Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing
In today’s technological world, we have heard a lot about Cloud Computing. Every start-up, small organization, and extensive organization are heading towards Cloud technology.
But, before adopting any technology, it is necessary to understand its pros and cons. So, in today’s article, we will discuss the advantages and limitations of Cloud Computing.
So, let us begin.
Advantages of Cloud Computing
1. Lower the Infrastructure Price
Previously, many organizations followed the trend of in-house data centers in which it was the responsibility of the organization and its team to look after the installation, configuration, maintenance, and security.
There was no helping hand to support any issue that occurred technically or because of human error.
But in recent years, the trend of Cloud Computing has been multiplying, and many organizations adopted it or started adopting Cloud Technology. Adopting it will reduce the issues of in-house maintenance because the service provider will take the responsibility and support.
Also, the cost of infrastructure is already incorporated in the plan, and it will be split among every client of the service provider, which helps reduce the cost. According to the survey, organizations that use cloud services save up to 35 percent of the operational cost per year.
2. Expand IT Resources
With Cloud Computing, organizations can access many other resources for internal service deployment and changes in the projects that directly support the business.
3. Easy Management
Cloud Computing eases the IT management of an organization. For example, a small start-up with a small IT team that cannot afford to hire will focus only on managing the end-user experience.
As most of the jobs are done off-site, like software maintenance. The user is assured with perfect management of IT infrastructure at every moment.
4. Nearly Unlimited Storage Space
Earlier, the organizations had to purchase physical devices for storage purposes. But unfortunately, they also have some storage limitations. But today, with the help of Cloud Computing, the organization can leverage and scale up their storage as per their needs effortlessly and smoothly.
5. Environment Friendly
As the organization is free from the worry of purchasing the servers, it reduces energy consumption. And it helps to reduce the carbon footprints. Thus, Cloud Computing is one of the best solutions for the environment.
6. Accessibility and pay per use
The user can access the resources of the cloud from anywhere and at any time around the world. And this factor decides the billing the user has to pay only for the resources which they use.
7. Reliability
The cloud infrastructure helps in increasing the reliability and availability of resources. The services run in a group and an expandable infrastructure which provides the user with a higher availability rate of IT services.
8. Data Control
Another primary advantage of the cloud is that it centralizes all the information from multiple projects and branch offices to one location. Users can gain complete control over the info without visiting individual places for checking the knowledge .
9. Data Backup & Recovery
For any business, loss of Data is an extreme loss. And it will put an adverse effect on the image of the company, wealth and future business.
Thus, cloud computing automatically backups all the data on a frequent interval of time. It will help the users to recover data which has got lost or damaged because of any reason.
10. Automatic Software Updates
Cloud computing will automatically update the applications for users and the IT department can focus on their productivity.
11. Maximize Uptime
Unplanned Downtime creates adverse effects for the company. It can lose its customers, money and its reputation. Cloud Computing helps users to maximize the uptime of services and applications.
12. Stay Scalable
As the company grows its requirements also grow. With the help of cloud services, the user can increase the capacity in some minutes. Cloud Provider will provide users with predictable cost and eliminates the risk of managing the resources.
13. Save on Space
Cloud Computing can help the organizations to free up their office space. They also free up the stress of thinking about future expansion.
14. Occasional Batch Processing
Cloud Computing allows users to add and remove the resources according to the requirements.
15. Free Cloud Storage
Cloud is the best place to store the files. The storage is free, unlimited and forever secure.
16. Security
Cloud service providers choose best security for data centers and for user information. Sensitive information in Cloud Computing has proper auditing, passwords and encryption.
17. Sharing Capabilities
All the important documents can be shared whenever required.
18. Instantly Testing
The users can easily test new products, feature and update easily. The infrastructure is speedily available with flexibility and scalability of various testing environments.
19. Strategic Edge
Cloud Providers provide a competitive edge on their competitors. And when comes on the topic of accessing new and mission critical applications it has to be done without spending heavy amount of investment in time and money.
Cloud helps users to focus on business competition by offering latest and on demand applications. The provider does all the manual work for the users and company.
20. Collaboration
Cloud Computing benefits the employees to work from different locations easily and securely in collaboration with each other.
21. No Hardware Required
Cloud Provider takes up the responsibility of everything. So there is no requirement of developing a data center or storage center. But it is necessary to backup all resources for disaster recovery.
These are the various advantages of using cloud computing. These are the reasons why companies are using cloud computing. Let us now see Limitations of cloud computing.
Disadvantages of Cloud Computing
1. Operating from Cloud to On-Premises
The journey of migration from On-Premises to cloud is simple. But migration from Cloud to On-Premises is not an easy task. This process can provide a high amount of bills, and the terms and conditions are mainly in favor of Cloud service providers.
2. Cloud specialized skills
Many IT organizations do not have the operational team of Cloud specialists to look after the management of cloud services. Such Cloud-skilled technical staff is difficult to recruit, and the ones with advanced skills are attractive to other competitive organizations.
3. Downtime
It is successful to run the business on Cloud as long as internet connectivity is available. But unfortunately, when due to some issues, the Cloud provider faces downtime, affecting the company a lot.
And during that specific period, there is no possibility of any transaction taking place if the organization is wholly dependent upon the Cloud.
4. Restricted Control
After choosing the Cloud Computing Services, the company has abandoned control. The user can only manage the front end of an application.
The Cloud Service Provider will take care of the backend process. So the user will never be able to view the backend operations and the risks of data exposure.
5. Rigid Contracts
Many Cloud vendors have rigid contracts, which is a challenge for the business. But as it is a new technology, it is growing and upgrading.
6. Requires Strong good Connection with strong Bandwidth
The user must always have strong internet connection along with strong bandwidth to access cloud services.
7. Limited Control of Infrastructure
As the user rents the resources from the cloud service provider, they do not have complete control of the cloud infrastructure.
8. Ongoing Cost
Although cloud computing is cost friendly, the user has to pay the charges for ongoing services as they use it. And in traditional methods the user only invests once.
9. Security
Security is the main doubt for many users. As the public cloud makes use of the internet the data might get vulnerable.
10. Vendor Lock-in
As migrating in the cloud is an easy task and service providers will assure the users of the migration. But migrating resources to other service providers is a tedious job.
11. Technical Issues
Technical issues can occur at any time. To avoid interruptions the users can contact the service provider. Sometimes, every vendor fails to provide 24/7 client support.
12. Understanding Costs
Understanding costs is a challenging task. The user has to do analysis of the requirements and group them in two categories. These two categories are services which have to be moved to the cloud and which services should be on-premises.
13. Slower Backups and Restore
Transferring data to the cloud requires a high amount of internet. It involves significant latency to communicate and backups will take longer duration. The long backups will not affect the background jobs.
14. Varied Performances
In cloud computing applications run on the server which supplies resources to other companies. This means any attack on another tenant will affect the other’s business.
15. No Redundancy
Cloud servers are not backed up or redundant. The user has to pay additional cost to invest in redundancy plans.
16. Cannot do away with resources altogether
While there could also be fewer servers to handle, it’s not recommended to thoroughly abandon all of your servers and staff because redundancy is vital for backup and recovery.
17. Vulnerability to Attacks
Storing data on the Cloud makes it online but it is a serious challenge. A security breach has been experienced even by many tech giants and other big organizations. Although the cloud provides strong security measures on sensitive data , the cloud can be risky.
18. May not get all Features
Some Cloud providers provide only limited versions with popular features. Thus it is necessary to gain knowledge about which cloud services are provided.
19. Bandwidth Issue
It is suggested not to have a large number of storage devices and servers reside in a data center for better performance. The additional billings will be costly.
Conclusion
We agree everything in this world has some pros and cons. Thus, Cloud Computing also contains some advantages and disadvantages. But it can be solved by analyzing, and it will help to understand whether it is necessary and beneficial to implement for the organization.
There is no doubt in the future of technology, the limitations will get minimized and advantages of cloud computing will be more.