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There is a buzz word called ‘Cloud’ where instead of your software, hardware or platform sits inside your company’s network or server or even your personal computer, other companies will provide you all of these as services, giving you access through the Internet. In whatever manner this software, hardware and platform is set-up, maintained and protected does not matter as long as you can perform your work seamlessly every day. The technological world refers to this set-up as the cloud computing. Gartner defined cloud computing as “a style of computing where scalable and elastic IT capabilities are provided as a service to multiple customers using the Internet technologies .” This technological concept improves various businesses today in terms of creation and distribution of IT services through flexible and cost effective way of accessing its services.
There are three different service categories: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). In the case of IaaS, the providers are the owners of the physical location of their cloud storage. Among the known IaaS providers are Microsoft, Rackspace, Amazon, Verizon and CSC. With PaaS, these are common to the software development environment. In this type of service, they provide both infrastructure and the development environment. Among the known PaaS providers are Microsoft Azure and Force.com. On the other hand, SaaS supervises all aspects infrastructure, software and platform. Among the known providers of SaaS are Yahoo Mail, Office 365, Google Apps and Salesforce.com .
The cloud computing has three basic component layers. These layers include hardware virtualization, data storage and database management and applications and application development environments. The concept of computer resources to many different computers or application servers that allow different application system to run refers to hardware virtualization. This concept allows organizations to optimize the use of physical server resources and enhance the server administration. In terms of the database, an organization need not buy new physical servers to host various databases. With the implementation of cloud computing, part of the provider’s service is to offer database on the cloud that may run on various operation system. Applications, on the other hand, are available on the cloud developed based on different programming language, testing platforms and system management tools .
What is its Characteristics and Functionality?
Generally, the cloud computing is consist of five attributes. These include utilization of internet technologies, service-based, scalable and elastic shared and metered by use. The delivery of cloud computing service is through Internet identifiers, protocols and formats such as the internet protocol (IP), unified resource locator (URL) or any applicable web-oriented architecture. It runs through service interfaces that actually hide and facilitates automated response and are ready-to-use. The basis of its service features incorporates response time, availability, performance versus price and predefined business processes. Depending on the consumer demand, its service can scale up and down or add or remove resources as needed. While cloud computing offers economies of scale, a pool of resources can access these services anytime, anywhere without the need for an organization to maintain it on their own. Typical plans for availing these services can vary such as fixed plans, free plans or pay-as-you-go .
In selecting cloud computing services, the company should consider both business and technical feasibility. From the business perspective, the provider should take into account whether the service provides a customer facing service or back office functions. It is important that the definition of service level requirements is clear such as the response time, availability, recoverability and disaster recovery. With the implementation of these cloud services, the provider should also allow flexibility on the user access depending on the implemented workload in the cloud. From the technical perspective of the cloud computing, organizations must take into consideration the network and bandwidth of the services, including LAN or WAN, infrastructure requirements, shared environments and software as well as the related license, hardware, devices, etc .
What are its Benefits and Risks?
Different sectors, both private and public, have been experiencing the benefits of implementing cloud computing. In the case of the government entities, this organization have been maintaining huge amount of information and data that must be accessible to its partners and satellite offices. Sharing these data and resources through the cloud will allow timely retrieval of information, thus, faster processing and accomplishment of task. In the healthcare industry, sensitive medical data and information are available for analysis and diagnosis of diseases and their respective treatments. Availing of the cloud services will allow easy retrieval of data, analysis and recommendation of treatment for the patients. This will not only benefit the medical officers but also share its benefits with the patients as they can access their own personal record and history .
Works Cited
Cearley, D. "Cloud Computing." 2010.
Five Key Criteria for Choosing a Cloud Solution. 13 August 2012. <http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/2301766>.
Griffith, E. What is Cloud Computing? 13 March 2013. <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372163,00.asp>.
Grimes, R. The 5 cloud risks you have to stop ignoring. 19 March 2013. <http://www.infoworld.com/article/2614369/security/the-5-cloud-risks-you-have-to-stop-ignoring.html>.
McKendrick, J. 5 Benefits of Cloud Computing You Aren't Likely to see in a Sales Brochure. 21 July 2013. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2013/07/21/5-benefits-of-cloud-computing-you-arent-likely-to-see-in-a-sales-brochure/>.
Merrill, T. and T. Kang. Cloud Computing is your Company Weighing Both Benefits and Risks? PA: Ace Group, 2014.
Stenzel, J. CIO Best Practices, 2nd ed. New Jersey: Wiley & Sons, 2011.
