Cloud Computing: Benefits and Drawbacks for Business Operations

This report provides a comprehensive literature review on the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing for businesses. It begins by defining cloud computing and exploring its different types, including public, private, and hybrid clouds. The report then discusses various applications of cloud computing in business, such as data backup, mobile networking, information sharing, file storage, and development planning. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to outlining the benefits of cloud computing, including flexibility, business continuity, cost efficiency, enhanced collaboration, automatic software updates, environmental friendliness, and automatic software integration. Conversely, the report also delves into the disadvantages of cloud computing, such as downtime, security concerns, vendor lock-in, limited control, and potential interoperability issues. The report synthesizes information from various sources, including books, journals, articles, and websites, to offer a balanced perspective on cloud computing's impact on business operations.

Running head: ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing for Businesses
Part A: Literature review
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1ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Table of Contents
Concept of cloud computing................................................................................................3
Types of cloud computing...................................................................................................4
Use of cloud computing in business....................................................................................5
Advantages of using cloud computing in business..............................................................6
Disadvantages of using cloud computing in business.........................................................8
Summary............................................................................................................................10
References..........................................................................................................................11

2ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Literature review
Introduction
Adoption of latest technology becomes surefire way for increasing productivity as well as
profit of an organization. Cloud computing is one of the technology through which a business
organization can obtain competitive advantages in business. Present study deals with reviewing
literature regarding advantages and disadvantages of using cloud computing in business from
different sources such as books, journals, articles and website.
Concept of cloud computing
Cloud computing is considered as computing infrastructure as well as software model in
order to enable ubiquitous access to the shared pools of the configurable resources. In other
words, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services such as storage, servers,
networking, databases and software as well as analytics over the internet. The organizations
offering the service are known as cloud providers and charge for the services (Alzahrani et al.
2014). Using cloud computing can be helpful for business improvement. It is a big shift from
traditional way business. Cloud computing services are rapidly provisioned with the help of
minimal management effort over the internet. Cloud computing can allows the users as well as
organizations with several computing capabilities for storing as well as processing data in
privately owned cloud or third party server, which is located in data centre for accessing data
mechanisms efficiently. Cloud computing is relied on sharing of the resources in order to achieve
coherence as well as economy of scale.

3ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Types of cloud computing
Cloud computing has three forms such as public, private clouds as well as hybrid clouds.
Depending on the type of data working with, cloud service is classified.
Public cloud: Public cloud is generally known as internet. The service providers utilize
internet in order to make resources like applications as well as storage that are available to
general public. For instance, public clouds consist of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Sun
Cloud, Google AppEngine, Windows Azure Services Platform and IBM’s Blue Cloud (Firdhous
et al. 2014). This type of cloud provides services in the best economies of scale and inexpensive
for set up as hardware, applications as well as costs of bandwidth are covered by provider.
However, this type of cloud service is not fit for all business organizations for having limitation
in configuration and security.
Private Clouds: Private clouds are the architectures for data centre owned by single
organization. It provides flexibility, scalability as well as provisioning, monitoring and
automation. This type of cloud service provides service to maintain own data centre. Private
clouds are expensive with modest economy of scale. Thus, it is not considered as the option for
small or medium sized business organizations.
Hybrid clouds: Through utilization of hybrid approach, organizations can control
internally managed private cloud at the time of relying on public cloud as required (Hashem et
al. 2015). For example, during peak periods, applications and portions of the applications can be
migrated to public cloud. It is beneficial during hurricane warnings and scheduled maintenance
windows.

4ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Use of cloud computing in business
Cloud computing can be used in several ways in business of an organization that can be
described as followed.
Data backup: As an owner of a small business, it is required to concern about
significance of backing up of data so that the organization cannot lose data in the case of system
failure. Cloud cannot simplify the procedure through allowing data in order to automatically
update the work done by the organization (Gutierrez et al. 2015). However, it creates copies of
data off-site where the data will be in safe from any of local disasters.
Mobile Networking: It is one of the useful ways for utilizing cloud computing in
business. It creates ability for the business owners in order to create complete functional mobile
offices. Cloud can be fitted perfectly with the process as it allows the users accessing as well as
sync data from any place and allows taking office on road.
Information Sharing: Cloud computing can be used as serving the purpose of
information sharing. If the organization has in-house staffs and team spread across a distance,
cloud computing helps the enterprise sharing data effortlessly (Assunção et al. 2015). On the
other hand, it is important to back up data and share files easily through sending a link as well as
eliminating cumbersome procedure of elimination of large files as well as saving copies on the
drives.
File Storage: Several businesses are e utilizing images, audio along with video in order t
improve marketing activities. The files take up important part of hard drive space that can be
expensive. The cloud allows the users shifting the storage of large files off of the local system
and save local storage for files required to access every day.

5ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Development planning: Cloud is scalable in nature. Thus, it allows the small business
organizations creating plan for development, which uses the advantages of clouds without
shifting storage of the large files of local system (Fernando et al. 2013). In addition, a business
can start from small and gradually increase the usage. Cloud is also self-managed through
applications, which provide services; so that users can remove or minimize the requirements for
in-house IT employees for managing technology. For examples, Hartford has transformed the
way through which it delivers IT services. The organization has adopted private cloud
infrastructure and offer improved services with the help of cloud computing.
Advantages of using cloud computing in business
Cloud based services offers scalable as well as reliable IT infrastructure, which is
specifically designed for streamline business performances along with supporting development
and improvement of the particular organization. The benefits of using cloud computing in
business can be explained as followed
Flexibility: Cloud computing provides high level flexibility to the organizations
investing in cloud based services (Rahimi et al. 2014). In addition, cloud based servers can offer
unlimited bandwidth as well as storage space that allows the businesses to scale up and down
capabilities of the organization instantly in order to support improvement and cope with increase
of traffic.
In addition, flexibility service removes the requirements for buying and installing
equipments as well as upgrades on site of the organization (Hameed et al. 2016). Cloud
computing allows the enterprise for enhanced work place flexibility as the staffs can access the
applications and data on the remote server off-site at any time and any place.

6ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Business continuity: Investment in cloud computing ensures reliable disaster recovery
as well as backup solutions without making any hassle of setting up a physical device. Presently,
there are several businesses investing in complicated disaster recovery plans, which can be costly
venture and taking back up data consumes long time (Al-Ayyoub et al. 2015). On the other hand,
cloud computing has been designed in such way that data of the organization can be stored in the
mirrored across servers. Thus, if any of the staffs of the business organization fails to access
information; other people can instantly backup data as required. It results minimization of
website downtime as well as loss of productivity of the enterprise.
Cost efficiency: One of the most important benefits of cloud computing is IT operational
cost savings. Utilization of remote servers minimizes the requirements for in-house storage
equipments as well as applications needs along with the overhead costs; for example, software
updates, managing and accessing data storage (Fernández et al. 2014). Along with this, cloud-
based services are very affordable for use as the services are implemented on pay-per-use. Thus,
business of the organization can use the service whenever they need and return if not required.
There are several organizations with the limited budgets that are recognizing with advantages of
cloud computing.
Enhanced collaboration: Sultan (2014) stated that cloud environment needs to show
important improvement in collaboration between groups as well as communities accessing the
same files. It minimizes limitation of communication in traditional IT models as well as makes
very faster and easier for the staffs working in several locations in order to access data as well as
collaborate with the team members along with key personnel. It assists to the streamline
procedures as well as more works done in very less time.

7ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Automatic software updates: There is several cloud service providers provide regular
system updates in order to ensure requirements of information technology (Hsu et al. 2014). In
addition, they ensure appropriate maintenance of cloud servers that includes security updates.
The services providers also include security updates and save money for business.
Environment friendly: Cloud computing services are considered as economic friendly
for the business organization. For businesses with corporate social responsibility, it helps to
maintain small carbon footprint (Sadiku et al. 2014). In addition, utilization of pay-per-use
services utilize virtual environment for storing data as well as running the web applications in
less energy consumption. In addition, it helps no emission of carbon in the workplace of
organization. Cloud computing also minimizes physical requirements and less equipment in
office.
Automatic software integration: The key advantage of cloud computing is integration of
software. It occurs automatically in cloud that takes away the requirements for the business in
order to manually integrate the applications (Subramanian et al. 2014). Utilization of cloud
computing technology and software applications as well as service can be easily customized that
allows the business handpicking the services, which are suited with the needs of business.
Disadvantages of using cloud computing in business
Even though cloud computing has several benefits in business; it has several
disadvantages that can be explained as followed.
Downtime: As cloud service providers manage a number of clients every day; they can
become overwhelmed as well as come up against the technical outage. It can lead the business

8ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
procedure suspended for a while. In addition, if the internet connection is not online, the user
can not be able accessing any of the applications, server and data from cloud.
Security: He and Da Xu (2014) commented that cloud service providers deploy the best
standards of security as well as certifications of industry and storing data as well as vital files on
the external service providers. It always opens up risks. On the other hand, utilization of cloud-
powered technologies requires providing the service provider with accessing significant business
data. However, public service opens up cloud services providers to the security challenges based
on routine (Kavis 2014). In this situation, procuring as well as accessing cloud services along
with the vulnerabilities within a particular system. For example, in multi-tenant cloud
architecture, several users host the same servers. On the other hand, such exploits as well as
loophole are on the surface and likelihood of compromising the process.
Vendor lock-in: Cloud service promises that cloud would be flexible for using as well as
integration and switching the cloud services that is not entirely evolved. The enterprises may find
it tough for migration of services from a vendor to a different vendor. Hosting as well as
integrating present cloud applications on different platform throws up interoperability along with
supporting the issues (Gupta et al. 2013). For example, applications are developed on Microsoft
Development Framework that might not work properly on different platform like Linux.
Limited control: Mezgár and Rauschecker (2014) mentioned that the cloud infrastructure
is completely owned as well as managed and monitored through service providers. It can transfer
minimal control over the customers. However, the customers can only control as well as manage
the applications, data and services that are operated on top. The key administrative tasks like

9ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
server shell access and updating as well as management of firmware cannot be passed to the end
users of service.
Summary
The above discussion summarizes that with the rapid growth of science and technology,
cloud computing becomes a part of most of the business. Use of the cloud computing has several
advantages in the business through which the business organization can obtain competitive
advantages and retain in the market with good position. However, several limitations are parts of
using cloud computing in the business that are required to minimize by taking necessary actions
and obtain potential benefits for using cloud computing in business.

10ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
References
Al-Ayyoub, M., Jararweh, Y., Daraghmeh, M. and Althebyan, Q., 2015. Multi-agent based
dynamic resource provisioning and monitoring for cloud computing systems
infrastructure. Cluster Computing, 18(2), pp.919-932.
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.
Assunção, M.D., Calheiros, R.N., Bianchi, S., Netto, M.A. and Buyya, R., 2015. Big Data
computing and clouds: Trends and future directions. Journal of Parallel and Distributed
Computing, 79, pp.3-15.
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,
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Firdhous, M., Ghazali, O. and Hassan, S., 2014. Fog computing: Will it be the future of cloud
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11ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
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12ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
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