Is It time for cloud computing (Page 223)

1.What businesses benefits do cloud-computing services provide? What problems do they solve?

Cloud computing service provides businesses the benefits of potential cost savings, ease of sharing data and application, quickly find the desired information your seeking, automatic backup, reduced support and maintenance costs and improve the efficiencies.  

With Amazon, cloud computing helps Amazon get a large amount of computing resources, helps separate and allocate and arrange their resources and improves the work efficiency.The benefits of using cloud computing service include:

• Can store large amounts of data and information, it helps the company a lot to store the important data and information.

• It helps us build a large database and do not need large space.

• Can help us to quickly find the desired information from the stored data and information.

Cloud computing service improves the work efficiency and helps to solve the problems faced by the companies, for instances:

• Amazon has used the Web services division (AWS), which helps to get a large amount of computing resources (separate, allocate and arrange computing resources). Cloud computing helps Amazon to save costs and increase profits even spend more time on other work which had more values.

• It helps to improve the response time for the customer. InterContinental company lets their customers receive data faster if the data is located on a server that is physically close to them.

2.What are the disadvantages of cloud computing?

There are two major disadvantages of using cloud computing. The first disadvantage is reliability. As the case points out, Amazon’s cloud service has shown significant outages in 2011 and 2012, causing serious consequences. There are many large sites are using Amazon’s cloud computing. This software will not only spread throughout Amazon but will spread among many others companies causing serious problems.

Programs always at one point have a failure they are not reliable to have to use for information; therefore a company cannot only depend on the software for information. The provider is sometimes not always there to fix the software fast therefore employee’s loose time and direct connection to the information needed. Another disadvantage is security. 

If something were to go wrong with the cloud computing system the remote contains all private and confidential data and information. There this is employees only way in accessing all the information. Therefore this leaves the company and easy target of hacking. That is why having the cloud computing system is very critical for a firm’s reliability and security protection.

Disadvantages of cloud computing:
Possible downtime without internet connectionCloud computing is totally dependent on internet connection. When the internet connection or network is down, cloud services are down as well. If your internet service suffers from frequent outages or slow speeds cloud computing may not be suitable for your business. Even if cloud computing providers take precautions to ensure that the network has a great uptime, the risk always remains.

Security in the CloudAlthough security in the cloud is generally good and reliable, established cloud computing vendors ensure they have the latest, most sophisticated data security systems as data security is always a big concern for businesses. Storing information in the cloud, it will be make your company vulnerable to external hack attacks and threats. As the servers are interconnected in the cloud, a hacker can breach one system and then make way into other linked systems.

InflexibilityWhile choosing a cloud computing vendor, be careful that the terms and conditions don’t lock you into using their proprietary applications or formats. There may be conditions, such that you cannot insert a document created in another application, which may be detrimental to your business.

Technical IssuesYou should be aware of the fact that this technology is always prone to outages and other technical issues. Even the best cloud service providers run into this kind of trouble, in spite of keeping up high standards of maintenance. Besides, you will need a very good Internet connection to be logged onto the server at all times. You will invariably be stuck in case of network and connectivity problems.

Lack of supportCloud-based services always do not have the best customer care support system. It may be difficult to get them on the phone or by e-mail, and they often don’t provide illustrated user manuals. Instead, they ask the customers to rely on FAQ pages and online community support which may be always very translucent.

3.How do the concepts of capacity planning, scalability, and TCO apply to this case? Apply these concepts both to Amazon and to subscribers of its services.

• Amazon must provide hardware capacity planning and scalability. With the development of information technology, Amazon will have more and more customers therefore their data but be able to store lots of information, this will help the company grow to become better. Amazon must bear the total TCO of its services, while Amazon is also needed to maintain the profitability of the company.

• Capacity planning is the process of determining the production capacity needed by an organization to meet the changing demands for its products. In another word, capacity planning is the process of predicting when a computer hardware system becomes saturated to ensure that adequate computing resources are available for work of different priorities and the organization has enough computing power for its current and future needs. By referring to the case of Amazon, they must plan its future needs to be capable of providing sufficient computing power for both AWS and Amazon retail services, they need to know that a lack of which will result the rejection by subscribers to use their services in the future. 

• Scalability is defined as the ability of a computer, product, or system to expand to serve a large number of users and handle a growing number of works without breaking down and having downtime issue. Scalability relates to both Amazon and AWS subscribers. Amazon must be able to provide its customers with services that are scalable, as it claims to do on its website: “Take advantage of our massive compute capacity and storage to build whatever kinds of applications your business demands, no matter how fast it grows or how big it gets”.

• Total Cost Ownership (TCO) is a financial estimate intended to help buyer and owners determine the direct and indirect cost of a product or system. Amazon must provide hardware capacity planning and scalability. With the development of information technology, Amazon will have more and more customers. Both Amazon and Amazon's customer requires a large database to store a variety of data and information and this help the company to grow. Amazon must bear the total TCO of its services, while Amazon is also needed to maintain the profitability of the company. However, the services' subscribers benefit from not having to worry about these issues.

4.What kinds of businesses are most likely to benefit from using cloud computing? Why?

Companies like Google and EBay are a business that is most likely to benefit from using cloud-computing programs. This is because the system can store and share large portions of information and since Google and eBay are big businesses, they need software that they can depend on. 

Another business that will benefit from using cloud computing is and large multinational corporation, this is because this software will help people from around the world with better connection and share of information and it saves in cost.

Cloud computing has begun to take off in the business world. Zynga is a good example of a company using cloud computing to improve its business in a new way.

Data Loss PreventionLoss of data in an information economy can be one of the most devastating things that can happen to a business. A company that previously had a great reputation could quickly lose its popularity if it loses a significant portion of its data. This is especially true if data about customers and business partners is lost, which can bring the daily grind of commerce to a halt. Since backing up data using cloud computer is incredibly easy, and requires fewer upfront costs, it will be the better choice for many companies.

ApplicationsIt is becoming more common for businesses to choose the “software as a service” model rather than the in house model. While common business sense might suggest that it makes more sense to pay for a product once and move on, rather than paying a monthly fee, this is not necessarily the case with software, especially in rapidly changing fields such as customer relationship management. These tools are constantly being improved upon, and choosing the pay as you go model allows a business to use the latest software at all times.

Tracking Employee PerformanceGlobal companies hoping to monitor the performance of employees, sales force, and various locations throughout the globe can highly benefit from cloud computing. The bird’s eye view provided by this kind of network software was very difficult to implement before the existence of cloud computing. Today, it is surprisingly simple to implement, regardless of the size of a business.

Online BusinessIt shouldn’t be surprising to say that online businesses will use cloud computing. The primary benefit is web server space. The costs of purchasing a sever and getting a website up and running are high, especially if a significant level of traffic is expected. Using cloud computer for hosting is the ideal solution, especially for smaller businesses.

Collaborative BusinessesIn order for large scale projects to be completed, it is often necessary for people who are geographically separated from one another to collaborate. Bigger businesses have the option of flying everybody into the same room, and there will probably always be cases where this will be necessary, but there are many cases when it isn’t. Applications running on cloud based software make this process very convenient. With the ability to communicate and share files over the network, it is sometimes possible to avoid the costs of face to face communication.