You probably heard the term Cloud Computing many times in the recent years. Possibly in sentences like: “Store it in the Cloud”, “We are moving to the Cloud” or “Just run it in the Cloud”. This term is all over the place, on your phone, your TV, and your smartphone. It seems like everything is happening these days “in the cloud”. But do you know what the cloud is?
In simplistic terms, Cloud Computing is computing based on the Internet. It’s a metaphor for a place on the web where you can store your data, access services or run apps. Where in the past, you would execute programs from software on a physical computer, cloud computing enables you to access the same application through the internet, without any concerns about storage or any physical limitation in your computer.
Technology is evolving quickly to adopt the cloud. Cloud computing allows you to use shared resources available through a service provider, IBM Softlayer, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services.
Why are numerous companies moving to the Cloud? The main reason is that the cloud computing increases efficiency, security, collaboration, automatic software updates and others. Just to highlight how huge it is: by the end of 2016, around 90% of UK-based companies will be utilizing at least one Cloud service.
Let’s dig in a little bit more to understand if it is that beneficial or not, and evaluate the main advantages and disadvantages of Cloud Computing.
Security: Cloud providers claim that Cloud Computing can be more assured than locally managed systems. The vendors provide you with several tools to improve safety, such as multifactor authentication, security patching, physical security, and security certifications.
Instantly changes: It allows you to test a new feature, product, config it or even perform an upgrade immediately. The infrastructure is rapidly available with elasticity and scalability of a distributed environment. Also, the latest versions of applications and services can be made available as soon they are released.
Flexible cost: Considering that the cloud computing brings agility, productivity, and quality, you would probably expect it to be considerably expensive. However, this is not always the case. The costs are very flexible as you only pay for the server and infrastructure required. On the other hand, physical infrastructure requires purchasing capacity adequate for peak times and leaving it to remain idle the rest of the time. The cost flexibility is one of the main reasons why companies are turning to the cloud.
Reliable and available: Most cloud providers claim to have an average of 99.95% uptime on their online services. That’s why cloud computing is notably reliable – the connection is always on. The three largest cloud providers: AWS, Azure, and Google – had together less than 24 hours of downtime in the whole year of 2015.
Data recovery: It is an automated feature that comes with all Cloud Computing providers. All your data is made redundant through the automatic backup system in the Cloud.
Availability: All your applications and data are widely available through the world. Anyone can access it with the right permissions via computers, smartphones or tablets. No need to share the content manually by email or disks. And it can also improve collaboration by allowing dispersed groups to be virtually together, sharing resources and storage.
Security: Apart from all the security tools that we saw in the section before, all the data in the Cloud is always vulnerable to digital attacks. More confidential and valuable the data is, the more hackers could target it.
Internet dependency: It is entirely dependent on the internet connection if it is down or slows, the services are as well. And the same applies to is having issues with its web connection while trying to access the remote servers or data. Besides, with a low bandwidth net, the benefits of Cloud computing cannot be utilized. Sometimes even a high bandwidth satellite connection can lead to poor quality performance due to high latency.
Support: Cloud provider usually charges an extra money to provide proper support to the customers. Otherwise, you will rely just on online communities or FAQs to get any help.
Low flexibility: The application and services run on a remote server. Due to this, enterprises using cloud computing have minimal control over the functions of the software as well as hardware. The applications can never be run locally because of remote software.
Incompatibility: Some tools, applications, and software connect individually to a personal computer, sometimes leading, to software incompatibility issues.
Strict Agreements: Service provider usually has a non-negotiable contract for the companies. It defines contracts such as service availability, security, redundancy, ownership and use rights, and others.
Difficult to identify issues: When you have a problem with your application it’s harder to find the root of it. The visibility is quite low as everything is remote. Could be a bug in the code, a hardware issue or a network downtime.
Regulamentation: It’s sometimes necessary to consider the rules of the country in which your data is stored, to follow the legislation which the data centre is installed.
Cloud Computing works out quite well for several organizations. It can spare costs of significant investment on hardware and computers with enhanced processing speed and memory, and also decrease costs on software and applications. It can help clients with internet access only to access data or applications from anywhere in the world at any time.
Even with all of these disadvantages, Cloud Computing has enormous potential for many business models as nowadays. And many others will join the Cloud platforms continue to evolve, the reliability to increase and costs to fall.
For that reason, Cloud Computing remains solid and has great potential for the future. And it is turning to be an essential part of every business investment.
