Cloud Computing Report

·Introduction

Cloud computing provides companies with access to the software and applications they need over the internet, regardless of their geographical location. This allows companies to avoid the cost and time of having to build and maintain computing infrastructures. Today, cloud computing is becoming a more common and popular method of serving customers and doing business, as it provides new benefits and opportunities for companies to tackle traditional issues such has high upfront software licensing costs. However, although cloud computing provides numerous benefits and opportunities to companies, there has been an ongoing discussion of whether it is good for all companies to adopt cloud computing. In addition, the type of industry and company also play a role in determining whether a business should incorporate cloud computing. Examples of industries that may benefit from using it include the hotel, health care, financial and banking services.

· Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing in business

Cloud computing can help reduce a significant cost for business managers. The cloud computing environments gives companies the ability to scale their compute and storage needs up based on their needs. Meanwhile, IT spending are transferred from capital to operating expenditures through the cloud architecture. Thus, costs are easy to predict because they are directly aligned with the business’ usage and operation. Furthermore, it provides agility and mobility. Cloud computing is designed at high level of automation and self-provision. In this way, without manual intervention, users can still quickly scale their needs. Businesses can quickly respond to their customers’ demands and improve the service quality. Additionally, data and applications are available to employees no matter where they are with cloud computing, which can increase the efficiency of work. Lastly, communication and collaboration can be more efficient. Since multiple users have access to the database at the same time, this allows them the freedom to work and share information with each other. Meanwhile, it benefits the company’s construction professionals. Through cloud computing, there is a safe and secure workplace for professionals to review, work and share work-related files and records. Last but not least, it provides unlimited storage for business. Through Storing information in the cloud, business managers have almost unlimited storage capacity. Therefore, there is no need to worry about the storage space will be used up.

With these benefits, business can gain competitive advantages by using cloud computing. Nevertheless, cloud computing also brings drawbacks. Here are two main risks:

First, there is possible downtime. Reliability of the Internet connection is very important to small business while using cloud computing. When internet is offline, their business is offline. Once there are frequent outages or slow speeds internet service, cloud computing may not be suitable for their business anymore. How dependent the business would be on cloud reliability should also be considered. Sometimes, even the most reliable cloud computing service providers suffer server outages. Another problem is security and privacy. Even established cloud computing service providers are trying to develop the latest and sophisticated security systems to protect their data and processes, they might still be attacked. Business adopting this technology are at great risk while they are surrendering company’s sensitive information to a third-party cloud service provider.

· Businesses that excelled through the use of cloud computing

When Netflix was first introduced, the movies and shows were stored in hardware and physical servers as they were running through a traditional data center. They soon recognized that it was not nearly as efficient as they would have like it to be. Upon that realization, Netflix slowly migrated into more cloud dominant service years.

Similar to Netflix, Instagram has seen drastic increase in terms of efficiency after they moved from running through one single server to cloud computing. The result has been proven to be successful as there are currently millions of users on the app. Despite the massive amount of people using Instagram, the service rarely ever crashes due to overloading thanks to their utilization of cloud computing.

The introduction of iCloud by Apple in 2011 has been one of the most significant changes that altered how people store their datas. Prior to that, datas were mainly stored through iTunes or another device such as a computer. Although datas can still be retrieved through backup after one has lost their device, iCloud makes the process much more convenient because it does not require access to another device.

· Future statement of Cloud

Cloud is a new trend in IT industry. Not only small companies but even big companies started to realize its capabilities and potential to bring significance in their businesses. The strength of cloud is that it is very cost effective. Despite its cheap price, it has an ability to serve its providers more than what is paid. Flexibility also plays huge role in cost. Since its fixed costs can be converted to variable costs, it has effects on its fixed costs. Cloud’s flexibility is one of the reasons why a lot of enterprises want to use clouds. Cloud also presents a lot of opportunities. For example, cloud is directly linked to Green IT. Due to the fact that cloud has an ability to finish the tasks effectively with the lowest resources possible. With its smart uses of resources, this can also improve enterprises’ images.

Cloud also has weaknesses and threats. The biggest weakness of cloud is trust issues. A lot of aspects of cloud can become weaknesses if trust isn’t guaranteed. Customers will always have trust issues with its ability. Because of this, if providers can get customer’s trust, it will act as an advantage in the IT industry. The worst threat of the cloud is its security. Since cloud is not perfectly mature enough, providers and developers have to deal with this uncertainty. Developers have to put their efforts to provide better security services. Because cloud storage is mainly connected to storage of data it is always at a risk of frauds. In order to use cloud at its maximum potential, security has to be guaranteed in the future.

Through cloud, a lot of products that we don’t normally see in today’s society will be very common in the future. With the ability of cloud, smart elevators, driverless cars, drone taxis will be no longer unapproved products. In the future, these inventions will be manageable and safer. Additionally, companies can deal with data more effectively with faster and safer data transactions. The development of cloud will open new world for us.