Cloud Computing Technology - PDF

Cloud Computing Technology
Student’s name
Institution Affiliation(s)
MAY 8, 2018

Abstract
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Introduction
This is a type of technology that involves making use of the machinery found on the
Internet and centralized remote servers for the purposes of maintaining several types of
applications and data. It facilitates businesses and customers to utilize applications without their
installation in accessing their files on any computer that has connectivity to the Internet. It
enhances the computing processes by utilizing centralized forms of storage, memory and
bandwidths. The best examples of the usage of cloud computing in business are shown in the
services offered by companies such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. These applications do not
require installation in the computers found in a business premises, but just need computers that
are connected to the Internet (Alani, 2016). Neither software nor servers are required when using
these applications. This form of computing is vital in businesses for the purposes of
disseminating product information, supporting manufacturing and designing requirements and
carrying out controls on inventory along with production. It is also used for making accounting
and pay rolling functions, giving assurances on quality of a product along with the constraints on
their control.
Use of Cloud Computing in Business
The use of cloud computing in businesses exhibits the characteristics of empowerment,
agility, reduction of costs involved, device along with location independence and virtualization.
It also allows for multi-tenancy, reliability, scalability, performance, security and maintenance of
the various applications being utilized in a business (Alexander, Finch, Sutton, & Taylor, 2013).

Through empowerment, the concept of cloud computing facilitates the users with the control of
all the resources at their disposal. Its agility can always be improved with their user’s ability of
re-provisioning technological infrastructural resources. These technologies usually provide
interfaces that allow many users to communicate and share resources such as software. Another
major advantage of using cloud computing is that it enables users to get accessibility to various
systems by using only web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Internet explorer. The
advantage achieved through the process of virtualization enables the transfer and sharing of
resources from one server to another (Antonopoulos & Gillam, 2017). Multi-tenancy in a cloud
computing environment facilitates large pools of users in sharing resources in a business
environment, and this minimizes the costs incurred in maintaining the computers. This can easily
be achieved through centralization, having peak-load capacities and increasing their utilization
and efficiencies. The reliability of cloud computing can be augmented through the use of
multiple sites that are redundant. Finally, security is usually achieved through data centralization,
increasing the focus on security resources. The maintenance of resources within a cloud
computing environment is very easy. This is because the applications do not have to be
individually installed in each computer in the business (Bhowmik, 2017).
Advantages of Cloud Computing
The applications have their own benefits and limits when being utilized in a business
environment. For example, in the usage of an application in a business environment that supports
controls on quality and assurance functions, one must consider the various benefits and limits
that come with it. The issues of the application tracking the parts that have been rejected while
taking actions that are corrective in reconciling the parts to manufacture in the future should be
greatly considered (Breeding, 2012). The supporting of similar activities will ensure that the

customers to a business remain willing to do business with a company since the quality of their
products is always assured. Cloud computing is also quite vital when supporting purchasing
along with inventory control systems and firm’s requirements in the manufacturing process. The
use of this form of computing in this field enables the supporting of all these platforms on one
application. This enables a business to reduce the costs involved in managing their memory,
bandwidth and infrastructural requirements (Carlson, 2016). On the other hand, the concept of
cloud computing is wholly capable of offering support to the functions of pay rolling and
accounting across all the operating systems in a business environment. It enables a company to
enjoy the benefits of reducing their costs on infrastructure, their time when pay rolling along
with allocating funds.
In most business environments, cloud computing is responsible for supporting the
management of customer relationships and many of its functions (Gallagher & Dalgleish, 2013).
It offers support in the field of marketing by aiding customers in obtaining information more
effectively from the department in charge of sales within a business. This move greatly assists
customers in their purchasing decisions along with monitoring their activities with the aim of
maintaining them. The management of a business’s activities through the concept of cloud
computing additionally helps a business in generating answers to their customers’ queries in a
more confident way. This eventually results in the creation and solidification of the relationship
between businesses with its customers. The use of cloud computing within a business
environment incidentally helps it in saving time when responding to customer complaints and
queries through help centers that offer the assistance required in real time (Halpert, 2011).
The use of cloud computing enables businesses to save costs effectively in the
competitive business world. This is because the technology in use is ever-changing and often

requires updating while the maintenance of personnel on IT still remains very expensive. In
addition, computer hardware services often require several upgrades and repairs during the
course of their usage. Cloud computing thus helps in cutting the costs involved in implementing
these issues by utilizing common memories, bandwidths along with storages. It eliminates a
business’s need for separate infrastructures that may be required for different applications that
run within its system or environment (In Vacca, 2017).
Generally, the benefits of using cloud computing can be said to include issues such as the
resources mobility, scalability and flexibility within a business environment. This type of
computing facilitates the ability of organizations to acquire additional resources when their needs
increase (Weinman, 2012). The requirements of a business in terms of data management are
automated and resources on the cloud are also easily shared. The cloud can also facilitate the
storage of bulky volumes of data and applications. It helps in reducing the costs involved in
building of the infrastructure between computers since it allows for the sharing of a common
infrastructure. Through the sharing of resources among computers, a business can achieve better
management of their IT systems and can adequately focus their time and efforts on issues such as
research, development along with innovation (Le, D.-N, Kumar, Nhu, & Chatterjee, 2018).
Security Threats in use of Cloud Computing and Countermeasures
The concept of cloud computing also has various other challenges that crop up in
businesses. The service usually caters for very many organizations over one single infrastructure
that is found in the Internet (Weinman, 2012). Thus, the parties concerned in the cloud should
ensure that their data along with applications are adequately secured. The challenges encountered
in a cloud environment can be classified according to their technical, economic, legal and

regulatory categories. The issue of security in the data found in the cloud computing
environment is of utmost importance (Loske, 2015). This is because the parties that have
involved themselves in the concept should be well aware of legislations governing the sharing of
the data. The mechanisms used for controlling access to the cloud computing environments
should also be specified. This is because such measures usually ensure the secrecy along with the
protection of the data.
The security along with the safeguarding of the software involved is the most important
concern raised in the clouding environment (Weinman, 2012). Third parties without the consent
of the parties involved do sometimes interfere with the data that are involved. Backup issues also
affect the clouding environment greatly, since there are great chances of data loss when the
applications are unexpectedly turned off or crash. These backups can either be internal or
external which implies that they can be maintained by an organization or leased from another
vendor. There are various pieces of legislation that several countries have regarding the
interception of data. For example, when a case is in progress in a law court, an organization may
be required to allow access to data on their organization to the authorities (Mahmood, 2014).
Another challenge encountered in cloud computing concerns itself with the control and
ownership of data. Clouds used for storage by various organizations can either be public or
private (Wan et al., 2018). This largely depends on the economic feasibility of such data storage.
In the event that data and other applications are transferred towards the cloud, there is usually a
loss in the control of these two elements. This data are usually the property of an organization
and their control should be retained. Intermediaries that provide access to the hosts, carry out the
transmission, indexing of the contents, products to third parties may also contribute to the issue
of third parties intervening on the data found in clouds. Many countries across the globe offer

protection laws on data through safe principles when they want to absolve these intermediaries
off any liabilities. These organizations that involve themselves with the offering of cloud
computing services for other organizations require to ensure that their rights are appropriately
secured and safeguarded under the relevant pieces of legislation (Mahmood, 2016). The
compliance to various legislations ensures that the privacy of their clients’ information is
safeguarded. The locations for data storage in a cloud computing environment stipulate that these
locations are unknown. This ends ups with most organizations storing their pieces of data in
multiple clouds. This could easily affect the performances of an organization in terms of the
transfers of data and the legislations on privacy (Wan et al., 2018). The freedoms that the
organizations have may easily result in the abuse of privacy and the noncompliance to global
legislations for the parties involved in the cloud in transferring pieces of information. The ITA
laws on the transfer of data stipulate that the receivers of information should have similar
practices to ensure that the exchanges are protected. These laws enable the determination that the
transferring parties are usually responsible for the infringement of security issues pertaining to
the transfers and storage of the data (Meinhardt & Reinheimer, 2016).
The other challenges that affect the issue of cloud computing are vendor related. The
jurisdiction of the governing laws controls the individuals who are located within the boundaries
of the stated countries (Wan et al., 2018). This has however changed since the inception of the
notion of cloud computing where organizations resident in a country can have a cloud belonging
to a vendor in a different country. These situations normally happen in circumstances where the
laws being used are applicable across borders. The major challenges encountered mainly come
from making the choices for which set of laws are applicable in a given situation (Molen & F,
2011). Another challenge encountered in respect to the issue of vendors is the integration of data

along with applications on the scattered clouds. Integration problems occur when the parties to
the computing lack access to the resources which are usually dispersed. The issue of
compatibility also affects an organizations’ ability to integrate between the data and applications
at its disposal. This is because the integration problems that result from a vendor’s infrastructure
becoming incompatible could end up compromising the entire cloud (Murugesan & Bojanova,
2016). The vendors of cloud computing contracts usually offer one sided agreements which are
hardly responsible. Most companies are not willing to share their private data over the public
infrastructure since the cultures of various companies do not allow the sharing of private
information. The standardization of the courses of action, policies along with guidelines and
templates to be followed when addressing contracts usually create deadlocks, since not all terms
are acceptable to all the parties. The taxations performed on cloud computers have not been
formalized and accepted in most countries around the globe. This creates disruptions in the
implementation of cloud computing among the different parties to a contract (Rountree &
Castrillo, 2014).
The provision of cloud computing services depends on several elementary models. These
are the concepts that perceive infrastructure, platforms and the software as services. In the
infrastructural model, the providers do offer computers, storage facilities along with the required
networks (Shroff, 2010). The billing process in this method follows the utility computing basis
whereby the costs charged reflect the allocation and resources allocated and utilized by an
organization. In the platform model, the clouding providers in charge usually deliver a computer
platform including utilities such as operating systems, databases along with web servers. It is
advantageous for businesses since they are not required to purchase or develop databases and
provide servers for their clouding operations (Sarna, 2011). Their actions lead to cuts in their

costs and complexities in their purchasing and management of the hardware along with software
layers. This model allows for automation in scaling in the computation and storages to match the
demand of the application. This enables the users in the automatic allocation of the resources
(Shroff, 2010).
Conclusion
To sum up, the providers of the service model install and carry on with the operation of
the application software allowing the users to get accessibility to the software among their
clients. The businesses using this model are charged with the duty of managing the infrastructure
and platforms which the applications usually run on. This model eliminates the needs for
installation, running, maintaining and supporting the applications in use. It is different from other
models since it allows for cloning of simple tasks onto machines that allow for multiple
functions to facilitate the changes in the demand for work. They additionally utilize load
balancers when making distributions of the available work on the machines available. The
devices used in these models can facilitate the issue of multi-tenants when a large mass of cloud
users require the services on offer. They use similar conventions of naming to refer to the
particular kinds of application software used in a business.

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