Today I will be discussing the advantages and disadvantages cloud computing brings to enterprises.
“Many entrepreneurs today have their heads in the clouds. They’re either outsourcing most of their network infrastructure to a provider such as Amazon Web Services or are building out such infrastructures to capitalize on the incredible momentum around cloud computing”(Higginbotham Stacy, 2008). But there are many disadvantages as to why enterprises do not trust cloud computing. Stacy Higginbotham discusses 10 reasons why enterprises should not trust cloud computing. They are:
“It’s not secure. We live in an age in which 41 percent of companies employ someone to read their workers’ email. Certain companies and industries have to maintain strict watch on their data at all times, either because they’re regulated by laws such as HIPAA, Gramm-Leach Bliley Act or because they’re super paranoid, which means sending that data outside company firewalls isn’t going to happen.
It can’t be logged. Tied closely to fears of security are fears that putting certain data in the cloud make it hard to log for compliance purposes. While there are currently some technical ways around this, and undoubtedly startups out there waiting to launch their own products that make it possible to log “conversations” between virtualized servers sitting in the cloud, it’s still early days.
It’s not platform agnostic. Most clouds force participants to rely on a single platform or host only one type of product. Amazon Web Services is built on the LAMP stack, Google Apps Engine locks users into proprietary formats, and Windows lovers out there have GoGrid for supporting computing offered by the ServePath guys. If you need to support multiple platforms, as most enterprises do, then you’re looking at multiple clouds. That can be a nightmare to manage.
Reliability is still an issue. Even inside an enterprise, data centers or servers go down, but generally the communication around such outages is better and in many cases, fail-over options exist.
Portability isn’t seamless. As all-encompassing as it may seem, the so-called “cloud” is in fact made of up several clouds, and getting your data from one to another isn’t as easy as IT managers would like. These ties to platform issues, which can leave data in a format that few or no other cloud accepts, and also reflects the bandwidth costs associated with moving data from one cloud to another.
It’s not environmentally sustainable. The computers are still sucking down megawatts of power at an ever-increasing rate, and not all clouds are built to the best energy-efficiency standards. Moving data center operations to the cloud and off corporate balance sheets is kind of like chucking your garbage into a landfill rather than your yard. The problem is still there but you no longer have to look at it. A company still pay for the poor energy efficiency, but if we assume that corporations are going to try to be more accountable with regard to their environmental impact, controlling IT’s energy efficiency is important.
Cloud computing still has to exist on physical servers. As nebulous as cloud computing seems, the data still resides on servers around the world, and the physical location of those servers is important under many nations’ laws.
The need for speed still reigns at some firms. Putting data in the cloud means accepting the latency inherent in transmitting data across the country and the wait as corporate users ping the cloud and wait for a response. Ways around this problem exist with offline syncing, such as what Microsoft Live Mesh offers, but it’s still a roadblock to wider adoption.
Large companies already have an internal cloud. Many big firms have internal IT shops that act as a cloud to the multiple divisions under the corporate umbrella. Not only do these internal shops have the benefit of being within company firewalls, but they generally work hard — from a cost perspective — to stay competitive with outside cloud resources, making the case for sending computing to the cloud weak.
Bureaucracy will cause the transition to take longer than building replacement housing in New Orleans. Big companies are conservative, and transitions in computing can take years to implement. A good example is the challenge HP faced when trying to consolidate its data center operations. Employees were using over 6,000 applications and many resisted streamlining of any sort. Plus, internal IT managers may fight the outsourcing of their livelihoods to the cloud, using the reasons listed above. “(Higginbotham Stacy, 2008).
In Contrast, there are several benefits that cloud computing bring to enterprises. They include:
“Server Compute Capacity. Perhaps the most important reason for leveraging cloud capabilities is to quickly gain access to hundreds or thousands of computers for compute capacity when needed. Building machines in the Enterprise data center can take a lot of time, not to mention procuring needed machines and software if necessary. Use of the cloud can be up to 90% faster than using servers in data centers. With cloud computing, you rent servers and you don’t own them. If the business and load is seasonal or if traffic spikes at certain times, using the cloud could be an ideal answer to building compute capacity.
Storage Capacity. The use of cloud computing for storage capacity can be ideal, especially for spikes in usage. Because the use of cloud entails low or no upfront capital cost and low ongoing operational costs, the ability to take advantage of pools of resources on demand in real-time can yield business advantage.
Elasticity and Resizability. Elasticity in computing terms represents the ability to be highly flexible – nearly instantaneously – to changes in load. This may be the most compelling reason to consider cloud computing. With cloud computing, an infrastructure supporting an application, business, or business process can be easily resized and right-sized depending upon conditions.
Easy to use. Cloud computing is fairly straightforward to use as programming and technicalconventions are similar enough to those of conventional computing, and leading cloud computing platforms have open API’s (application programming interface).
Multiple Locations. Cloud providers are able to provide multiple locations for delivery, failover and back-up. They offer technical capabilities for load that can be easily transferred from one location to another. Some providers have unique intellectual property in this area.
Network Access. With cloud computing, services are generally accessed and delivered through and over the web. Compared to a traditional model, the use of a public network rather than a private network can be a big change. The use of public networks may not be suitable for all types of application traffic, so a hybrid approach may be required.
Service Provider. Knowledgeable service providers will share with you the lessons learned with clients to define how best the cloud can help extend your own data center, whether through a full cloud solution or a hybridized approach with most traffic handled from your data center and overloads transferred to the cloud.” (Capgemini 2008).
2 years ago
