HI6008 Assignment 2: Researching Advantages & Disadvantages of Cloud

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of cloud computing, examining its advantages and disadvantages within a business context. It outlines the project's objectives and scope, followed by a literature review summarizing key concepts and prior research. The report identifies research questions related to the impact, benefits, drawbacks, and solutions for mitigating the disadvantages of cloud computing. It details the research design and methodology, including the research philosophy, design, approach, sampling, data collection tools, and analysis methods. The limitations of the research are also acknowledged. The report concludes with a time schedule for the research plan and a summary of the key findings. Desklib provides access to similar assignments and resources for students.

Running head: “ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF CLOUD COMPUTING”
Relationship between brand equity and consumer perception of product
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
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Author note:

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ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Table of Contents
1. Introduction......................................................................................................................3
2. Project Objective.............................................................................................................3
3. Project Scope...................................................................................................................3
4. Literature review..............................................................................................................4
5. Research Questions..........................................................................................................7
6. Research Design and Methodology.................................................................................7
7. Research Limitations.......................................................................................................9
8. Time Schedule (Research plan).....................................................................................10
9. Conclusion.....................................................................................................................10
10. Reference List..............................................................................................................11
11. Appendix......................................................................................................................14

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ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF CLOUD COMPUTING
1. Introduction
Cloud computing becomes a buzzword of recent years and businesses are switching every
day. There are several advantages of cloud computing such as cost savings, reliability,
manageability and strategic edge. Cloud computing provides improved as well as simplified IT
management and maintaining capabilities by central administration of resources. However,
disadvantages of cloud computing makes some issues while dealing with cloud. The issues like
its downtime, security, vendor lock-in and limited control are the major disadvantages of using
cloud computing. Hence, it is important to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of using
cloud computing. The present paper discusses project objective, project scope, literature review,
research methodology and conclusion that will be helpful to conduct the research in proper way.
2. Project Objective
 To critically impact the use of cloud computing
 To find out the advantages for using cloud computing
 To evaluate the disadvantages of using cloud computing
 To recommend solutions for overcoming the disadvantages
3. Project Scope
With rapid growth and usage of cloud computing, it becomes important to evaluate the
advantages and disadvantages of using cloud computing. Business and organizations often
minimize annual operating cost through using cloud computing (Alzahrani et al. 2014). The cost
of cloud storage is approximately 3 cents per gigabyte in order to store data internally. In
addition, users can avail extra cost savings, as it does not need internal power in order to store
information remotely. However, it is important to be careful when using to move a document

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ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF CLOUD COMPUTING
into cloud folder. In addition, various cloud storage services have particular bandwidth
allowance. Hence, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing, it will be
helpful to highlight the features and functionality of cloud computing along with the role of
cloud computing in an IT organization (Hameed et al. 2016). The study will allow the reader
evaluating all possible solution for mitigating the issues related to the technology. In addition,
the project will be helpful to extend the provided advantages of cloud computing for making the
process more effective in future days.
4. Literature review
Concept of cloud computing:
Cloud computing is considered as an information technology paradigm that enables
access to the shared pools of configurable system resources as well as higher-level services. It is
provisioned with minimal management effort over the internet (Gutierrez et al. 2015). In
addition, cloud computing relies on the sharing resources in order to achieve coherence along
with economies of scale. In addition, third party cloud enables the organizations focusing on core
business instead of increasing the resources on infrastructure and maintaining the computer.
Cloud computing organizations are consuming compute resource like virtual machine, storage on
application like a utility. Cloud computing boasts various attractive advantages for business as
well as end users.
Cloud computing services are private, public or hybrid. Private cloud services are
generally delivered from a business data center to the internal users. The model offers versatility
as well as convenience of cloud (Hashem et al. 2015). Thus, preserving the management, control
as well as security are common to the local data centers. In addition, the internal users may be

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billed for the particular services by IT chargeback. A hybrid cloud is considered as a
combination of public cloud services as well as an on-premises private cloud. It is processed with
orchestration as well as automation between the processes. Organizations run on important
workloads and sensitive applications (Boutaba et al. 2014). The goal of hybrid cloud is creating
an automated, unified and scalable environment, which takes benefits of public cloud
infrastructure.
Moreover, the organizations are embracing multi-cloud model and use as infrastructure-
as-a service providers. It enables the applications migrating between several cloud providers and
operates concurrently to cloud providers. The benefits of cloud computing is taking advantages
of more competitive pricing from a specific provider. On the other hand, multi-cloud deployment
as well as application development is a challenge as a challenge of cloud computing interface.
The use of cloud computing has changed over the years. It is divided into three broad
service categories such as infrastructure as a service, platform as a service and software as a
service (Girma et al. 2015). IaaS providers like AWS supply virtual server as well as storage
along with APIs. It enables the users to have allocated storage capacity and configure virtual
machine. In PaaS model, the cloud providers host the development tools on the infrastructures.
The users can access the tools to the customized examples for workload requirements. SaaS is
considered as a distribution model that can deliver software applications over internet. The
applications of SaaS as well as services from anywhere can be accessed.
Advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing
The advantages of using cloud computing can be described as followed.

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 Easy deployment: Asghari and Navimipour (2016) stated that cloud hosting
allows retaining same applications as well as business procedures with backend
technologies. In addition, it is readily manageable by internet. Infrastructure of
cloud is accessed by organizations easily and quickly.
 Accessibility: It is important to access data anywhere and anytime. Internet cloud
infrastructure can maximize productivity as well as efficiency of an organization
through ensuring the applications accessible. It also allows collaboration as well
as sharing among the users in several locations.
 Cost savings: One of the most important cloud computing advantages is cost
saving. Irrespective of type or size, deployment and use of cloud computing saves
cost for the users.
 Reliability: With the managed platform of service, cloud computing is reliable as
well as consistent compared to in-house infrastructure (Stergiou et al. 2018). Most
of the cloud service providers offer service level agreement that ensures 99.99%
availability.
 Manageability: The cloud computing service provides improved as well as
simplified IT management along with maintenance capabilities by central
administration of resources. IT infrastructure updates the process.
 Strategic edge: Increasing computing resources provide competitive benefits over
the competitors and need for IT procurement (Fernández et al. 2014). Cloud
computing also allows forgetting the technology as well as the key business
activities along with focusing on the key business activities and objectives.

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Storing information in cloud is considered as one of the most-efficient methods to use in
the organizations. Strong data in cloud provides unlimited storage capacity. Since all the data is
stored in cloud, it becomes easier compared to storing the process. Moreover, the cloud service
providers are generally competent for handling the information. However, it is evident that the
information on cloud is accessed. It is required to be aware that there are times where the
technology has outages as well as technical issues. The other major issue in cloud is security
issue. Thus, before adoption of the technology, it is required to understand sensitive information
to third party cloud service information. Thus, it is required to ensure that the reliable service
provider will be helpful to keep information secured.
Disadvantages of cloud computing:
Although there are several advantages of cloud computing, disadvantages of cloud
computing are required to evaluate.
Downtime: de Bruin and Floridi (2017) mentioned that as cloud service providers has to
take care of several clients, it becomes overwhelmed as well as come up against the technical
outages. It leads to the business procedure that is temporarily suspended.
Security: Cloud service providers deploy the best standard of security as well as industry
certifications, storing data as well as vital files on the external service providers (Sookhak et al.
2015). Thus, using cloud-powered technologies need to provide accesses significant and
confidential data. For an example, the users can provide adequate benefits for this.
Vendor lock-in: The cloud service providers give promise that it is flexible for use as
well as integration and switching the cloud services. Hosting as well as integrating the present
services from a vendor to different vendor is processed (Shameli-Sendi et al. 2015). For an

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example, the applications are developed on Microsoft development framework may work
efficiently on the Linux platform.
5. Research Questions
The research questions are as followed.
 What is the impact the use of cloud computing?
 What are the advantages for using cloud computing?
 What are the disadvantages of using cloud computing?
 What are the solutions for overcoming the disadvantages?
6. Research Design and Methodology
Considering the aim of the study, it is required analyzing the relationship between brand
equity as well as purchase behavior of a consumer. The research is a descriptive as well as co-
relational in terms of collecting data and based on the structural equations. In addition, structural
equation model is considered as a statistical comprehensive approach that is helpful to test the
hypothesis associated with the relationship between observed as well as latent variables (Ding
and Tseng 2015). With the help of this approach, acceptability of theoretical models in the
communities is tested and as most of the variables in the field of management, research is latent.
Research philosophy:
In the study, positivism philosophy will be used. Selection of positivism philosophy will
be helpful to analyze highly structured, large samples of the research in easy and effective way.
Research design:

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Descriptive research will be used in the study. It will be helpful to explore the particular
aspects of the research area. In addition, with the help of descriptive research design, the research
will have expected and accurate outcome.
Research approach:
Inductive and deductive approach is the type of approaches followed in the academic
research (Taylor et al. 2016). Deductive research approach will be used in the research as the
research will analyze the existing theories and models related to the topic.
Sample and sampling:
In the research, simple random probability sampling technique will be selected for the
research. 75 numbers of cloud computing users across Australia will be selected for the research.
Data collection tools: Tools utilized consist of reliable questionnaire, library studies and
online surveys. Each process will be used in the research for complication of particular data.
Validity and reliability: Validity of content will be used for reviewing the research as
well as evaluate reliability of the research (Lewis 2015). Cronbach’s alpha test will be used to
test the variables. The questionnaire will accept reliability. On the other hand, based on the
analysis, the research findings will be generated.
Inferential analysis: In the study, the statistical inference associate with the data analysis
and hypothesis testing will be used. In the first stage, normality of data will be analyzed. After
completion of the process, the structural validity of the variables as well as indicators derived
from the examined process will confirm factor analysis (Flick 2015). At the final stage, the

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research hypothesis will be tested utilizing structural equation modeling along with correlation
coefficient.
7. Research Limitations
1. Like different studies regarding behavioral sciences, present study also includes
some limitations. One of the most significant limitations is qualitative factors,
which need to be converted to quantitative variable in order to measure particular
factors.
2. The purpose of the research is analyzing the impact of cloud computing. As there
are several products and services in the field of IT industry, the researcher may be
forced to limit the area of research. As the limitations, extension of the results of
the research to different brands as well needs to be achieved with caution.
3. Utilizing the questionnaires for having some, causes consisting of personal
respondents and variables will have major limitation for human scientists.
8. Time Schedule (Research plan)
(Refer to Appendix)
9. Conclusion
The above study concludes that cloud computing has made an effortless change for all
access applications as well as software from internet. In past days, software as well as
applications was physically installed. It results several issues. However, the current evolution of
technology as well as feasibility for accessing the applications of cloud computing are become
reaping advantages. On the contrary, the disadvantages of cloud computing are evident and

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concerning point for the users. Thus, the study will be helpful to gather opinion of cloud
computing users regarding the issues and challenges faced while using cloud computing. It will
be helpful to recommend solutions in order to overcome the issues and obtain potential
advantages.

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10. Reference List
Alzahrani, A., Alalwan, N. and Sarrab, M., 2014, April. Mobile cloud computing: advantage,
disadvantage and open challenge. In Proceedings of the 7th Euro American Conference on
Telematics and Information Systems (p. 21). ACM.
Asghari, S. and Navimipour, N.J., 2016. Review and comparison of meta-heuristic algorithms
for service composition in cloud computing. Majlesi Journal of Multimedia Processing, 4(4).
Boutaba, R., Zhang, Q. and Zhani, M.F., 2014. Virtual machine migration in cloud computing
environments: Benefits, challenges, and approaches. In Communication Infrastructures for
Cloud Computing (pp. 383-408). IGI Global.
de Bruin, B. and Floridi, L., 2017. The ethics of cloud computing. Science and engineering
ethics, 23(1), pp.21-39.
Fernández, A., del Río, S., López, V., Bawakid, A., del Jesus, M.J., Benítez, J.M. and Herrera,
F., 2014. 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), pp.380-409.
Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research
project. Sage.
Girma, A., Garuba, M., Li, J. and Liu, C., 2015, April. Analysis of DDoS attacks and an
introduction of a hybrid statistical model to detect DDoS attacks on cloud computing
environment. In Information Technology-New Generations (ITNG), 2015 12th International
Conference on (pp. 212-217). IEEE.