Technology Deployment Approach : Cloud Computing

The focus of cloud computing is providing with scalable and a cheap on-demand computing infrastructure with a good quality of service levels. The process of the cloud computing involves a set of network enabled services that can be accessed in a simple and general way. Cloud computing provides with a unique value proposition for any organization to outsource their information and communication technology infrastructure. Moreover, the concept itself provides with a value proposition for an organization as using the cloud saves on cost, resources, and staff, and business opportunities for the organization (Katzan). An extensive connectivity of

Companies can remain agile and quickly build their systems with little delay. “One of the biggest advantages of a Cloud based system is that it can be easily set up in a very short period. The addition of new instances can be performed very quickly. In a cloud environment, software can easily be integrated. Hence, minimum effort is required to customize and integrate the applications.” (K. Pal, 2014).

Cloud computing is a model which enables an expedient and on demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. These include networks, servers, storage applications and services which can easily be available with little managerial effort or the interaction of the service provider. The authors of this article seek to identify the critical factors which are needed in order to effectively deploy cloud computing, this was done by looking at key insights which could have an impact n the deployment of cloud computing. (Garrison, Sanghyun, & Wakefield, 2012).

Cloud computing is a relatively new technology that allows data to be stored, distributed and manipulated with greater ease than ever. As described by Gurjar and Rathore (2013), the “Cloud is a large pool of easily usable and accessible virtualized resources. These resources can be dynamically reconfigured to adjust to a variable load, allowing also for an optimum resource utilization” (p. 1). By moving data, documents and media to the Cloud, the potential for business efficiency and productivity increases and anyone with internet can take advantage of the benefits. As with anything, it is important to understand the risks and benefits in order to weigh whether or not moving to the Cloud is the best move for the business. Some companies,

The Cloud Computing is one of the fastest growing technology that attracts researchers to add and improve its services [1][7]. Organizations benefit from this technology by replacing traditional IT hardware and data centers with remote, on-demand paid hardware and software services, that are configured for their particular needs, managed and hosted by the organization users or even a third party. This increases the organization’s flexibility and efficiency, without the need to have a dedicated IT staff or owning special hardware equipment or software licenses.

Cloud computing is defined by the article as the use of various softwares (such as hardware, storage and systems software) based in large global data centres rather than in local servers in personal computers. Cloud computing is believed to provide a range of benefits such as increased flexibility, reliability, portability and efficiency. It will simplify devices as well as reduce costs and the time taken to complete tasks.

Widespread usage of could computing is made possible via the internet. It is the most common way to have access to cloud computing resources. However, there are many people who are not familiar with terminology and concepts. Therefore, they often need to be clarified. The news media representation of cloud computing can be vague or it might not be necessarily fully captured the extend of what cloud computing entails or represents. Cloud users are not familiar with characteristics, models, and services. Therefore, this following section of the research paper introduces layers and types of clouds, exploring the characteristics, service models, and deployment models in use today (“Cloud Computing for Business”, n.d.).

Whether it’s called Cloud Computing or On-demand Computing, Software as a Service, or the Internet as Platform, the common element is a shift in the geography of computation. When you create a spreadsheet with the Google Docs service, major components of the software reside on unseen computers, whereabouts unknown, possibly scattered across continents. This affects all levels of the computational ecosystem, from casual user to software developer, IT manager, even hardware manufacturer. Recently, a lot of vendors have started talking about “cloud computing” in their marketing materials. Citing a research published by Merrill Lynch entitled “The Cloud Wars: $100+ billion at stake,” Merrill Lynch has estimated a $160- billion addressable market opportunity, including $95- billion in business and productivity applications, and another $65-billion in online advertising for Cloud Computing. But the main question is whether the users are ready to give up using services on their local machines and shift to the Cloud since shifting to cloud computing has both advantages and disadvantages for all possible users; nevertheless, they may have different level of importance for different users

Though the actual history of cloud computing is not that old (the first business and consumer cloud computing services websites – salesforce.com and Google, were launched in 1999), the story of cloud computing is intertwined directly with the creation of the Internet and business, the answer to the unsolved question of how internet utilization can help improve business technology was and is cloud computation. Business technology history is both extensive and interesting, almost as extensive as business itself, but the invention of computers are most responsible for the influence on business technology. Cloud computing, like all other innovation was

Almost all modern day characteristics of cloud computing were thoroughly explored in Douglas Parkhill’s book, “The Challenge of the Computer Utility.” With global availability of high capacity networks, low cost computers and storage devices and the widespread adoption of hardware virtualization, service oriented architecture, autonomic, and utility computing have led to tremendous growth in cloud computing.

In addition, we also note that smaller players are fighting for market share. Many companies, however, remain skeptical about cloud computing. The main reason is the integrity and data security for CIOs (direction of information systems) remain cautious to think that their critical data is in an uncontrolled and often unknown location. Finally, note the position of open source in this technology because today we no longer speak of free server virtualization and thus XEN and KVM that have been chosen by most operators. Not to mention that most of the software developed for cloud computing is open source.

Cloud computing, even though some of the concepts were around for since as far back as the 1950’s, is considered the latest digital revolution. Cloud computing is a very controversial subject and term because of its old roots however, cloud computing is the evolution of these technologies and paradigms. Cloud is an alignment of procedures, hardware, and software to create a redundant, flexible, and cost-efficient solutions for developers, consumers, and businesses. The cloud allows us to access store and access data from anywhere in the world. The Cloud can scale to theoretically unlimited computing resources such as Central Processing Unit (CPU) power, Persistent Hard Disk Drive (HDD) storage, and Random Access Memory (RAM) to run more robust applications. The unparalleled possibility in scalability of the cloud rids us of the limitations and the growing pains traditionally had when scaling physical devices and at fraction of the cost. This paradigm also allows for companies to focus on what they do best verses needing to investing in, spending time on building the technology to complete their company’s vision.

This report will be exploring what cloud computing is, the usages of cloud computing, a comparison of organisations that offer cloud services and their architectures, an explanation on how a typical software company may benefit from having a cloud implementation, a description of a challenge that cloud computing has in research and a description of a challenge in a commercial adaptation in connection to cloud computing.

The advances in information and communication technologies have paved way to cloud computing, which is becoming one of the essential social infrastructures. It is a new paradigm for storing data and accessing information and applications which are offered as on-demand services over the Internet infrastructure. It provides new possibilities for business firms as well as governments. In particular, organizations that adopt cloud computing services are expected to gain cost benefits from reduced up-front IT investment, maintenance and lower energy cost (Bose and Luo, 2011); while for the industry as whole, it will benefit from increasing economies of scale and reduction of unutilized capacity (Haag and Eckhardt, 2014). Further cloud computing offers opportunities for innovation realized through lowering entry and expansion cost for firms, especially small and medium enterprises; access high quality services, and fast deployment of product and services. Additional benefits include productivity gains particularly resources efficiency, flexibility and on-demand scalability (Armbrust et al. 2010) as firms concentrate on their core business while accessing high IT quality services from the cloud vendors.

It is difficult to resolve issues in cloud computing environment because of its varied nature. In order to make user effectively utilize the existing computational power a new kind of operating systems are needed. Therefore cloud based operating systems promise vision to meet user’s needs at any time. At the same time designing of cloud based operating systems present many challenges to the designer. The common issues include scalability, elasticity of demand, and faults.