Cloud computing: The future of IT industry (Research Paper Sample)

Cloud computing: The future of IT industry Name Institution Cloud computing: The future of IT industry Abstract Cloud computing is one of the developments in the It industry lately and is changing the mode and ways of conducting business. Cloud computing is definitely the next generation watershed in the industry. Clients do not have to worry on the cost of infrastructure for them to use the service. Computational powers are accessible on demand. The trend is expected to have an impact on organization's IT infrastructure implementation strategies. Keywords: Cloud Computing, Cost Reduction, Internet. Introduction Cloud computing has and continues to accomplish computing dreams that have been held for a long time, that is to have computing as a utility. Cloud computing has the potential to change the IT industry by offering software as a service making it more attractive and affordable. The hardware design and purchasing requirements is also following the trend and following suit as a result of cloud computing. Stakeholders in the IT industry do not have to spend lot of resources to purchase hardware to deploy their services. Developers should not have any worries concerning over provisioning or under provisioning for services which would affect their customers. Large organization with huge amount of data can get results of data processing in a quicker way at a reduced cost. This flexibility and access of resources in the IT industry by spending a small amount is exceptional in the history of the industry. This has made cloud computing to be a popular topic of study, blogging, and white papers. However, there are confusions on what cloud computing is and when it is useful. This paper seeks to look what cloud computing is, the benefits, its limitations and how it affects the future of IT industry. The expression "cloud" in cloud computing signify an architectural design in form of a cloud that is simply reachable by users from any part of the world whenever they demand for it. Cloud computing is a platform for the next production of the internet and refers to the development of hosted computational resources both hardware and software and distributed out as a service via the internet in accordance to the demand of the client. Accessing the applications on a certain cloud is via the browser or a mobile application (Kalyvas, Michael,& Matthew, p. 7). It dynamically provisions and configures servers according to their needs – both physical and virtual ones. Cloud computing services can be classified into three: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). In the Infrastructure as a Service, cloud vendors offer servers with processing abilities, storage, and connection domains and they charge their clients based on the usage and demand. The Platform as a Service is a model in which the cloud vendors provide a platform that allows the developers to create, test, and deploy applications and services, which are later accessed by organizations via the internet. In this case, Organizations and developers can access an application hosting setting for designing, developing, and testing applications without having to worry about the complexity and expense that is associated with both hardware and software procurement, deployment and managing them. In the SaaS model, cloud vendors have complete control over the applications and the actions that can be made and availed to them. Access to the SaaS services is via the web browser. The cloud computing services are delivered via three major ways. They include public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud. Any customers can access the public cloud but access to the private cloud is limited to a certain organization. The private cloud is isolated from the public and is only available and accessible exclusively to a particular organization. The hybrid model involves combination of both the public and private clouds (Alai, & Chia-Lun,2012, p. 14). Characteristics of Cloud Computing Technology On demand self service: Customers have access to the cloud and computational services like storage and server processing automatically and does not require interaction with the cloud providers directly.Resource pooling: resources are pooled together to serve a number of customers. Diverse physical and virtual resources are assigned and reassigned dynamically according to the customer's requirements. Pooling of resources is independence in terms of location and the clients do not have control and mostly are unaware of the location of the resources. Rapid Elasticity or Expansion: users have access to a large or small amount of resources and services according to their needs. Access changes dynamically and user does not have to worry on restriction as the services can grow according to demand (Choi, 2013,p. 106). Benefits and success of cloud computing For an organization to enjoy the benefits, deployment, and implementation of cloud computing needs to be successful where deployment supersedes implementation. This is because utilization of cloud services does not guarantee uniqueness of an organization from its rivals. In the same way, rivals have the potential to implement the same services. Deploying cloud successfully means that the organization realizes some degree of uniqueness that differentiates it from its rivals. The overall benefits can be strategic, economical, or technical. Strategic is when an Organization has a Technological focus that leads to adoption of cloud computing to all of its main activities and operations after successful hosting of parts of them. Economical benefits are achieved when an organization taps the expertise and resources that are offered by cloud vendors thereby reducing the its total expenses considerably. Technical is attained when the organization is able to access the high technology and experts thereby minimizing the risk of in house technology obsoleteness (Garrison, & Wakefield, 2012, p.64). Cost reduction and control: Cloud computing is probably the most cost efficient way to make use of, sustain and upgrading. Desktop software makes a business to use more in terms of money. Adding up the licensing fees for several users can be outstandingly costly for the enterprise involved. Cloud computing can reduce the cost considerably without compromising with service delivery especially in the public sector. Cloud computing has the potential to reduce the daily expenses in an organization by consolidating their data centers. Storage, network bandwidth, and computation power can be pooled together and accessed on demand. Organization's IT expertise does not have to focus more on maintenance and but rather their effort are focused more on the mission critical tasks. Maintenance work is the responsibility of cloud vendors who host the hardware and software applications. They are responsible for installation and licensing and organizations can access the cloud from any place across the world via the internet (Garrison, Sanghyun, & Robin, p. 63).. Human Resource: Human resource department in an organization mostly deal with very sensitive data. This data requires to be stored in a secure place mostly in a remote location where it can be retrieved on demand in case a damage arises. In this regard, cloud computing can offer this service at a lower cost rather than having the organization set up a back-up center. Cloud vendors keep backups of the data stored in their servers. In large corporations and multinational companies that have operations and branches stretching across continents, data access, processing, and sharing can be hectic and costly. Cloud computing is an effective tool for fast and easier processing of data especially in the process of recruiting new employees, managing performance, and processing of payrolls. Human resource departments play a key role in the management and smooth running of an organization by interacting with employees and determining the best course of action to effectively. To achieve this, sophisticated software and hardware are required. The small firms may see this as an expensive undertaking to implement but affordable via the provision by cloud vendors. They have only to pay according to their demand instead of investing heavily on the It infrastructure. Cloud computing makes sure that organizations have immediate and continuous access to the most recent technological advancement, legal issues and other concerns affecting the human resource departments. This is because update of information is automatic. Human resource personnel worry much about the sensitive data they hold and work with. Vendors offer solution to their worries by means of virtual and private clouds. Private clouds comprise of refined security systems that isolate them from the public access. This gives a relief to the Hr personnel and the organization as a whole (Indranil, 2012, p.68). Real time data: Insurance companies can access the real time data concerning how a vehicle is being driven thereby determining the premium rates. An onboard wireless module is installed on the vehicle and is used to communicate with cloud servers. The device transmits real time data to the cloud where the insurance companies and other concerned parties can access the data in real time. The companies does not have to invest in setting up the infrastructure, but rather access it and pay according to their usage saving cost (Baars, & Kemper). Backup and Recoveries: All the data is kept on the cloud. For this reason, it's simpler to back-up and repair the same data in comparison to when the data is stored on a local physical server. In addition, most of the cloud vendors are distinctive experts in handling and recovery of data. Thus, th...