPU hour basis. Both these services can be increased or decreased as per the need of the business, offering flexibility to the mangers. Software Integration and Backup services Cloud allows the business organizations to quickly adopt the processing service without changing any of their system. The need for customization and integration of application to the systems in the organization is absent, and the business organizations can login to the cloud service and feed business data for processing (Kampas, Tarkowski, Portell, Bhatti, 2016). Similarly, backing up and recovery of the data in the cloud is easier and less costly than storing in the house devices. Most clouds have robust recovery systems, which enables the users to have hassle free data restorations. Easy Access and Quick Deployment The registered users to a cloud service can access hardware resources without upfront investments and their information from anywhere. This facility of cloud processing makes the business organizations to expand their business to other places without worrying on how to control the operation. Another advantage of cloud service is the quick utilization of the cloud services (Kumar, Gupta, Charu, Jain, Jangir, 2014). As soon as the dash board for a business is set, it can utilize the services in the cloud within minutes. However, setting up dashboard depends on the needs of the business and the complexity of the technology used in the cloud. Strategic Edge A company that has its products and services focused on the customer needs can benefit from the cloud computing immensely. By adopting cloud approach to data processing, a company can avoid the costly process of acquiring hardware systems, developing customized software systems, installation of the structure, testing it and training the personnel to use the system, etc. (Avram, 2014). Critical IT applications of the business can be deployed quickly without upfront investment. The cost saving combined with focus on customer needs can enhance the competitive advantage of a company and move ahead of competitors. The cycle time required to enter a new market and introduce a new product can be reduced by shifting to cloud computing. Although there are many benefits to cloud computing, there are challenges in using it. Some of the disadvantages of Cloud computing are provided below. Security and Privacy There are many uncertainties surrounding the use of cloud computing, because it is an emerging model of computing. When fossil fuel was invented, nobody thought that it would contribute to the global warming in a significant quantum. Similarly, how the cloud computing will affect the business in the years to come is unknown. Security of the cloud systems, which includes, hardware, networks, application software, data storage, etc. cannot be ascertained. Privacy of the individuals and organizations are exposed to a critical level, and whether the computing services have the ability to protect the data and privacy is not yet confirmed (Voorsluys, Broberg, Buyya, 2011). Many frauds regarding credit card usage, sting operations on wealthy individuals, etc. are occurring due to the inability of the system to protect the personal data. Technical Issues Even though the information in the cloud can be accessed from anywhere, by the authorized users, there are instances of system malfunctions. A failure to access the right information from the cloud may sometimes endanger an organization. Enterprises that depend on the real time and mission critical information, cannot afford to system breakdown during the business hours. Cloud computing is not completely safe from technical outages and issues, which is persuading the critical solution providers to move away from cloud computing. Another technical issue is the availability of data speed, which determines the potential of cloud computing i.e. the higher the speed of data flow, the higher will be the reliability of eservice. It is the responsibility of the cloud service provider as well as the business owners to avail high speed networks and also to promote open access in cloud computing. Reliability and Firewall Protection Storing critical information in the cloud will expose the organizations to threats of hacking and storage loss. The sensitive data protections protocols will eat away all the cost benefits achieved through the cloud system (Almorsy, Grundy, Mller, 2016). Establishing robust cloud with firewall protection and easy integration is difficult to achieve. Reliability of internet connection is another threat to the cloud system. Business applications demand service 24/7 and disruption in data availability can damage the competitive advantage of a business in less time. Though, there are data recovery tools, the downtime due to system failure affects the users in multiple ways, hence the cloud service operators must establish a track record of reliability before giving access to the services. Research Theme (Hypothesis and Question) The use of cloud computing is increasing and the advantages associated with it is undisputable. There are safety issues which need to be overcome by use of innovative approaches to the computing infrastructure. One of the ways is to store encrypted data which can be deciphered only through decoding software. An intermediary service of encrypting the data and decoding it must be introduced in the cloud computing. The data encryption and decoding of the customer data must be carried out by a separate service provider, and the encrypted data should be pushed to the cloud owner. While retrieving the data, the encrypted data should be decoded and presented in a meaningful form to the cloud user. With this arrangement, data security and privacy issues can be addressed to some extent. However, the proposed system must be tested to ascertain the system complexity, cost and benefits. The proposed research may search for the model of data encryption-decoding process and its suitability in the cloud computing. Information coding by third party can enable cloud computing and data storage to be autonomic and self-managing system for protecting privacy. Quality and Currency of Current Literature The literature review used in the current context are drawn from original scholarships and reports by the practitioners in the field of cloud computing. The information gathered are from the written documents such as journals and specialized articles. The research articles referred for this study include theoretical, empirical and analytical accounts by the researchers. Most in text references are drawn from recent studies and publications. The variables included in the review are relevant, contemporary and critical with respect to cloud computing. Validity and Reliability of Sources The current literature review adopts an exploratory approach and included most common drivers of cloud computing. The literature is drawn from reputed publishers and authors; most citations are from peer reviewed journals and has internal validity to the conclusions. Because of the use of scholarly evaluated reports, the information cited in the literature review can be assumed as reliable. Research Gap and Contribution In spite of the disadvantages of the cloud computing, the migration by the business organization to cloud system is ever increasing. In the present context, innovative tools to overcome the disadvantages of cloud computing has to be invented and tried in the real-world application. As a solution to the challenge of privacy protection, data encryption service is suggested. Further research and explorations are needed to adopt this process. Conclusion As illustrated throughout this report, cloud computing has many advantages and drawbacks. But it appears that it has more benefits than challenges. Second, the business community is fast adopting the cloud and it is futile to focus too much on the disadvantages. However, the next exploration must be towards decreasing the effects of disadvantages of cloud computing. A novel approach to overcome the challenge of security and privacy issues are suggested for the study i.e. data encryption by an agency before pushing the data into the cloud database. References Almorsy, M., Grundy, J., Mller, I. (2016). 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