Running Head: Cloud Computing

Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud

computing in Business

Name

Student Number
Cloud Computing

Executive Summary

This.

Table of Contents
Cloud Computing

Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................................2
1.0 Introduction...........................................................................................................................................4
1.1 Purpose and scope of this Project........................................................................................................5
1.2 Background............................................................................................................................................6
1.3 Issues with Current System....................................................................................................................7
1.4 Proposed System...................................................................................................................................8
1.5 Stakeholder issues...............................................................................................................................10
1.6 Requirement engineering process.......................................................................................................11
1.9 Risk Analysis.........................................................................................................................................12
2.0 Social, Legal, ethical, Professional issues.............................................................................................15
2.1 Quality Plan.........................................................................................................................................16
2.2 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................17
References.................................................................................................................................................18
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1.0 Introduction

Information technology has emerged as a major ingredient of business and economic activities,
analogous to air and water which are essential to biological life. The information technology has
become so much pervasive and essential to our lives that we sometimes fail to recognize how
much we are dependent on it now. The information, data, and knowledge resources are
apparently free or incur least cost in the virtual world. The basic elements of conventional
information technology such as hardware, software, network, etc. that used to be concerns of
business owners are no more the focus. Now, concept and idea driven approaches to the use of
Information technology are in the forefront, and the facilities of cloud, fabric, and outsourced
online IT services are the centers of business solutions (Stikeleather & Fingar, 2012).

Because of its ease of use, and the motive to outwit the competition, the cloud computing service
has gained popularity. Many business applications are available in the cloud space and
innumerable companies are making use of it. The user company need not develop or maintain a
cloud, which is often developed by a cloud service provider, who has invested in the cloud
infrastructure. For example, Amazons cloud infrastructure is used by many business
organizations (Ha, 2009). Although the cloud computing is useful in increasing the competitive
advantage of a company, the cloud service is available to those users who has access to internet
on real time basis (Miller, 2009). Cloud computing is useful in conditions which matches the
specific needs and resources of a company. The cloud computing has various advantages and
disadvantages which needs to be ascertained in order to reap its benefits to the fullest possible
extent.

1.1 Scope of this Project

It is indubitable that cloud computing can offer huge benefits to the businesses. Cloud computing
is an on demand service that is set up in a remote location and can be accessed through internet.
An integrated service in the cloud is due to the unique configurations of IT resources in the
virtual world or in the distributive computing network. The architecture of cloud computing is
often uses highly abstract resources, has flexibility and scalability in deployment of the services,
uses shared resources such as memory capacity, processing speed, database , etc (Yang, Huang,
Li, Liu, & Hu, 2017). There are several alternative models available to the business organizations
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who intend to use cloud such as pay as you go, software as service, platform for developing new
applications, etc.

There are many advantages to enterprises by using the cloud systems, and there are
disadvantages too. This research is intended to identify the advantages and disadvantages of
cloud computing, so that the community that is associated with cloud can base their decisions for
implementation and policy making.

1.2 Literature review objectives

One of the reason the cloud computing has proliferated fast is that business community perceives
it as better than other computing systems. Wang & Laszewski (2008) has identified one of the
reasons behind the preference for cloud computing as the cloud interfaces do not put demand on
the business organizations to change their working habits or systems. On the other hand, the grid
computing, an alternate to cloud computing requires the users to learn the required commands
before using the service. Possibility of virtualization, the application development and use of
computing is simpler in the cloud (Weinhardt, Anandasivam, Blau, &Ster, 2009).

Cloud computing offers different types of services in different models. The three frequent models
are SaaS, HaaS, and IaaS. The first one is software-as-a-service (SaaS), which allows the users to
pay as they use the software, the second model hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) permits the
businesses to buy processing speed over the web. And the last model is infrastructure-as a-
service (IaaS), which allows the cloud users to pay for a specific technology that is suitable for
the need of the business. All models of cloud services have firewall and anti-virus features
attached to the services (Haag & Cumming, 2010). The objective of the literature review is to
identify the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing and to spot the research gaps that
can be addressed in this research.

2.0 Comparative Analysis

Some of the major advantages of Cloud computing in business are gathered from the researches.

Cost efficiency

Viswanathan (2017) explains that Cloud computing is a cost efficient approach to use, maintain
and upgrade Information technology for business applications with respect to conventional desk
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top software systems. One of the major costs in maintaining software system is the license fees
for multiple users; the cloud offers drastically reduces the license costs and other IT expenses
such as annual maintenance fees, up gradation fees, etc. Control of costs is partially in the hands
of the business owners, because they have various options of paying such onetime payment, pay
as you go, etc. The starting fee for cloud services is reasonable and affordable to smaller firms
which intend to use sharper computer applications (Evangelinos, & Hill, 2008).

Unlimited Storage

A cloud service generally provides large storage capacity to its users, which can be reckoned as
unlimited. Till now, no data processing job was hindered due to lack of storage capacity. Also, it
is easier to upload and transfer huge sets of data accumulated in the day-to-day operations
(OGRAPH, & Morgens, 2008). For example, Amazon Web Services is renting out storage space
in units of gigabytes for a monthly price, which turns out to be cheaper, and the processing
service is also offered at CPU hour basis. Both these services can be increased or decreased as
per the need of the business, offering flexibility to the mangers.

Software Integration and Backup services

Cloud allows the business organizations to quickly adopt the processing service without
changing any of their system. The need for customization and integration of application to the
systems in the organization is absent, and the business organizations can login to the cloud
service and feed business data for processing (Kampas, Tarkowski, Portell, & Bhatti, 2016).
Similarly, backing up and recovery of the data in the cloud is easier and less costly than storing
in the house devices. Most clouds have robust recovery systems, which enables the users to have
hassle free data restorations.

Easy Access and Quick deployment

The registered users to a cloud service can access hardware resources without upfront
investments and their information from anywhere. This facility of cloud processing makes the
business organizations to expand their business to other places without worrying on how to
control the operation. Another advantage of cloud service is the quick utilization of the cloud
services (Kumar, Gupta, Charu, Jain, & Jangir, 2014). As soon as the dash board for a business is
Cloud Computing

set, it can utilize the services in the cloud within minutes. However, setting up dashboard
depends on the needs of the business and the complexity of the technology used in the cloud.

Strategic Edge

A company that has its products and services focused on the customer needs can benefit from the
cloud computing immensely. By adopting cloud approach to data processing, a company can
avoid the costly process of acquiring hardware systems, developing customized software
systems, installation of the structure, testing it and training the personnel to use the system, etc
(Avram, 2014). Critical IT applications of the business can be deployed quickly without upfront
investment. The cost saving combined with focus on customer needs can enhance the
competitive advantage of a company and move ahead of competitors. The cycle time required to
enter a new market and introduce a new product can be reduced by shifting to cloud computing.

Although there are many benefits to cloud computing, there are challenges in using it. Some of
the disadvantages of Cloud computing are provided below.

Security and Privacy

There are many uncertainties surrounding the use of cloud computing, because it is an emerging
model of computing. When fossil fuel was invented, nobody thought that it would contribute to
the global warming in a significant quantum. Similarly, how the cloud computing will affect the
business in the years to come is unknown. Security of the cloud systems, which includes,
hardware, networks, application software, data storage, etc. cannot be ascertained. Privacy of the
individuals and organizations are exposed to a critical level, and whether the computing services
have the ability to protect the data and privacy is not yet confirmed (Voorsluys, Broberg, &
Buyya, 2011). Many frauds regarding credit card usage, sting operations on wealthy individuals,
etc. are occurring due to the inability of the system to protect the personal data.

Technical Issues

Even though the information in the cloud can be accessed from anywhere, by the authorized
users, there are instances of system malfunctions. A failure to access the right information from
the cloud may sometimes endanger an organization. Enterprises that depend on the real time and
mission critical information, cannot afford to system breakdown during the business hours.
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Cloud computing is not completely safe from technical outages and issues, which is persuading
the critical solution providers to move away from cloud computing.

Another technical issue is the availability of data speed, which determines the potential of cloud
computing i.e. the higher the speed of data flow, the higher will be the reliability of eservice. It is
the responsibility of the cloud service provider as well as the business owners to avail high speed
networks and also to promote open access in cloud computing.

Reliability and Firewall protection

Storing critical information in the cloud will expose the organizations to threats of hacking and
storage loss. The sensitive data protections protocols will eat away all the cost benefits achieved
through the cloud system (Almorsy, Grundy, & Mller, 2016). Establishing robust cloud with
firewall protection and easy integration is difficult to achieve. Reliability of internet connection
is another threat to the cloud system. Business applications demand service 24/7 and disruption
in data availability can damage the competitive advantage of a business in less time. Though,
there are data recovery tools, the downtime due to system failure affects the users in multiple
ways, hence the cloud service operators must establish a track record of reliability before giving
access to the services.

2.1 Research Theme (hypothesis and question)

The use of cloud computing is increasing and the advantages associated with it is undisputable.
There are safety issues which need to be overcome by use of innovative approaches to the
computing infrastructure. One of the ways is to store encrypted data which can be deciphered
only through decoding software. An intermediary service of encrypting the data and decoding it
must be introduced in the cloud computing. The data encryption and decoding of the customer
data must be carried out by a separate service provider, and the encrypted data should be pushed
to the cloud owner. While retrieving the data, the encrypted data should be decoded and
presented in a meaningful form to the cloud user. With this arrangement, data security and
privacy issues can be addressed to some extent. However, the proposed system must be tested to
ascertain the system complexity, cost and benefits. The proposed research may search for the
model of data encryption-decoding process and its suitability in the cloud computing.
Information coding by third party can enable cloud computing and data storage to be autonomic
and self-managing system for protecting privacy.
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3.0 Quality and currency of current literature

The literature review used in the current context are drawn from original scholarships and reports
by the practitioners in the field of cloud computing. The information gathered are from the
written documents such as journals and specialized articles. The research articles referred for this
study include theoretical, empirical and analytical accounts by the researchers. Most in text
references are drawn from recent studies and publications. The variables included in the review
are relevant, contemporary and critical with respect to cloud computing.

3.1 Validity and Reliability of sources

The current literature review adopts an exploratory approach and included most common drivers
of cloud computing. The literature is drawn from reputed publishers and authors; most citations
are from peer reviewed journals and has internal validity to the conclusions. Because of the use
of scholarly evaluated reports, the information cited in the literature review can be assumed as
reliable.

3.2 Research Gap and contribution

In spite of the disadvantages of the cloud computing, the migration by the business organization
to cloud system is ever increasing. In the present context innovative tools to overcome the
disadvantages of cloud computing has to be invented and tried in the real world application. As a
solution to the challenge of privacy protection, data encryption service is suggested. Further
research and explorations are needed to adopt this process.

5.0 Conclusion

As illustrated throughout this report, cloud computing has many advantages and drawbacks. But
it appears that it has more benefits than challenges. Second, the business community is fast
adopting the cloud and it is futile to focus too much on the disadvantages. However, the next
exploration must be towards decreasing the effects of disadvantages of cloud computing. A novel
approach to overcome the challenge of security and privacy issues are suggested for the study i.e.
data encryption by an agency before pushing the data into the cloud database.
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6.0 References

Almorsy, M., Grundy, J., & Mller, I. (2016). An analysis of the cloud computing security
problem. arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01107.

Avram, M. G. (2014). Advantages and challenges of adopting cloud computing from an

enterprise perspective. Procedia Technology, 12, 529-534.

Evangelinos, C., & Hill, C. (2008). Cloud computing for parallel scientific HPC applications:
Feasibility of running coupled atmosphere-ocean climate models on amazons ec2. ratio, 2(2.40),
2-34.

Ha, A. (2009). Who uses cloud computing? Startups do VCs dont. Available from
http://venturebeat.com/2009/06/25/who-uses-cloud-computing-startups-do-vcs-dont/, Accessed
on 1st May 2017.

Haag, S. & Cummings, M. (2010).Management Information Systems for the Information Age
(8thed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Kampas, S. R., Tarkowski, A. R., Portell, C. M., & Bhatti, N. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,235,442.
Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Kumar, R., Gupta, N., Charu, S., Jain, K., & Jangir, S. K. (2014). Open source solution for cloud
computing platform using OpenStack. International Journal of Computer Science and Mobile
Computing, 3(5), 89-98.

Miller, M. (2008).Cloud Computing: Web-Based Applications That Change the Way You Work
and Collaborate Online, Indianapolis: Que Publishing, 2008.

OGRAPH, B., & Morgens, Y. R. (2008). Cloud computing. Communications of the ACM, 51(7),
9-11.

Stikeleather, J., & Fingar, P. (2012). Business Innovation in the Cloud: Executing on Innovation
with Cloud Computing. Meghan-Kiffer Press.

Viswanathan, Priya (2017) Cloud Computing and Is it Really All That Beneficial?, Live Wire,
Available at https://www.lifewire.com/cloud-computing-explained-2373125.
Accessed on 1st May 2017.
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Wang, L., von Laszewski, G., Kunze, M., Tao, J. (2008).Cloud computing: A Perspective
study.Proc. Grid Computing Environments (GCE) workshop.

Weinhardt, C., Anandasivam, A., Blau, B., &Stoesser, J. (2009).Business Models in the Service
World.IEEE Computer Society 11(2), 28-33.

Voorsluys, W., Broberg, J., & Buyya, R. (2011). Introduction to cloud computing. Cloud
computing: Principles and paradigms, 1-41.

Yang, C., Huang, Q., Li, Z., Liu, K., & Hu, F. (2017). Big Data and cloud computing: innovation
opportunities and challenges. International Journal of Digital Earth, 10(1), 13-53.