Question

Discuss three specific sets of technologies and why they poses challenges for companies. Social Media Cloud Computing Analytics. Your essay should structure the pros and cons for organizations, and discuss risks/opportunities associated with each of the technologies.

Answer 1

Cloud computing is now evolving like never before, with companies of all shapes and sizes adapting to this new technology. Industry experts believe that this trend will only continue to grow and develop even further in the coming few years. While cloud computing is undoubtedly beneficial for mid-size to large companies, it is not without its downsides, especially for smaller businesses.

Pros of Cloud Computing:-

1. No cost on infrastructure: Cloud computing is divided in 3 major categories as per their services like IaaS, PaaS, SaaS. In all these categories, one thing is common that you don’t need to invest on hardware or any infrastructure. In general, every organization has to spend a lot on their IT infrastructure to setup and hire a specialized team.Servers, network devices, ISP connections, storage and software – these are the major things on which you need to invest, if we talk about general IT infrastructure. But if you move to cloud computing services, then you don’t need to invest on these. You just go to cloud services provider and buy the cloud service.

2. Minimum management and cost: Since one doesn’t need to invest on the infrastructure, the cost of managing it is also saved. As for IT infrastructure, one needs to hire qualified staff to manage it.While on cloud, the management of its infrastructure is solely of the cloud provider and not of the cloud user, thus again cost saving.

3. Forget about administrative or management hassles: Whenever there is purchase or upgradation of hardware, a lot of time is wasted looking for best vendors, inviting quotations, negotiating rates, taking approvals, generating POs and waiting for delivery and then in setting up the infrastructure. This whole process includes lots of administrative/managerial tasks that waste a lot of time.While in cloud services, you just need to compare the best cloud service providers and their plans and buy from the one that matches your requirement. And this whole process doesn’t take much time and saves a lots of efforts. Your maintenance tasks are also eliminated on cloud.

4. Accessibility and pay per use: Cloud resources are easily accessible from around the globe – anytime, anywhere and from any device and you have complete access to your resources. This decides your billing also -you only pay for what you use and how much you use. It’s like your phone or electricity bill.But on other IT infrastructure, one spends the complete amount in one go and it is very-very rare that those resources are used optimally and thus the investment goes waste.

5. Reliability: Your infrastructure on cloud increases reliability and availability of applications and services. Cloud services run on pooled and redundant infrastructure which provides you with higher availability of your services.

6. Environment Friendly: Cloud computing decreases a business' carbon footprint by reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions by more than 30 percent. For small companies, the decreased energy usage can reach 90 percent—a huge money saver. It can also help a business project an environmentally sound image.

Cons of Clod Computing:-

Requires good speed internet with good bandwidth: To access your cloud services, you need to have a good internet connection always with good bandwidth to upload/download files from/to cloud.

1. Limited control on infrastructure: Since you are not the owner of infrastructure of cloud, hence you don’t have or have a limited access/control on cloud infra.

2. Restricted or limited flexibility: Although cloud provides a huge list of services but consuming them comes with a lot of restrictions and limited flexibility for your applications or developments.

3. Ongoing costs: Though you can save your cost of spending on whole infrastructure and its management, but on cloud you need to keep paying for services as long as you use them. But in traditional methods, you only need to invest once.

   With cloud computing, you pay the same amount each month to maintain not only your server, but also all your data. The choice you make may depend on whether you have a lot of startup capital to invest in a private network. Be sure to compare all the costs for supporting both an in-house server and cloud-based server to see which option works best for your situation.

4. Security: Security of data is big concern for everyone. Since cloud services are public hence it depends on the provider as to how they are taking care of your data. So, before opting cloud services, it is required that you find a provider who follows max compliances for data security.