Cloud Computing

Annotations:

•    Cloud Computing is the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer.   

1. Advantages
   1. Disaster Recovery
      1. When companies start relying on cloud-based services, they no longer need complex disaster recovery plans. Cloud computing providers take care of most issues, and they do it faster. Aberdeen Group found that businesses which used the cloud were able to resolve issues in an average of 2.1 hours, nearly four times faster than businesses that didn’t use the cloud (8 hours).
   2. Cap-Ex Free
      1. Cloud computing services are typically pay as you go, so there’s no need for capital expenditure at all. And because cloud computing is much faster to deploy, businesses have minimal project start-up costs and predictable ongoing operating expenses.
   3. Work from anywhere
      1. As long as employees have internet access, they can work from anywhere. This flexibility positively affects knowledge workers' work-life blanace and productivity. One study found that 42% of working adults would give up some of their salary if they could telecommute, and on average they would take a 6% paycut
   4. Automatic Softawre Updates
      1. In 2010, UK companies spent 18 working days per month managing on-site security alone. But cloud computing suppliers do the server maintenance – including security updates –themselves, freeing up their customers’ time and resources for other tasks
2. Disadvantages
   1. Possible downtime
      1. Cloud computing makes your small business dependent on the reliability of your Internet connection. When it's offline, you're offline. And even the most reliable cloud computing service providers suffer server outages now and again.
   2. Security issues
      1. Cloud computing means Internet computing. So you should not be using cloud computing applications that involve using or storing data that you are not comfortable having on the Internet.
   3. Cost.
      1. At first glance, a cloud computing application may appear to be a lot cheaper than a particular software solution installed and run in-house, but you need to be sure you're comparing apples and apples.
   4. Inflexibility
      1. Be careful when you're choosing a cloud computing vendor that you're not locking your business into using their proprietary applications or formats. You can't insert a document created in another application into a Google Docs spreadsheet, for instance
   5. Lack of support
      1. The second a company needs more bandwidth than usual, a cloud-based service can instantly meet the demand because of the vast capacity of the service’s remote servers.
3. EXAMPLES OF WEBSITES
   1. DROPBOX
   2. SKYDRIVE
   3. GOOGLE DRIVE
   4. ICLOUD