The Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

With cloud computing, data and software are uploaded on a server’s network with fast internet connectivity in the data center of a cloud service provider. Servers are accessed by a client from the Cloud using a device with an internet connection. Cloud computing services are beneficial. However, they have their downsides as well. The advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing are listed below.

 

Cloud Computing Advantages

  1. Scalability
    • Cloud providers businesses with the ability to regulate the service by their current requirements.
    • The cloud technology can scale capacity up and down as needed.
    • Infinite computing capacity and unlimited storage capacity on-demand.
    • Cloud services offer flexibility through Cloud bursting.
  2. Business Agility
    • Able to handle expected or unexpected changes in load in the cloud infrastructure.
    • Cloud Businesses can reduce the time to deploy an application into production.
  3. Cost Efficiency
    • The customer pays for what they need, which results in a directly proportional cost.
    • The customer won’t provision and pay for the peak expenses as a permanent fixture.
    • Move from a considerable upfront CapEx cost to a comparatively small monthly OpEx cost.
    • ICT expenses are more transparent to the business
    • The customer will not have any depreciable hardware assets
    • The provider passes the hardware maintenance costs onto the customer as a part of the predictable monthly fee, and also there are no unexpected costs
    •  Technology refresh will not be the responsibility of the customer and not the Cloud Provider
  4. Competitive Advantage
    • Reduce capital spent on infrastructure releases to invest in other priority areas.
    • Organizations can respond quickly to evolving market trends and focus on growing their core business.
  5. Productivity
    • The IT staff can concentrate more on strategic decisions, developing, and improving core applications rather than maintaining or troubleshooting hardware infrastructure.
    • Cloud does not mean that in-house IT is not needed anymore. Deploying in a public cloud environment is just like deploying in a new in-house location. In-house IT needs to design and support the solution up to the application and data level and support cloud users.
  6. Availability and Reliability
    • All primary Cloud Service Providers facilities are placed in hardened data centers with redundant power, no single points of failure, and onsite security.
    • The service will be certified to the relevant industry standards such as ISO 9001 (Quality) and 27001 (Security)
    • The data center is built on standards by facilities, servers, networking, and storage qualified specialists according to best practice.
    • Check Service Level Agreement to see guaranteed compensation if the SLA has not been met according to the contract.
  7. TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
    • The TCO of maintaining an On-Premises solution should be compared to the TCO of maintaining a Cloud equivalent. The advantages and disadvantages of each are factored in when making the final decision.
    • It is not an either/or decision. The majority of companies who use cloud will have a mix of On-Premises and Cloud solutions.

 

Cloud Computing Disadvantages

  1. Downtime
    • Since the management of the physical parties on the cloud provider, the reliability is only as good as managing and keeping their data center.
    • If you believe in the quality of brands, you have limited control to choose what device brands the cloud provider offers.
  2. Contacts and Lock-ins
    • Suppose you are early on adopting cloud technology for a specific service you subscribed to and is not yet developed for portability. In that case, you may find yourself tied up to a particular provider.
    • If all the features from one provider to another exist, yet you want to migrate because other cloud service providers offer a cheaper deal, Vendor lock-in may prevent you from doing so.
  3. Vulnerability
    • In cloud hosting, every device that has an internet connection can connect to the service. If the staff is not well aware of attacks like social engineering, essential data could be leaked or lost.
    • A company should provide proper support to end-users to ensure that their devices like OTP or USB tokens are well kept.

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