Advantages and Disadvantages Cloud Computing

Tasks

According to Krutz and Vines (2010) it has been analysed that almost every company in the world uses cloud computing. It is a new concept or technology which aims at storing information or data on the internet also called cloud computing. By the introduction of this technology the problem of data storage has improved because they provide unlimited storage and the information which is present on the internet can be accessed every where as it only require a internet connection. It can be privately owned or the third party owned which means that if a company want to makes restore their data so they can put that data in the server of the company and third part means that when a internet users upload this information or data or a website which is not his own. The data available or stored on the internet can easily be backup. The aim of this method or technology to share information among every person who is part of that operation. A person setting in UK have reach to the content or data of person who is working in Australia. This method has helped a lots of Information Technology companies like Apple which has a lots of data because on it unlimited storage can be done (Catteddu, 2010). They can easily backup the files which they have uploaded. It is helping them to make growth and also helps them in increasing their profit and productivity. The data available on the cloud is flexible as it can be accessed from anywhere and can be modified according to their needs. Apple can connect to almost every company in the world or with a large population through cloud computing. We could see how cloud computing is increasing and showing the rapid growth. Any company following cloud computing process has a competitive advantage over its rivals. Apple provides “iCloud” which is used for online storage of data like mail, contacts, documents and etc. Other than this “Google Drive” is also the other option available with the users in which they can store data and can be used everywhere like smartphones, computers and tablets. As per the views of Furht and Escalante (2010) it can depicted that this technology might have advantages and disadvantages for a company who is involved in cloud data management.

Advantages

Advantages of cloud computing are as follows:-

Unlimited Storage

Storage is a big issue for the companies in terms of manual storage system or off line internet system and the common person also rely on the hard disk of the computer to store his data and when these both are gets full out becomes out of memory so than they have to delete the content or will buy something new for storage. They can switch to cloud computing process where there is no storage limit and co0mpanies can store as much data they want (Kumar and Lu, 2010).

Fresh Software

As the company releases or modify there software at regular intervals so this gives the advantage to the users to try new features which makes the storage more flexible. In offline storage they don't have this feature and other than this they cannot cannot modify or set the storage according to themselves. But as the cloud computing is growing it is empowering people to arrange and modify their data according to their needs because they better know which place will be good for them and how they need to be arranged.

Do more with less

By practising cloud computing Apple can reduce the size of their own data centres or can eliminate their data centre footprint together. This helps them in reducing their cost of servers who are used for the storage, software cost and the employees who are used for their purpose can also be reduced. So the IT cost will be reduced by adoption of cloud computing and this will also not impact their organisation's IT capabilities.

Accessibility

The data available or stored on the cloud can be acceseed anytime from anywhere with a internet connection. Factors like geographic location affects the manual or traditional storage devices as they cannot be carried. People working for the Apple can avail the information from anywhere from office to office or while they are travelling at some places. They can take their work to their house through smart phones, computers or tablets.

Backup and Recovery

Backing up of the data available on the cloud is quite easy and if someone wants to restore that data on the hard drive he can easy do it by downloading them on the external device. So if a person data is lost he can easily get it back through cloud computing, generally they can get it anytime because this data does not get expire as the physical storage system can crush or face some sort of software problem (Hofmann and Woods, 2010).

Flexible Costs

This technology has flexible costs because they cost are relatively low. Companies while adopting the cloud computing have to just pay for the server and the infrastructure capacity. Its maintenance and upgrade cost is also relatively low as compare to the traditional storage system. It lowers the expenses of a IT company because cloud is available at very low rate but in traditional the rate of the software may be too high. Companies needs to upgrade the traditional system which increases their expenses and its not one time investment but the cloud storage system is one time pay process.

Automatic Software Up-gradation

Cloud software gives the company the option of automatic up-gradation on free of charge but in the case of traditional they need to be up-graduation by the user and for this they have to pay for it. Company can also customize their storage available on the cloud.

Improve Collaboration

It gives the companies the freedom of sharing their information or data to their business partner which bring collaboration between them. They meet people online and can easily share their information in real time or they can also access their information as well. This is one of the restriction of the traditional storage system as it can be shared but manually. Cloud computing improves product development and customer service.

Eco- friendly

This does not harm environment as cloud means internet which does not require any material. But in the traditional storage devices which are made of the plastics and metal uses resources of the environment.

As state by Buyya(2010) it is interpreted that Cloud computing gives advantage to the companies to meet lots of firms at a single platform. Small businesses generally don't have much revenue to spend on their operation so they can use cloud computing to store their data and can only collaborate with the other big business to use their data or asking them to share their information, this which help them to grow at much faster speed. This removes the barrier and restrictions which comes in the path of successful business operations. Above mentioned are the advantages of using cloud computing facility. It provides them access to their information all over the global irrespective of locations and areas. There is no need of the physical hardware setup which is increase the cost, so the company can use the cost computing through which they can store wide range of data.

Disadvantages

Disadvantages of cloud computing are as follows:-

It is not important that it is always useful or fully hundred percent perfect way of storing data, there are various loop holes and problems attached with his which can be said as the disadvantages of cloud computing system. According to Zhang, Cheng and Boutaba (2010) it has been analysed that following are the disadvantages of the this method:-

Downtime with Internet connection

We know that cloud computing is a term which is attached to the internet so we could say that it is totally dependent upon the internet connection. Without internet there is no use of cloud computing storage or then the connection is low or don't have good speed. Cloud servers also go down with internet this badly affects the output or whatever you are doing. If you are working on a important project which you want to submitted in one hour than suddenly internet connection get low than it will definitely affect your performance. All the system will be of no use if someone don't have a backup plan when internet fails. So it is always advised to the companies that while selection cloud computing service provider that should make sure that he has a good image and has reputation in the market because you will be totally depend on his services or his server. So for this the company has to do little bit research on the company and should ask them for their servers on the trail basis.

Security and Privacy Issues

When you store your data do you realize about its safety or does they are protected. Internet where a lots of threads are there as storage are prone to cyber attacks. Companies should only share those data on internet or store that data which is shareable on the internet. Computing storage vendors ensure that their servers are safe enough and the hackers don't have a reach other (Modi and et. al., 2013). The server provider make sure that they provide fully safe and secured servers for their clients. Hackers all are the world are in a line to hack and access some important data of the company. People have to worry about their security of their data because servers are interconnected in the cloud so it becomes very easy for the hackers to reach your data and stole it. Other than the security, privacy is the next most concerned issue in this method and people are not aware that their information are shared. Companies protects their customers ID and the passwords to maintain their privacy. While logging from different areas location is traced so this makes it easier for the hacker top steal the information.

Cost

It is hard to predict the cost and savings required for implementing cloud computing. It may looks that cloud computing method is cheaper than the traditional way which is installed. It although does not require much amount for licence and infrastructure but does the cloud application has all the features that the software have and the business person has to decide whether missing features are important to the company or not (Sotto, Treacy and McLellan, 2010). If the company founds that some features are missing which needs to be added in this so for that they have to pay a handsome amount to add the extra feature. If the company use custom developed in house software, it may not be possible to move it to the cloud without an expensive re-write with is an disadvantage. To make sure that this situation does not come or to save the money they have to minutely look at the pricing plans and details of each application taking into the possible expansion of the feature. Like a company is buying a cloud storage server so they need to make a list that what features they want in that server and what are some of those which can be used in future. Clouds storage servers sellers charge amount for the transfer of the data to the server so if there is lots of data which requires time to transfer will be non useful way and the company wants to download those companies may charge the amount for this also. So the company should may sure that while making contracts with the buyer they should notify these things.

Inflexibility

It is seen that some cloud storage applications are inflexible in nature because the its data transfer becomes difficult. These types of applications only only transfer of the data one time so the company should make sure that they don't becomes the permanent customer of the that server seller (Cusumano, 2010). Applications don't allow transfer or conversion into the other system. For example a document made on google docs cannot be transfers to the windows office. Sellers or developers use this trick while creating the servers as they lock the features of the server so it becomes very expensive and impossible to transfer the data.

Customer Support

As the cloud computing is almost free or very cheap so the customer are overlooked because the developer usually don't looks at the requirements of the customer and if they want to add extra feature they have to pay for this and some cloud computing storage don't support the phone. If the company has lots of need they need to look for a vendors who provide technical support like phone, chat, email and other forms.

Data Ownership

This can be a big issue and could create a conflict that who exactly is the owner of the data. If there is lots of data to handle it becomes unclear who is the owner of that data which is stored on cloud storage service. Who is the real owner is it the uploader or the storage provider of the data. So companies should make sure that while making terms and condition they should check who will be responsible for what kind of data or they can create own terms and conditions when dealing with the cloud computing. If the conflict arises they can solve this problem by arbitration (Khalid, 2010)

Integrating Peripherals and latency

The company or the individual could face difficulties while connecting the wireless devices. Software incompatibilities can occur or issues related to time lag while connecting your system to the remote cloud servers.

Working with the hard drive is something for which computers were made so people claim that it is best option than cloud computing. So these disadvantages should be made in notice and the manufacturer should improve them.

Conclusion

This is to conclude that from above report that cloud computing is the important method of storing data and can be considered as the future of internet. It help the companies to grow and operation their business at faster speed. Through this they can increase their productivity and it has both advantages and disadvantages which assist companies in knowing that does this system or method is useful for them or not. They first nee to make a plan that what they wants from the cloud computing methods. It is cost effective because it does not require much money to be invested in.

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References

• Krutz, R.L and Vines, R.D., 2010.Cloud security: A comprehensive guide to secure cloud computing. Wiley Publishing.
• Furht, B and Escalante, A., 2010.Handbook of cloud computing(Vol. 3). New York: Springer.
• Buyya and et. al., 2010.Cloud computing: Principles and paradigms(Vol. 87). John Wiley & Sons.
• Armbrust and et. al., 2010. A view of cloud computing.Communications of the ACM.53(4). pp.50-58.
• Zhang, Q., Cheng, L and Boutaba, R., 2010. Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research challenges.Journal of internet services and applications.1(1). pp.7-18.
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• Catteddu, D., 2010. Cloud Computing: benefits, risks and recommendations for information security. InWeb application security(pp. 17-17). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
• Kumar, K and Lu, Y.H., 2010. Cloud computing for mobile users: Can offloading computation save energy?.Computer.43(4). pp.51-56.
• Hofmann, P and Woods, D., 2010. Cloud computing: The limits of public clouds for business applications.IEEE Internet Computing.14(6). pp.90-93.
• Modi and et. al., 2013. A survey of intrusion detection techniques in cloud.Journal of Network and Computer Applications.36(1). pp.42-57.
• Sotto, L.J., Treacy, B.C and McLellan, M.L., 2010. Privacy and Data Security Risks in Cloud Computing.World Communications Regulation Report.5(2). p.38.
• Khalid, A., 2010, February. Cloud computing: Applying issues in small business. InSignal Acquisition and Processing, 2010. ICSAP'10. International Conference on(pp. 278-281). IEEE.
• Cusumano, M., 2010. Cloud computing and SaaS as new computing platforms.Communications of the ACM.53(4). pp.27-29.

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