A Comprehensive Report on Cloud Computing Advantages and Disadvantages

This report delves into the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing for businesses, examining its impact on cost savings, reliability, and manageability. It defines cloud computing, explores its technological evolution, and outlines key features like on-demand self-service, ubiquitou...Read More

Running head: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR
BUSINESS
Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing for Business
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

2ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Project Objective.............................................................................................................................2
Project Scope...................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review............................................................................................................................3
Technological changes in computing..........................................................................................3
Definition of cloud computing.....................................................................................................3
The technical part of the Cloud...................................................................................................4
Advantages of cloud computing..................................................................................................5
Disadvantages of cloud computing..............................................................................................5
Research Questions..........................................................................................................................6
Primary Question.........................................................................................................................6
Secondary Questions...................................................................................................................6
Research Design and Methodology.................................................................................................7
Qualitative research.....................................................................................................................7
Steps and Process of Qualitative research...................................................................................7
Approaches to reliability and validity..........................................................................................7
Sampling......................................................................................................................................8
Sample size..................................................................................................................................8
Data Collection method...............................................................................................................8

3ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESS
Variables specifications...............................................................................................................9
Quantitative research.....................................................................................................................10
Steps and Process of Quantitative research...............................................................................10
Research Instrument..................................................................................................................10
Sampling and sample size..........................................................................................................10
Reliability and validity of data..................................................................................................10
Research Limitations.....................................................................................................................11
Time Schedule...............................................................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
Reference List................................................................................................................................13

4ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESS
Introduction
This study deals with determining advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing for
business. Cloud computing help in creating disruptive possibilities where potential risk lies
behind this new technological advancement (Rahimi et al. 2014). Cloud computing actually
takes into account connection of large number of computers through internet where information
is exchanged as a major source of concern. There are several challenges to cloud computing that
means providing security to consumer’s data, vendor lock-in and privacy of people and business
enterprise. Furthermore, Cloud computing is one of the recent and emerging technology that
every business are switching to from on-premise technologies. Cloud computing now became an
important factor for business to remain competitive.
Project Objective
 To explore understanding of advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing for
business
 To bridge gap between the providers as well as users that depicts holistic view of cloud
computing
Project Scope
The main scope of the research study is to determine clear understanding about
advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing for business. The study mainly covers the
implication of cloud computing for developed country such as Australia (Peppard and Ward
2016).

5ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESS
Literature Review
Technological changes in computing
As rightly put forward by Kavis (2014), Cloud computing has its origin from past
decades that had been researched on virtualization, utility computing as well as distributed
computing and software services. In addition, cloud computing act as the result of the evolution
as well as maturing at different streams where the first one links with significant technological
improvements on the internet services that became more reliable and available as it combines
with the improvements through use of virtualization techniques and shared computing
provisioning. To that, the second stream links with the offering of computing capacity as a
service that needs to be utilized on demand as well as self-service (Patel et al. 2013).
Definition of cloud computing
According to Ercolani (2013), Cloud computing is a standardized IT capability like
software, application platform or in that case infrastructure that is delivered by using internet
technologies in a pay-per-use as well as self-service way. In the wordings of “The National
Institute of Standards and Technology”, Cloud computing is one of the model that determines
ubiquitous as well as convenient and on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable
computing resources such as networks, storage, servers, services and applications. These can be
properly provisioned as well as released with minimal management effort or interacting with the
service providers. Therefore, Cloud computing has different layers as well as models and
features that are discussed in the study (Jeston and Nelis 2014).

6ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESS
The technical part of the Cloud
Cloud computing models have different features that differentiate it from other
computing paradigms. It explains the attributes as it is important for realizing the significance of
the cloud in Business Corporation as well as individuals. Features of cloud computing is as
follows:
On-demand self-service- One of the features of cloud computing is on-demand self-
service where computing resources are determined by a cloud consumer with no
interaction with the service provider (Jamshidi, Ahmad and Pahl 2013).
Ubiquitous network access- One of the features of cloud computing is ubiquitous
network that help in assessing the computing resources as it accessible over networks like
Internet from wide range of devices (smart phones, laptops and tablets).
Location independent resource pooling- One of the features of cloud computing is
location independent resource pooling. Most of the cloud consumer has no idea about the
exact location of the resources that is being utilized. However, the cloud provider uses
shared computing resources in order to render cloud service to various customers by
taking advantage of virtualization techniques as well as multi-tenancy.
Rapid elasticity- One of the features of cloud computing is rapid elasticity. Most of the
cloud consumers have the capability to scale up and down for computing the capacity.
Measured service- One of the features of cloud computing is measured service where
the customers are charged that depends upon the computing resources like storage,
bandwidth and computing power that they actually use as it has the ability for monitoring
and measuring their usage (Ercolani 2013).

7ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESS
Advantages of cloud computing
Cost savings- One of the benefits of cloud computing is cost savings. It is in terms of IT
cost savings. Irrespective of any business types and size, they earn money for keeping
capital as well as operational expenses to a minimum. By using cloud computing,
individual can save up substantial capital costs with zero in-house server storage as well
as application requirements (Dinh et al. 2013).
Reliability- One of the benefits of cloud computing is reliability. Cloud computing is
much more reliable as compared to in-house IT infrastructure. Business enterprise can
benefit from a massive pool of redundant IT resources and quick failover mechanism.
When server fails, most of the hosted applications as well as services can easily be
transited to any of the accessible servers (Coronel and Morris 2016).
Manageability- One of the benefits of cloud computing is manageability. Cloud
computing renders enhanced as well as simplified IT management and maintenance of
capabilities by using central administration of resources, SLA backed agreements and
vendor managed infrastructure.
Strategic Edge- One of the benefits of cloud computing is strategic edge. Here,
companies can easily deploy mission critical applications that help in delivering
significant business without any costs as well as minimal provisioning time. Therefore,
cloud computing help companies to forget about technology and put emphasis upon key
business activities as well as objectives.
Disadvantages of cloud computing
Downtime- One of the limitation of cloud computing is downtime where the cloud
service providers take care of clients on daily basis. In case, there is no internet

8ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESS
connection, then individuals cannot access to any of the applications and server or data
from the cloud.
Security- One of the limitation of cloud computing is security. Most of the cloud service
providers mainly aim at implementing best security standards as well as industry
certifications. By making use of cloud-powered technologies, it helps in providing the
service provider to get an access to significant business data. There is always tension of
hackers and these exploits and loopholes are not likely to surface as well as likelihood of
a compromise is not great (Chou 2015).
Vendor lock-in- One of the limitations of cloud computing is vendor lock-in. Most of the
cloud service providers promise that the cloud will be flexible to use as well as integrate.
Business enterprise finds it difficult for getting access their services from one vendor to
other. Hosting as well as integrating current cloud applications may give rise to support
issues.
Limited control- One of the limitations of cloud computing is limited control. The
customers have the control to manage the applications as well as data and services
operated on top of that. Therefore, key administrative tasks like server shell access as
well as updating and firmware management for passing on to the customer or end user.
Research Questions
Primary Question
1. What are the advantages and disadvantage of cloud computing for business?
Secondary Questions
1. How far cloud computing help in saving cost?

9ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESS
2. How far cloud computing help in getting access to reliable operations?
3. How far cloud computing help in managing the access and getting strategic edge in
activities?
Research Design and Methodology
Qualitative research
Qualitative research is one of the types of research that aims at covering the reasons
towards behaviors, motivations and attitudes. The research mainly performs across various
disciplines such as social science and healthcare business. Therefore, qualitative research makes
use of unstructured data collection methods such as surveys, observations, interviews and
documents (Chong, Wong and Wang 2014).
Steps and Process of Qualitative research
The first step in qualitative research is deciding on questions that need to be studied. The
second step is to conduct literature review. The third step in qualitative research is evaluating the
fact whether this type of research best suits the research questions and aligns with the research
topic. The fourth step in qualitative research is to consider ideal sampling size and selecting
qualitative research methodology. In the next part, the researcher needs to collect and analyze the
data. The first step is to collect data. The second step is to analyze data. The third step is to write
up the research finally (Chandrasekaran 2014).
Approaches to reliability and validity
The researcher need to make sure that the data or information collected for the research is
valid and reliable so that there is no discrepancy present in present research study. The

10ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESS
qualitative information will be collected from valid literature sources like books, journal articles
and websites.
Sampling
Researcher will be using thematic analysis for this research study where data and
information will be collected from valid literature where there is clear mention about advantages
and disadvantages of cloud computing for business. Different themes will be selected by the
researcher in accordance to research objectives and research questions (Branch et al. 2014).
Sample size
Researcher need to understand the aspect of inclusive data and exclusive data where they
will clear information about what data need to be included and what need to be excluded.
Exclusive data need to be excluded by the researcher such as literature that are published before
2012 because those data are outdated and lack recent information. The researcher will be
including those data that are published after 2012 as it is recent and help in gaining latest
information about how cloud computing is advantageous for business enterprises.
Data Collection method
The researcher will be using thematic analysis for the research study by taking help from
recent published journal articles that relates about advantages and disadvantages of cloud
computing for business.

11ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESS
Variables specifications
The dependent variable in the research study is the factors such as strategic edge, cost
savings and reliability. The independent variable in the research study is cloud computing for
business.

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Quantitative research
Steps and Process of Quantitative research
The first step in quantitative research is stating the research problem. The second step in
quantitative research is defining the purpose of the study. The third step in quantitative research
is reviewing related literature. The fourth step in quantitative research is to formulate hypothesis
as well as variables (Boutaba, Zhang and Zhani 2013). The fifth step in quantitative research is to
select research design. The sixth step in quantitative research is to select population as well as
sample. The seventh step in quantitative research is to collect data. The eighth step in
quantitative research is to analyze data. The last step in quantitative research is to communicate
findings as well as conclusions.
Research Instrument
The researcher will be using questionnaire method where they will ask questions to IT
professionals who work in Top IT firms about advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing
for business. It is essential for the researcher to determine data collection method instrument.
Sampling and sample size
The sample size of research participants is 75 where questions will be asked to IT
professional and worked under IT firms.
Reliability and validity of data
It is important to consider the fact that validity is the degree where the research
instrument helps in measuring on what need to be calculated. However, invalid instruments used

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by the researcher lead to getting access to invalid research conclusions and manipulates certain
decisions (Ahmed and Hossain 2014).
The other aspect validity of data leads to constancy or steadiness as it is measured by the
device for given period of time. However, researcher needs to collect reliable information in the
present research study.
Research Limitations
The researcher failed to conduct in-depth analysis because of limited time frame. The
researcher even had limited financial resources that restrict them to use expensive tools and
techniques for the research study.
Time Schedule
Main
Activities
1st week 2nd week 3rd week 4th week 5th and 6th
week
7th and 8th
week
Selecting
topic:
Advantages
and
disadvantages
of cloud
computing
for business
Project scope

14ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BUSINESS
and
objectives
Literature
Review
Quantitative
data sources
Qualitative
data sources
Research
Limitations
Reflective
Essay
Submission
of Paper
Conclusion
At the end of the study, it is concluded that cloud computing has numerous advantages
and disadvantages of cloud computing for business. By analyzing the data, it is understood that
every new IT phenomenon cloud computing still need lot of changes or fixing and even not
suitable for all the business enterprise and thus strike a balance between benefits and limitations
that help at the time of decision-making. The adoption of cloud computing is possible as it help

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development by enables firms to get access to market as well as provides more platforms of
service delivery for the business because it attract Foreign Direct Investment.

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Reference List
Ahmed, M. and Hossain, M.A., 2014. Cloud computing and security issues in the
cloud. International Journal of Network Security & Its Applications, 6(1), p.25.
Boutaba, R., Zhang, Q. and Zhani, M.F., 2013. Virtual machine migration in cloud computing
environments: Benefits, challenges, and approaches. Communication Infrastructures for Cloud
Computing, pp.383-408.
Branch, R., Tjeerdsma, H., Wilson, C., Hurley, R. and McConnell, S., 2014. Cloud computing
and big data: a review of current service models and hardware perspectives. Journal of Software
Engineering and Applications, 7(08), p.686.
Chandrasekaran, K., 2014. Essentials of cloud computing. CRC Press.
Chong, H.Y., Wong, J.S. and Wang, X., 2014. An explanatory case study on cloud computing
applications in the built environment. Automation in construction, 44, pp.152-162.
Chou, D.C., 2015. Cloud computing: A value creation model. Computer Standards &
Interfaces, 38, pp.72-77.
Coronel, C. and Morris, S., 2016. Database systems: design, implementation, & management.
Cengage Learning.
Dinh, H.T., Lee, C., Niyato, D. and Wang, P., 2013. A survey of mobile cloud computing:
architecture, applications, and approaches. Wireless communications and mobile
computing, 13(18), pp.1587-1611.