Cloud Computing Research Paper Essay

Introduction Cloud computing is the answer for â€Å"affordable† business technology platforms. It is a more affordable solution for media content than any other medium, and this is why Netflix, Amazon.com, and Apple are among the leaders in cloud usage and development. Ultimately cloud computing will be the primary way data services are accessed by businesses and consumers alike. Marston, Li, Bandyopadhyay, Zhang, and Ghalsasi 2009 conclude cloud computing offers companies the opportunity to deploy cutting edge IT services without the enormous upfront costs that deter so many organizations from making the investment in infrastructure. Now that affordable solutions are becoming more readily available it is likely that more small and medium sized businesses will try and streamline their IT services. Small and medium sized businesses will likely be attracted to billing features that only charge for actual usage, as opposed to a flat fee. This format of doing business seems confusing on its surface, which led Kamra, Sonawane, and Alappanavar 2012, to compare Cloud Computing to Municipal Water Departments. Cloud Computing can be explained using a simple example. Many decades ago people used to go to their well to get the water needed to live their lives, nowadays things are different. Municipalities have placed water taps at every door step, so you can turn on and use the service as needed. Cloud computing is the same concept. You do not need to build a Water Plant to have water in your home, and now businesses do not need a massive computer lab to run their IT Services. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon provide a cloud to their customers, business partners and employees that allows services to be provided on a 24/7 basis. Discussion A perfect example of cloud computing would be Yahoo.Com and Gmail.Com e-mail addresses. As recently as seven years ago Microsoft Outlook was a program installed on the hard drive of your computer that helped to facilitate your incoming and outgoing e-mails. Now â€Å"web-based† or â€Å"cloud mail† is what 99% of the people using computers use for e-mail services. A company will be able to use cloud services on a per usage, or metered basis. This is the future of computing and the majority of new services in the future will be based around this type of technology, which leads us to the importance of network uptime and availability. Ambrust et, al 2010, suggest that just as large ISPs use multiple network providers so that failure by a single company will not take them off the air, we believe the only plausible solution to very high network availability is multiple cloud computing providers used simultaneously. I agree wholeheartedly with this concept and this is how Facebook became the powerhouse of a company that it is today. In both the movie â€Å"The Social Network†, and the book â€Å"The Accidental Billionaires†; Mark Zuckerberg, is described as â€Å"convinced† that a network outage as short as one day could irreversibly unravel the entire company. Facebook is revered as an incredibly stable platform. While I do not have inside information with regard to Facebook’s cloud computing strategy, I believe it is a very easy assumption to make that they have multiple ISP and Cloud sources to ensure platform availability. As another example a company like Amazon.Com which has no retail presence, depends entirely on the uptime of their network and website, a disruption of a few hours in service could cost the company millions of dollars in lost sales opportunities. Multiple back up Internet Service Providers is a must. Conclusion Aljabre 2012, suggests the concept of cloud computing in business may sound ideal and easy to implement, but like all new technology being introduced in to a business with an IT system already in place has both negative and positive aspects. Aljabre uses Amazon.com as his example of a company that has successfully utilized this technology. Amazon has 80 million customers, and 17 thousand employees, and has a need for cloud access at the highest possible level. Amazon has a mission critical need for many different people, both employees and customers alike to be able to access the internal network for employees and the website itself for both sellers and buyers. Aljabre considers Amazon to be the number one company on the planet with regard to cloud utilization and the success of the company and high regard for its network stability is a testament to how much cloud computing has advanced in the short time it has been implemented. Virginia Watson Ross 2010 believes today’s organizations are being tasked with finding ways to minimize costs, while their computing and data needs grow, cloud computing is a viable option to consider. With its economy of scale and high performance assets, it has the potential for meeting increased organizational computing and data management needs., and surges in demand, while minimizing costs. The challenge is to determine what factors drive a company’s decision makers to choose or not to choose to employ cloud computing to meet organizational needs. The advantages of cloud computing include cost savings, meeting computing needs, reliability, and centralized security functions. This will lead to overall lower costs, improved information handling, and greater convenience for end users. All of these advantages make cloud computing worth considering. References Marston, Sean R., Li, Zhi, Bandyopadhyay, Subhajyoti, Ghalsasi, Anand and Zhang, Juheng, Cloud Computing: The Business Perspective (November 23, 2009). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1413545 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1413545 Armburts, Michael. â€Å"A View of Cloud Computing.† Communications of the ACM 53.4 (2010):50. Aljabre, Abdulaziz. â€Å"Cloud Computing for Increased Business Value.† International journal of business and social science 3.1 (2012):234. References Ross, Virginia W. â€Å"Factors influencing the adoption of cloud computing by decision making managers.† Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, (2010). :2021. Kamra, Varun. â€Å"CLOUD COMPUTING AND ITS PRICING SCHEMES.† International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering 4.4 (2012):577.