Cloud Computing's Impact: Advantages and Disadvantages for Businesses

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing in a business context. The introduction highlights the increasing importance of cloud technology for businesses, emphasizing its suitability for corporate environments. The report explores the be...Read More

Running head: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN
BUSINESS
Advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing in business
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

2ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
Table of Contents
Research Title..................................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Background of the research study....................................................................................................2
Research Questions..........................................................................................................................3
Research aim and objectives............................................................................................................3
Research Aim...............................................................................................................................3
Research Objectives.....................................................................................................................3
Significance of the study.................................................................................................................4
Literature Review............................................................................................................................4
Research Methodology....................................................................................................................9
Research Type.............................................................................................................................9
Research Design........................................................................................................................10
Research Philosophy..................................................................................................................10
Research Approach....................................................................................................................10
Data Analysis.................................................................................................................................11
Ethical considerations....................................................................................................................12
Gantt chart.....................................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14

3ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
Reference List................................................................................................................................15
Research Title
Advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing in business
Introduction
Cloud computing technology recently is one of the most enchanting technologies that had
become useful for every business users1. This technology is most suited for Business
Corporation. Cloud computing can be considered boon for the business solutions where business
firms are ready to adopt it for attainment of future success and objectives. The current research
study explains in detail about the benefits and limitations of cloud computing in business. Each
of the pros and cons are explained in the literature review section and finally evaluated on
whether cloud computing is beneficial for the business or not. In order to understand this, the
researcher had conducted research to find out by using secondary data information where the
sources are selected from recent published journal articles, books and websites after the year
2012.
Background of the research study
In this present age, technology plays vital role and the biggest platform here is the
emergence of internet access. Cloud computing is a real technology that combines data for
1 S Abolfazli, Z Sanaei, E Ahmed, A Gani, A., & R Buyya, Cloud-based augmentation for mobile devices:
motivation, taxonomies, and open challenges. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 16(1), 337-368, 2014.

4ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
opening the doors for the future generation2. Cloud computing concept had been present for
years. Most of the small industry has a server in their office with series of desktop computers that
is networked to server. To that, the hardware layer is referred to as the network or the
information systems within the stipulated time. With the usage of cloud computing systems, it is
no longer needed to have server in offices. Rather, in simple words the server is present in the
cloud. It is for this reason the network can be accessed from any anywhere and everywhere in the
devices used such as Laptop, iPad and mobile phones. Cloud computing can be referred closely
to that of working like Google Docs. At the time of submitting the documents to Google docs or
any other for accessing through internet, it is considered to be cloud computing in action3.
Research Questions
1. What are the advantages of cloud computing in business?
2. What are the limitations of cloud computing in business?
3. How far cloud computing help business presently?
Research aim and objectives
Research Aim
The main aim of the research study is to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of
cloud computing in business.
2 E Ahmed, A Gani, M Khan, R Buyya, & S Khan, Seamless application execution in mobile cloud computing:
Motivation, taxonomy, and open challenges. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 52, 154-172, 2015
3 M Assunção, R Calheiros, S Bianchi, M Netto, & R Buyya, Big Data computing and clouds: Trends and future
directions. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, 79, 3-15, 2015

5ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
Research Objectives
To explain benefits of cloud computing in business
To explain limitations of cloud computing in business
Significance of the study
The main significance of the present research study is to evaluate on how far cloud
computing is advantageous to the business or how it hinder or restrict its usage in recent world.
The literature review section properly explains each of the aspects of cloud computing that give
insights of information on how business should deal with cloud computing applications in their
operational activities.
The importance of cloud computing is known to all and becoming a necessity by all the
business enterprise as they get access to flexibility of decisions and storage of data in safer
means. This is all that is needed for any business to be successful as cost to cloud computing is
less as compared to any other applications. Several limitations are already mentioned in the study
but it is nowhere considered feasible as benefits are more after conducting proper comparison by
the researcher.
Literature Review
As rightly put forward by4, entering the cloud is considered to be low-cost proposition. In
addition, large capital investment is not needed especially for hardware, infrastructure and
equipment. Furthermore, individuals need to have desktops, laptops or any other devices for
4 M Assunção, R Calheiros, S Bianchi, M Netto, & R Buyya, Big Data computing and clouds: Trends and future
directions. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, 79, 3-15, 2015

6ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
accessing the internet as well as utilize the data. Rather, the investment needed at the time of
implementation and maintaining own in-house network can be treated as minimal charges. Most
of the small business feel that cloud computing is important and beneficial for them. At the same
time, they can be even affording to implement as it cost less. It is preferable by the small
companies as cost of maintaining in-house network is enormous as well as looks like it is
increasing each single day. With implementation of in-house network, there are the costs of
software as well as software upgrades that need training IT staff members. These staff members
had the responsibility to handle the system5.
According to6, the best way to think for the cost of cloud computing is to think in terms
of either renting or owing. It is then the accountability of the cloud provider to own and maintain
all the resources as well as business clients that begins to use and pay monthly or annual fee. It is
quite similar to that with Software-as-a-Service Model. This model mainly provides the business
owner with more predictability in budgeting for the relevant costs7.
Implementation of cloud computing system provides flexibility to the user as they can
select what to use and when to use the services. In a small business, they do not need of such
computing services often. The need generates as the business starts growing and that is the time
when the business uses more computing resources as per their business needs and requirements.
5 R Boutaba, Q Zhang & M Zhani, Virtual machine migration in cloud computing environments: Benefits,
challenges, and approaches. Communication Infrastructures for Cloud Computing, 383-408, 2013
6 H Dinh, C Lee, D Niyato & P Wang, A survey of mobile cloud computing: architecture, applications, and
approaches. Wireless communications and mobile computing, 13(18), 1587-1611, 2013
7 S Moharana, R Ramesh & D Powar, Analysis of load balancers in cloud computing. International Journal of
Computer Science and Engineering, 2(2), 101-108, 2013

7ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
These systems are fast to set up, implement as well as bring into operation where the cloud
providers are all set up to automatically scale for the resource demands at the same time8.
The main benefit of using cloud computing is fast, simple and easy to access that make
the user comfortable. It is all about implementing cloud computing as it helps in streamlining
most of the parts of the business. The business can run more effectively after stepping into web-
based applications that are readily available in the cloud. In that way, every single prospect of
management applications are related to customer billing as well as invoicing that moves out from
one shop into the cloud. It helps in focusing on the fact for what is best in the business and how
to excel at the business process at the time of handling administrative functions9.
Accessibility is one of the important benefits of implementing cloud computing systems
as an individual can access this system regardless of where the person is or what they are doing
at that time. The only element required is the device where there is connection of web and
internet. It will help the staff members to get the access of these applications anytime, anywhere,
be it home or office. Sustainability is other advantages of cloud computing applications that are
used by business10.
Along with the advantages, cloud computing has several disadvantages as well that are
listed below with proper justification:
8 A Fernández, S del Río, V López, A Bawakid, A., M del Jesus, J Benítez & F Herrera, Big Data with Cloud
Computing: an insight on the computing environment, MapReduce, and programming frameworks. Wiley
Interdisciplinary Reviews: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 4(5), 380-409, 2014
9 A Patel, M Taghavi, K Bakhtiyari & J JúNior, An intrusion detection and prevention system in cloud computing: A
systematic review. Journal of network and computer applications, 36(1), 25-41, 2013
10 N Fernando, S Loke & W Rahayu, Mobile cloud computing: A survey. Future generation computer
systems, 29(1), 84-106, 2013

8ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
One of the main concern of cloud computing is security of data. The security of data
needs to be address especially in cases where the data contains trade secrets, customer files as
well as proprietary lists. According to a survey, it was noted that more than 69% of cloud
providers are of the opinion that data security was the responsibility of the end-user. On the
contrary, 35% of end-users claim that the cloud providers should be responsible for data security.
From this, it is known that there is a disparity between cloud providers as well as cloud users as
to who is actually responsible for data security. Most of the small sized business does not have
the adequate resources to protect their data even when it is in-house. It may happen that
reasonably priced offs-site solution may be right for specific applications.
Redundancy is the term that refers to the dependability of the web-based applications that
is running in the cloud. For instance, if the service of the website is running on crashes, then
another server picks up from where other left off as well as trade keeps going and that is what
redundancy is all about. There is a misconception about cloud computing where many people
think that due to these applications are running out there on the internet, there is a built-in
redundancy. It is because the typical cloud provider will have access to resources that runs on
one server. To that, some will have multiple servers as well as truth lies in the fact that multiple
servers typically reside in one data center11.
For instance, if there is an issue at the data center that takes down the multiple servers or
in case entire data center, then the business will automatically come down. It had already happen
with many companies where the business had being down for anywhere for an hour to several
11 J González-Martínez, M Bote-Lorenzo, E Gómez-Sánchez & R Cano-Parra, Cloud computing and education: A
state-of-the-art survey. Computers & Education, 80, 132-151, 2015

9ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
days over the past 2 years. The companies include Amazon, Google, Hotmail, and Microsoft
SideKick.
In the benefits section, it is already mentioned that cloud computing is cost effective. But,
in worst cases it may cost more to the company if the website comes under a distributed denial of
service attack. The reason behind the incident is to gobble up resources for rendering the server
incapacitated. In that case, if the cloud computing provider has no protections against
distribution denial of service attack, then the site is attacked and the provider simply begin to
increase the resources that is required in the site because of the attack. It is essential to ask the
provider regarding the provisions where they can get protected against these types of attack12.
Lastly, in a cloud environment, the applications are running on servers that aim at
providing resources to other business. There is variation in the services from the server as the
requirements for the users go up and down, then performance of the resources also gets
fluctuated according to that. In that case, the cloud provider starts claiming that the service or
resources available to the users are limited13.
12 J Rittinghouse & J Ransome Cloud computing: implementation, management, and security. CRC press, 2016
13 A Hameed, A Khoshkbarforoushha, R Ranjan, P Jayaraman, J Kolodziej, P Balaji & S Khan, A survey and
taxonomy on energy efficient resource allocation techniques for cloud computing systems. Computing, 98(7), 751-
774, 2016

10ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
Research Methodology
Research Type
The researcher will be conducting secondary research for bringing out the facts about
advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing in business14.
Research Onion
Figure: Research Onion
14 M Sajid & Z Raza, Cloud computing: Issues & challenges. In International Conference on Cloud, Big Data and
Trust (Vol. 20, No. 13, pp. 13-15), 2013

11ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
Source:15
15 I Hashem, I Yaqoob, N Anuar, S Mokhtar, A Gani & S Khan, The rise of “big data” on cloud computing: Review
and open research issues. Information Systems, 47, 98-115, 2015

12ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
Research Design
The secondary will be conducted that is based on mono-mixed research method as the
research study deals with qualitative research design.
Qualitative research will be used in the research study by the researcher as it is one of the
systematic subjective approach that explain life experiences as well as presents with the relatable
connotation at the same time16.
Research Philosophy
The researcher will be using Interpretivism research philosophy in this research study.
This research philosophy brings out the emotional side of human beings and the research topic
need proper understanding of cloud computing and how far it is profitability for any business
enterprise. This aspect cannot be measured in quantitative aspect, so positivism research
philosophy is not possible. Realism is the combination of Positivism and Interpretivism. The
research does not take into consideration both primary and secondary research, it is for this
reason realism research philosophy is not selected by the researcher17.
Research Approach
The researcher will be using deductive approach rather than inductive approach.
Inductive approach cannot be used by the researcher as cloud computing concepts are not new or
innovative to anyone that needs further research of any kind. Rather, deductive approach will be
used by the researcher as the concept of cloud computing applications is well-known. To this, the
16 S Manvi & G Shyam, Resource management for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) in cloud computing: A
survey. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 41, 424-440, 2014
17 T Taleb, M Corici, C Parada, A Jamakovic, S Ruffino, G Karagiannis & T Magedanz, EASE: EPC as a service to
ease mobile core network deployment over cloud. IEEE Network, 29(2), 78-88, 2015

13ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
researcher will be evaluating the secondary sources of information that are already published and
then drawing conclusions at the end.
Data Analysis
The researcher will be analyzing the qualitative data by conducting thematic data analysis
approach. At the time of selecting the secondary sources, the researcher should make sure that all
the secondary sources are reliable18. To this, the researcher will be collecting data from potential
secondary sources such as peer-reviewed journal articles, academic books and authentic
websites. While evaluating the secondary, it is important to understand that there are two types
of data such as inclusive data and exclusive data. Exclusive data are those published articles or
books that were published before the year 2012. These types of data are outdated and cannot be
used for the research study as the concept of cloud computing is new and the research need
current and reliable that is not possible if the researcher uses outdated sources for reference
purpose. On the other hand, inclusive data are those data or sources that are published after 2012.
These sources of information are recent and reliable at the same time. In this study, the
researcher had used inclusive data as they have considered articles that are published after 2012
so that they can get reliable access about information on cloud computing applications and its
usefulness in business19.
18 M Whaiduzzaman, M Sookhak, A Gani & R Buyya, A survey on vehicular cloud computing. Journal of Network
and Computer Applications, 40, 325-344, 2014
19 I Mezgár, U & Rauschecker, The challenge of networked enterprises for cloud computing
interoperability. Computers in Industry, 65(4), 657-674, 2014

14ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
Ethical considerations
At the time of conducting the present research, the researcher needs to act ethically so
that they are not punishable under law20. The researcher cannot leak any confidential data to
third-party while conducting the research. If they do so, they will be punishable under Data
Protection Act. After the research is over, the researcher should destroy all the information so
that no one can manipulate with that data afterwards. The researcher should be collecting valid
and reliable data from secondary sources that are already published and useful for the current
research study. The secondary data collected for study should link with the research questions
and objectives, otherwise those data should be excluding from the research study. Information
should be reliable and valid otherwise the researcher will be punishable under law. There will be
information present that is not manipulated by any ways where readers feel any difficult to assess
or evaluate the concepts mentioned in the research paper. Use of words should be simple and
easy understood so that no one has any doubt regarding any of the concept mentioned in the
research paper. Researcher cannot write about anything and everything that can hurt the
sentiments of individuals21.
Gantt chart
RESEARCH
ACTIVITIES
1st week 2nd week
3rd
week
4th
week
5th and
6th
week
7th week
20 Z Zhan, X Liu, Y Gong, J Zhang, H Chung & Y Li, Y. (2015). Cloud computing resource scheduling and a survey
of its evolutionary approaches. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 47(4), 63, 2015
21 C Modi, D Patel, B Borisaniya, H Patel, A Patel & Rajarajan, A survey of intrusion detection techniques in
cloud. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 36(1), 42-57, 2013

15ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
Research Topic
Selection
Developing
Research Plan
Literature Review
Research Design
Research
Methodology
Secondary data
collection
Findings and
Analysis Of
Secondary Data
Constructive
Argument
Initial Draft
Conclusion And
Recommendation
Final Submission

16ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
Conclusion
At the end of the research study, it is understood that there are several advantage and
disadvantage of cloud computing but this technology had become an essential part of every
business venture. Nowadays, it is difficult for business venture to think operations without taking
the benefits of cloud computing. The limitations identified by the researcher in the present
research study about cloud computing can be minimized by careful analysis as well as
precautions. It is known that cloud computing is one of the booming technology that had in real
impressed the world. The advantages of cloud computing outweighs the limitations of cloud
computing. Several limitations are discussed and listed in the research study but cloud computing
growing its image because of its benefits such as minimum costs, accessibility, data
centralization, sharing capabilities as well as security and data backup facilities. On analysis, it is
found that the technology has access to enhanced flexibility as well as dependability that is
needed by the business owners in carrying out their business in the most effective way.

17ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
Reference List
A Fernández, S del Río, V López, A Bawakid, A., M del Jesus, J Benítez & F Herrera, Big Data
with Cloud Computing: an insight on the computing environment, MapReduce, and
programming frameworks. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Data Mining and Knowledge
Discovery, 4(5), 380-409, 2014
A Hameed, A Khoshkbarforoushha, R Ranjan, P Jayaraman, J Kolodziej, P Balaji & S Khan, A
survey and taxonomy on energy efficient resource allocation techniques for cloud computing
systems. Computing, 98(7), 751-774, 2016
A Patel, M Taghavi, K Bakhtiyari & J JúNior, An intrusion detection and prevention system in
cloud computing: A systematic review. Journal of network and computer applications, 36(1),
25-41, 2013
C Modi, D Patel, B Borisaniya, H Patel, A Patel & Rajarajan, A survey of intrusion detection
techniques in cloud. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 36(1), 42-57, 2013
E Ahmed, A Gani, M Khan, R Buyya, & S Khan, Seamless application execution in mobile
cloud computing: Motivation, taxonomy, and open challenges. Journal of Network and
Computer Applications, 52, 154-172, 2015
H Dinh, C Lee, D Niyato & P Wang, A survey of mobile cloud computing: architecture,
applications, and approaches. Wireless communications and mobile computing, 13(18), 1587-
1611, 2013

18ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
I Hashem, I Yaqoob, N Anuar, S Mokhtar, A Gani & S Khan, The rise of “big data” on cloud
computing: Review and open research issues. Information Systems, 47, 98-115, 2015
I Mezgár, U & Rauschecker, The challenge of networked enterprises for cloud computing
interoperability. Computers in Industry, 65(4), 657-674, 2014
J González-Martínez, M Bote-Lorenzo, E Gómez-Sánchez & R Cano-Parra, Cloud computing
and education: A state-of-the-art survey. Computers & Education, 80, 132-151, 2015
J Rittinghouse & J Ransome Cloud computing: implementation, management, and security. CRC
press, 2016
M Assunção, R Calheiros, S Bianchi, M Netto, & R Buyya, Big Data computing and clouds:
Trends and future directions. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, 79, 3-15, 2015
M Sajid & Z Raza, Cloud computing: Issues & challenges. In International Conference on
Cloud, Big Data and Trust (Vol. 20, No. 13, pp. 13-15), 2013
M Whaiduzzaman, M Sookhak, A Gani & R Buyya, A survey on vehicular cloud
computing. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 40, 325-344, 2014
N Fernando, S Loke & W Rahayu, Mobile cloud computing: A survey. Future generation
computer systems, 29(1), 84-106, 2013
R Boutaba, Q Zhang & M Zhani, Virtual machine migration in cloud computing environments:
Benefits, challenges, and approaches. Communication Infrastructures for Cloud Computing,
383-408, 2013

19ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS
S Abolfazli, Z Sanaei, E Ahmed, A Gani, A., & R Buyya, Cloud-based augmentation for mobile
devices: motivation, taxonomies, and open challenges. IEEE Communications Surveys &
Tutorials, 16(1), 337-368, 2014.
S Manvi & G Shyam, Resource management for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) in cloud
computing: A survey. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 41, 424-440, 2014
S Moharana, R Ramesh & D Powar, Analysis of load balancers in cloud
computing. International Journal of Computer Science and Engineering, 2(2), 101-108, 2013
T Taleb, M Corici, C Parada, A Jamakovic, S Ruffino, G Karagiannis & T Magedanz, EASE:
EPC as a service to ease mobile core network deployment over cloud. IEEE Network, 29(2), 78-
88, 2015
Z Zhan, X Liu, Y Gong, J Zhang, H Chung & Y Li, Cloud computing resource scheduling and a
survey of its evolutionary approaches. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 47(4), 63, 2015