Cloud Computing For Businesses: Advantages and Disadvantages

The report focusses on the importance and the impact of cloud computing in the business market. This report would be able to analyze the various factors, which would be helpful in influencing the business sector. The advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing in the business sector are discussed in detail.

Running head: CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESSES
Cloud Computing For Businesses
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note:

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Abstract
The report focusses on the importance and the impact of cloud computing in the business
market. In the recent times, it has been seen that cloud computing has a major potential for
helping in the business processes. This report focusses on the advantages and disadvantages
of cloud computing in the business sector. This report would be able to analyze the various
factors, which would be helpful in influencing the business sector.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Project Objective....................................................................................................................3
3. Project Scope..........................................................................................................................4
4. Literature Review...................................................................................................................4
Use of Cloud Computing in Business....................................................................................4
The Advantages of Cloud Computing for Businesses...........................................................5
The Disadvantages of Cloud Computing for Businesses.......................................................8
5. Conclusion............................................................................................................................10
6. References............................................................................................................................12
7. Appendix..............................................................................................................................15
Appendix A..........................................................................................................................15
Appendix B..........................................................................................................................15
Appendix C..........................................................................................................................15

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1. Introduction
Cloud computing is a new form of concept that is generally defined as the proper
delivery of various hosted services on the internet. These services can include various
servers, databases, storage, analytics and software. The different companies, which offer the
services of cloud computing are known as the cloud providers. These cloud providers charge
their users for the services they use based on the value of their usage (See Appendix A). With
the help of the services of cloud computing, different users and organizations can access
applications and software based on their needs, which would be hosted by an outside party in
the cloud environment (Dinh et al. 2013).
With the help of cloud computing, different businesses are able to manage their
resources of computing on the online platform. Cloud computing are able to permit their
businesses to access the information on a virtual platform and thus create a flexible and a
global system to access the data from any place and at any time (Chang, Walters and Wills
2013).
2. Project Objective
The main objectives of the project includes:
 To provide agility to the cloud services. The services should be able to benefit an
organization and hence provide agility for the business model (Huang et al. 2013)
 To enhance the system of budgeting that would be able to claim the advantages of the
cost of implementing the cloud services
 To implement the cloud computing services based on the geographic
locations(Whaiduzzaman et al. 2014)

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 To make an availability of the services in order to satisfy the requirements of an
organization. The organization should be able to classify the needs and choose the
correct form of services
3. Project Scope
In the recent technological trends, it has been seen that the cloud can offer a
considerable amount of agility to the model of business structure, improvements in the factors
of cost and various service efficiencies to the managers. In order to ensure about the adoption
and developing the strategies of cloud computing services, the requirements should be met
carefully (Oliveira, Thomas and Espadanal 2014). The scope of this project is to discuss
about the various advantages and disadvantages of the implementation of cloud computing
services within a business model. Through ensuring a proper business model with the help of
cloud computing, it can be effective for the effectiveness in the field of business (Gupta,
Seetharaman and Raj 2013).
4. Literature Review
Use of Cloud Computing in Business
Cloud Computing can be helpful in providing a range of services in the business
model. Cloud computing can help in setting up of the basic necessities of a business. It can
also offer to provide flexibility of connecting the different models of the business at any
given time. With the increase in the number of devices, which are using cloud computing
services for their businesses, the accessibility to the data has become much easier (Lian, Yen
and Wang 2014).
The cloud computing environment has the potential to offer several advantages for the
growth of the business. These advantages can range based on their size and the kind of
business patterns which are running in the market. The cloud computing platform could be

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beneficial for many start-up businesses. It can authorize any user to increase the profits of
their business and hence run the business with a minimal cost. The cloud platform also
enables medium sized business with some amount of limited resources (Chang, Kuo and
Ramachandran 2016). This would enable these kind of businesses with some limited amount
of resources to take the advantages of storage and the capabilities of networking. Larger
businesses mainly face the challenges, which ensures the factor of availability and the
performance of such websites that use high traffic and such applications, which are on a high
demand (See Appendix B). The cloud platform could be helpful for businesses to increase the
efficiency of the operation of the business, agility and productivity (Hashem et al. 2015).
The Advantages of Cloud Computing for Businesses
There are some advantages of using cloud computing for businesses. These are
described as follows:
 Focus on Business Innovation – The cloud computing could be very much helpful
for business. They help the major business giants to focus on the smoother running of
the business. With the resources that are being provided by the cloud platform,
business can be enabled to design the platform of their business and thus install many
such innovative services and applications. This would help in driving the results of the
business and thus would differentiate the business organization from their competitors
in the world market (Azodolmolky, Weider and Yahyapour 2013).
 Reduction of the Costs of IT–When different businesses would move to the cloud
services, it would help to reduce the costs of managing and maintaining the IT
systems. The businesses would not have to purchase expensive equipments and
systems for the storage of the data on their personal devices. This can be helpful in
reducing the costs of using the resources of the providers of cloud computing services
(Alshamaila, Papagiannidis and Li 2013).The cloud platform would enable the

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various processes of business to influence the performance and power of the
enterprise without the expenditure of the capital amount of managing and thus
maintaining the hardware systems. The use and pay model would be helpful for the
business to reduce the costs of control.
 Scalability – Different businesses can scale their operations and their needs of storage
to suit the business situations. This would allow for the flexibility of the needs of the
change in the business strategies. Rather than buying and expensive upgrades in the
patches of a particular software, the cloud service provider would be helpful in
managing the scalability of the business (Rittinghouse and Ransome 2016).
 Efficiency of Collaboration –With the collaboration of the businesses with the cloud
computing environment, they would provide the ability to communicate and share
their business related information apart from the traditional methods. Whenever
several business are collaborating with each other and if they are located at different
geographic locations, then they would be able to communicate with each other with
the help of a cloud computing platform. This kind of platform would be extremely
easy to share the business related records with their advisors (Wu et al. 2015).
 Practices in the Flexibility of Work – A cloud computing platform would be
extremely helpful to be much more flexible in the field of work. The platform would
help the users to access their vital data from their homes when they would be on a
holiday, or when they would be travelling from one place to other. Whenever a user
needs to access the data in offline mode, then they can connect to a virtual office
platform in an easy and quick way.
 Portability of Applications – When the cloud platform would be designed properly,
then the platform would be able to offer much more benefits of such applications,
which would be portable. The business related applications and their data could be

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moved from the traditional infrastructure of cloud computing. The improved system
of portability of the applications would provide much more flexibility to the way of
using the business data (Petcu et al. 2013).
 Accessibility to Automatic Updates – The accessibility to automatic updates for the
requirements of IT would be included in the service fee. The business systems would
be updated regularly with the latest technological updates depending on the cloud
service provider. The updates would include the updated versions of the software and
also they would be upgraded to the servers and increased power of computer
processing (Zhou et al. 2013).
 Focus on Core Competencies of Business –The automation system, if implemented
into the cloud computing platform would help the business strategy to a large extent.
They would reduce the working efficiency on the part of the IT field. Hence the
budgets and resources, which were being used for the manpower resources would be
used for the betterment of the services.
 Focus on Innovation in the Business Processes –The cloud computing platform
would help in enabling the business providers to run their business in an efficient
way. The business sectors should use their different resources in order to design and
thus deploy newer applications and services, which would drive the results of the
business.
 Agility in the Business – A business could be considered to be successful when the
systems are agile. The agility in the business sector could be gained from higher
automation levels. The services of cloud computing in business should be designed in
such a way that they would be in an automated fashion. This would enhance the end
users to describe their needs in a proper fashion. Different business have the

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capability to meet the demands of the customers, which would help to improve the
services and responsiveness in the business sector.
 Improvement of Security –In a cloud computing environment, the essential factor is
the concern for security. It is a form of a shared responsibility. The provider of the
cloud hosting environment builds resiliency and thus enables security at the level of
infrastructure in order to minimize the breaches of the risks. This can help in
addressing the requirements of the compliance (Hashizume et al. 2013).
 Preparing for Growth of the Business–The platform of cloud computing has the
ability to offer a flexible way for different business to accommodate the demand for
the businesses and a planned way of growth for effective cost of the business. The
business sector can also use the cloud platform in order to deliver new kind of
services. This would be helpful in increasing the timely delivery of the products in the
market and thus also deliver newer kind of services.
The Disadvantages of Cloud Computing for Businesses
In order to deliver any form of digital services, different kinds of computing resources
would be needed such as memory, storage, connectivity top the network and performance of
the CPU. The cloud computing platform has been a factor of benefit for many enterprises by
reducing the costs and thus allow them to focus on the primary competencies of the business
sector (Alzahrani, Alalwan and Sarrab 2014).
Although cloud computing has benefited the business sector, still there are some
disadvantages, which are being associated with the use of cloud computing (See Appendix
C). The disadvantages of cloud computing are:
 Downtime – This is one of the major disadvantages of cloud computing. Even the
best provider of cloud services cannot guarantee the best services of the network.

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The system of cloud are mainly based on the internet. Hence they have to completely
rely on the internet connection for proper access to the data (Kavis 2014).
 Security and Privacy of Cloud Computing Services for Business –The concern
for the security and privacy of data of the business sector should be the major area of
concern for the business. There were many hacks to the data in the past, which
should be taken care of for the safety of the data. When a business transfers their
data to the cloud platform, they are actually outsourcing their data. This might be
vulnerable to attacks from hackers who would continuously try to pry into the data.
 Vulnerability to Attacks – Within the cloud computing platform, every single
component could be accessible on the internet. Even the best software development
teams are vulnerable to attacks and breeches to security. Since the cloud computing
platform has been built as a public service, hence it is easy to run in an efficient way
(Chou 2013). With the development of an efficient system, it would be extremely
efficient for the business sector to perform their business activities. An efficient
system would be would be helpful to protect the vital data of the business, the
records of the customers, the accounting system and many others. There are many
practices, which would help to monitor the activities of the business and the
movement of some critical data. They would also defend many vital systems from
hackers as they would be able to authenticate the access to the business data and
infrastructure. Hence, the business would be safe from additional risks and
disadvantages of cloud computing platform (Modi et al. 2013).
 Limited Control over Services and Flexibility –The users of cloud computing
services should have a limited amount of control over the functions and their
execution to the infrastructure of hosting. These depend on the particular service,
which is provided by the cloud (Manvi & Shyam 2014).Keeping the requirements in

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mind, the providers of cloud platform and management policies should enforce
boundaries on the activities, which could be performed by the business sector. Many
business sectors are also getting limited access for controlling and managing the
data, applications and services (Botta et al. 2016).
 Dependencies of Cloud Computing Platform –One important disadvantage of
cloud computing platform in the business sector is the implicit dependency. Serious
differences between systems of the vendor could make it impossible to transfer from
one platform of the cloud to another. This would not only be expensive but it would
also be complex in order to reconfigure the applications who would be able to meet
the requirements of new hosts. The process of migration could be vulnerable as this
could leak the vital data of the business. Hence additional security should be
implemented at each stage in order to protect against such vulnerabilities of privacy
(Almorsy, Grundy and Muller 2016).
 The Increasing Costs of Cloud Computing Services –The prices of the cloud
computing platform, which are on a small scale and are mainly meant for short term
projects are mainly of high costs. Although this could help in reducing the
manpower consumption in the business sector and the costs of hardware, but the
overall price would higher than the expected price.
5. Conclusion
The above report discusses about the use and efficiency of cloud computing services
in the business model of several business. They also define about the advantages and
disadvantages of cloud computing in the business sector. Though there are several
disadvantages of the use of cloud computing in the business systems, still there is a wide need
of the services of cloud computing in the business sector. The platform for cloud computing
has an enormous potential and capability to transform the business models. With the

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advancement in the field of cloud computing and the related technologies, the platform of
cloud computing has increased gradually. The platforms have become matured and the sales
economies have grown continuously. With the implementation of cloud computing in the
business arena, there would be a huge fall in the overall costs of many products and services.
The use of manpower, critical storage systems in the business sector will reduce to a certain
extent. The standard for reliability and security would improve with the advent of cloud
computing. The arrival of cloud computing in the business models have raised the
expectations of the customers in the business sector. They would be benefited as they can
access their information directly over the internet without the need of storing their data in the
physical devices. A proper research and planning would prove to be efficient in the field of
cloud computing.

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6. References
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Alshamaila, Y., Papagiannidis, S., and Li, F. 2013. Cloud computing adoption by SMEs in
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disadvantage and open challenge. In Proceedings of the 7th Euro American Conference on
Telematics and Information Systems (p. 21). ACM.
Azodolmolky, S., Wieder, P., and Yahyapour, R. 2013. Cloud computing networking:
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Chang, V., Kuo, Y. H., and Ramachandran, M. 2016. Cloud computing adoption framework:
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Chang, V., Walters, R. J., and Wills, G. 2013. The development that leads to the Cloud
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Dinh, H. T., Lee, C., Niyato, D., and Wang, P. 2013. A survey of mobile cloud computing:
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7. Appendix
Appendix A
What is Cloud Computing?
Simply put, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—servers, storage,
databases, networking, software, analytics and more—over the Internet (“the cloud”).
Companies offering these computing services are called cloud providers and typically charge
for cloud computing services based on usage, similar to how you are billed for water or
electricity at home.
Appendix B
Advantages of Cloud Computing
The cloud offers several advantages, some of which may vary based on the size and
type of business you’re running, the industry you operate in and where you are in the process
of transforming your business. For start-up businesses, the cloud can offer an essential
differentiator. It empowers anyone with an idea to get their business up and running quickly
with minimal up-front costs. The cloud enables small to medium-sized businesses with
limited resources to take advantage of industry-leading compute, storage and networking
capabilities that they can scale on demand as their business grows. Larger enterprises often
face complex challenges ensuring the availability and performance of high-traffic websites
and demanding applications, as well as infrastructure requirements that vary across
departments. The cloud can help enterprises increase their operational efficiency, productivity
and agility.
Appendix C
Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

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Cloud computing has certainly benefited many enterprises by reducing costs and
allowing them to concentrate on their core business competence rather than IT and
infrastructure issues. But, for all the generally well-earned hype, there are still
distinct disadvantages of Cloud Computing – especially relating to smaller operations – that
you should consider before taking the leap.