Introduction
Cloud computing is when using multiple servers via a digital network, to increase additional processing and computing power to a website or web application, to offer a lot different services. This is done by having the website, service or web application share its servers with a lot of other servers with other websites of various size and memory, and when 1 website suddenly becomes popular the cloud would automatically allocate more processing power and memory to handle those extra requests the website is now receiving.
Here is a diagram of various applications and services being offered on a cloud which any device through a secure connection can access.
Here are important aspects of cloud computing and advantages and disadvantages of each aspect:
Hosted Apps and Platforms: Applications will be installed on the cloud instead of locally on the user’s machine, so as long the browser supports the features needed every application would run on any machine. So apart from disc space other advantages are access from anywhere, especially in today’s world where everyone is using smart phones with fast internet connections, on the user’s part and upgrading is now facilitated on the server side since once an application is updated on the cloud, everyone will have a new version.
A disadvantage of hosted apps is that the user will now have less control on the application. For example a new version of the application has completely changed the user interface and the user doesn’t like it, he still has to upgrade since the user interface has been upgraded on the cloud. Also another disadvantage is the over reliance on the internet connection which sometimes is not good enough for the user’s need. Also there are cases which applications need to have an offline mode in case the internet connection is disconnected such as a point of sale system.
Security: Although one would think that having items locally would be more secure, this is a common misconception. Using clouds would offload most of the security to a company whose job is to make your data as secure as possible. Think of it like a bank is to people’s money. But a disadvantage to this would be that everything on the cloud is now easier for a hacker to access, since he knows where it is.
Control: Although one wouldn’t quickly think of, Cloud Computing providers will have capabilities to get all data back from cloud without any additional costs, and as fast as possible should the user decide to get out of the idea.
Thinner Clients: The Clients machine will have less responsibility in terms of Processing and Memory, but clients are still getting more and more powerful so it is not a direct advantage of Cloud Computing.
Scalability: Cloud computing will have us think in a scalable fashion which is not always needed for a small company, but would be very beneficial for a fast growing one.
Costs: In some cases licenses are needed for short periods of time, so the best thing to do is to pay per use, a service which most Cloud Computing providers offer, although with incurring costs there is always a chance of making mistakes and having to pay more then you need to. Another thing which could be viewed as either good or bad, depending on your personal opinion, is that with these systems it is much harder to get away with software piracy.
Legal: a problem with cloud computing being such a modern way of doing thing is that laws are not good enough or clearly defined enough to cope with this idea. All the ambiguity in laws would create problems in regards of privacy and define rules of what is permitted on the cloud.
Conclusion
Cloud computing has many advantages that could help a user, but it still has a lot of ways which it can improve. Also better laws to help define what can and can’t be done on cloud computing is a must to remove any ambiguity of the use of cloud computing
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