Cloud Computing And Small Businesses (Essay Sample)

CLOUD COMPUTING AND SMALL BUSINESSES
Abstract
Cloud computing is among the newest avant-garde computing concepts allied with the internet and the way people use computers. The expression "cloud" in cloud computing implies that the structural design is set up in a manner effortlessly accessible by users from anywhere, globally, on demand. Cloud computing lets a person access and utilize files and applications via the internet. Many people do not discern precisely what cloud computing is, principally since the word can be used to denote more or less anything that is computer related. Generally, it refers to computing resources provided as a peripheral service through the internet on the basis of pay-as-you-use. The cloud is merely an allegory for the internet, founded on the image used to signify the worldwide network in computing network diagrams.
Use of cloud computing and aspects of it helps small organizations and SMEs to change their old information technology (IT) structures into more quick, affordable and flexible designs. It can trigger of improved service levels, rapid business model innovation for companies responding to the consequences of the economic downturn and the pent-up business demand for HR. Cloud computing, also enables organizations to do completely new activities. Such cloud computing services as SkyDrive, Dropbox, SugarSync and GoogleDrive offer limitless opportunities for small organizations. In this report, I am going to survey cloud computing focusing on its effectiveness, shortages, and prospects for small businesses.
Table of Contents
* Introduction
* Effectiveness of Cloud computing
* Shortages of Cloud Computing
* Prospects for Small Businesses in Cloud Computing
* Conclusion
* List of References
Introduction
Cloud computing is internet footed computing, whereby communal resources, applications, as well as the information, are afforded to computers together with other devices on a demand basis. It is a paradigm shift from the mainframe to client-server first instituted in the early 1980s (Sosinsky, 2011). It expresses a new enhancement, consumption, and distribution mechanism for IT internet-based services and usually entails the over-the-internet bestowment of dynamically scalable and regularly virtualized resources. This commonly takes the appearance of web-footed tools or applications that are accessed and used via a web browser as if it were an application installed locally on a computer.
Effectiveness of Cloud computing
Economically, the chief attraction of cloud computing is that clients use up only what they require and pay only for what they essentially make use of (Jaatun, Zhao, & Rong, 2009). Resources are constantly available for retrieval from the cloud at any point in time, and from any locality via the internet. There is no cause for worry on how things are being sustained at the back of everything –one simply purchases the IT service they require just like any other service. Consequently, cloud computing has also been christened utility computing, or ‘IT on demand’ (Jaatun, Zhao, & Rong, 2009). This renders it more effective for it averts misuse of resources by the consumer of these IT services and products hosted on the cloud.
One of the major advantages accruable from cloud computing is that the service provider can upgrade or downgrade the resources that are offered to accommodated the clients’ alterations in needs (Marston, Li, Bandyopadhyay, Zhang, & Ghalsasi, 2011). This is very important because resources are not infinite; therefore, service providers have to allot resources consistent with the needs of end user's. As the service provider, rather than the end user, services the cloud computing database, there is an adept outsourcing of management of tasks. Thus, the provider is tasked with the maintenance, servicing and updating of both the hardware and software resources. These maintenance and upgrading responsibilities do not affect the customer’s experience and thus render cloud computing more effective (Jaatun, Zhao, & Rong, 2009). The probability of such a platform experiencing predicaments such as crashes is close to zero, giving it a higher operating duration with no hitches.
A basic action that a cloud computing provider accepts to accomplish is the adeptness to deliver computing resources on every occasion the end users need them. From the customer’s point of view, the accessible computing resources are just about absolute. Multi-tenant designs permit multiple organizations to subscribe to similar applications while preserving security and confidentiality of their information (Sasikala, 2011). Cloud computing allows consumers to amass their data online a virtualized form giving the user unlimited capacity. In addition, this stored data is not location reliant and, therefore, can be accessed from anywhere globally.
Shortages of Cloud Computing
The common quandary with this technology, no matter the platform, is that patrons cannot move their data from one site or platform to another. This obscurity of data movement is thwarting the efforts of some organizations to adopt cloud computing. The most palpable solution is the homogenization of the application programming interfaces (APIs) (McKendrick, 2014). Lessening of usage or subscription price would also aid in resolving the problem for it would attract and cajole more organizations into cloud computing. Presently, a good number of the cloud offerings are public (in place of private) networks, hence rendering the systems more susceptible to cyber attacks (McKendrick, 2014).
The next shortage comes in the prerequisite for audit-ability; this provision is chiefly for corporate data so as to be stored in the cloud (Jaatun, Zhao, & Rong, 2009). In instances where this data is accessed by different end users, then this may lead to bottleneck issues in relation to traffic and placement. Usually, cloud computing entails multiple virtual machines with different operating system using the cloud application or platform simultaneously creating this possibility. Clients and cloud providers alike ought to reflect on the connotations of placement and traffic at each stage of the system in order to curb down on bottlenecks.
Prospects for Small Businesses in Cloud Computing
Adoption of cloud computing by small businesses will front low cost computers being utilized to run cloud web-based applications for cloud resources (Marston, Li, Bandyopadhyay, Zhang, & Ghalsasi, 2011). This is so since such software requires lesser computer speed and storage space to run smoothly. The cloud also proffers such businesses with the aptitude to have precise specifications for hardware and software to suit explicit requirements. This will lessen IT infrastructure expenses, internally, for small businesses (Marston, Li, Bandyopadhyay, Zhang, & Ghalsasi, 2011). Essentially, a smaller...