Reasons to Build Systems in the Cloud

             A Study of the Cloud Advantage

                                   

Introduction

In the Authors many years of experience there have been several exciting changes to the technology field. Throughout this paper many of these changes and facts will be delivered in the hopes of creating a knowledgeable understanding of what the cloud is and how it can be truly beneficial.

The field of computers is a constantly changing field. Updates in things such as hardware and software are always changing how things can be accomplished. One thing that is now occurring is the advancement towards servers, a special kind of computer, being hosted in the cloud. The cloud is a recently introduced idea that started out as a place companies could host software.

Hosting software in the cloud can have several advantages if you take time to think about it. One of the first things that might come to mind is the amount of money spent on maintaining infrastructure. If you host your software in the cloud you will only have to pay a monthly fee to have access to the software. This fee is normally small compared to the cost of buying physical hardware, software licenses, and paying yearly support costs.

The next evolution of the Cloud the author saw introduced was known as platform as a service. This is sometimes abbreviated as PaaS and allowed customers to deploy their own applications to the cloud. Examples could be a web application or other custom software. This was an advantage for the reason that it eliminated the constraint of having to use only what was available from SaaS providers.

Once cloud became more common the third form of cloud computing emerged. This   form allowed companies to run an operating system with whatever software they wanted to. Through all of these various evolutions companies that became earlier adopters of cloud technology gained advantages not seen by other companies. The advantages that they experienced were the ability to adapt to a global economy, spend less money, scale easier, and meet strict security guidelines.

Scaling to a Global Economy

As the limitations of trading and costs of doing business across the globe have decreased businesses have been able to setup markets in places never thought of before. This is a trend towards a global economy. Being able to compete in a global economy requires being able to have information technology close to the source.

As you can imagine competing in a global economy means the ability to reach other parts of the word with ease. In an article on the Amazon Web Services site they state the following “Easily deploy your application in multiple regions around the world with just a few clicks. This means you can provide a lower latency and better experience for your customers simply and at minimal cost.”(What Is Cloud Computing, n.d.). Imagine a request coming into your organization of how can we now offer our services to customers across the world. In the traditional method you would create capacity by adding servers, bandwidth, and other resources to a data center. In a cloud based scenario you simply provision a new server in the region that you want to reach.

The cloud allows companies to scale easily to meet global needs. Allowing almost an instant reach into most all parts of the globe is a big advantage. Think of this from the standpoint of being able to reach more customers. This also could allow for a bigger physical presence as well. Setting up offices across the world can be costly which leads to the next point.

                                                Keeping IT costs in Check

            When you sit down at your desk and look around you see money. It is all around us and is a cost of doing business. Over the last few years as the economy has changed so has the bottom line that business is willing to spend on information technology. Most information technology departments are asked how to do more with what seems to be less. In the traditional method of information technology adding servers and other infrastructure was how they did everything. 

Part of the problem of the traditional method is the factor that it requires large amounts of financial investment. As an example say your application uses a web server and a database server. In a traditional scenario you would have to add servers with enough storage and processing power. For a web server that is not a big task it is the database servers that become the expensive part of the equation. As an article from Microsoft(2010) who runs a cloud platform called Azure points out “Renting 1 machine for 1,000 hours will be nearly equivalent to renting 1,000 machines for 1 hour in the cloud. ….rapidly accomplish complex tasks that were previously prohibited by cost or time constraints”(p.12).  In the authors many years of experience at some organizations it was seen as a dream to have the right hardware and software in place because of the cost. Also as stated by Priya Viswana(n.d.) “Cloud computing is probably the most cost efficient method to use, maintain and upgrade.”(n.d.) Cloud computing is helping to provide a level playing field for companies from small to large. At one time systems that might take lots of money and time to implement can know be done in minutes.

Spending money today in business is a very scrutinized process. You must have research and proof that it will benefit the business. There are lots of articles and research into the cost savings that a cloud based solution provides. This however should not be the only reason that you go with a cloud based solution. Seeing that a business benefits from other parts of cloud solutions like scaling are also important.

Scaling At Will

As a company grows it is also presumable that the needs from any information technology systems will also need to grow. With traditional thinking this was done through adding more machines when the need arises. However, the big problem with this system was that you had delays between when you sensed the need and the systems were in place.

 In the traditional method of information technology architecture you would investigate and create a plan based off of the current state and a projected future needs of a system. This easily becomes a problem when a company actually does better than expected or the system requires more than initially expected. Cloud computing answers this by a concept called elasticity. As stated by V Rajaraman(2014) in his article “The service is elastic and scalable. In other words, customers assume unlimited availability of the service on demand.” (p. 246). Elasticity is an important advantage to companies. Imagine being the company that ran into not enough resources for your system. Now you have to spend even more money to get the system working as initially thought.  As D.C. Marinescu(2013) states “Cloud computing allows companies to respond to varying workloads by using elasticity.”(p.20) In cloud computing you do have to spend some money but not as much as you would have just spent in the traditional model. Not only from a cost perspective but time is also saved as you don’t have to wait for the server to arrive and all other setups be done. This is one of the points of the article on news.microsoft.com that states “Instead of having to invest heavily in data centers and servers before you know how you’re going to use them, you can only pay when you consume computing resources, and only pay for how much you consume.” (What is Cloud Computing, n.d.). This is especially advantageous to smaller start-ups who may not necessarily have the money to afford a really expensive computer system that would allow them for future growth Instead they can start small and grow it as they grow. A good example of this was covered in the article found in CIO by Mary K. Pratt that stated, “Menefee says cloud-based systems provide the best way for IT to keep pace with the company's 15 to 30 percent annual growth. (2013, p. 22)

Companies can’t always predict how popular their service is going to be. By utilizing a cloud architecture they can be prepared to scale at any minute. They also can, because of the reduced pricing cost, start with more than they might have estimated. This will allow them to study the usage and properly scale out in the future.

Security of the Future

            In the authors many years experience they have read many articles where a company is taking some criticism in regards to how they handle data and private information. Now visit or investigate how a company becomes certified for some of these standards. There is a lot of information that has to be researched. Not only this but to implement it you will have to find a company that understands the requirements and can certify you.

Security is an important concept to any IT infrastructure whether hosted in their local data centers of hosted in the cloud is security. In the traditional method sensitive data is normally held within a part of the network that has undergone some form of independent audit. Most of these audits require clearly stated policies and processes. They also require certain setup for hardware. A good example is a PCI compliant network certification requires that your hardware is independent of your independent internal hardware. This translates to more money if you follow the traditional method. If you follow the cloud topology you save money and the ongoing headaches of certification. Most cloud providers will tell you if they are certified for certain data privacy standards. Once you know they are certified you can then look for information on what is required to put something like this in place. As an example of PCI and Azure security providers like Microsoft has a checklist broken down into three categories. The first is what Microsoft considers a topic they have responsibility for completely. The next is what they consider the end user responsible for. Lastly they have a category for what both parties are responsible for. The cloud is a new domain for data storage and any company should always proceed with caution as nothing can harm a company more than a security incident. Microsoft even goes as far on news.microsoft.com to state “Security of customers’ data and programs are the responsibility of providers.” (2010, p. 246). This of course doesn't include something your development team coded. A good example is what if your development team stores the credit card information in plain text in a database. Most cloud providers are not going to tell you this is a bad idea. They expect a certain level of diligence from the end client as well.

Conclusion

Companies today in a global economy have to be poised to make changes in how they use technology. If they are not open minded to change then they will be left behind in technology. Cloud technology is one of those important technologies that companies need to invest time in.

Companies today are competing in a global economy. Although there are many advantages to moving to the cloud the above are some of the more important. Today many companies have to worry about how they are going to scale a solution. Along with scaling comes the complexity of cost. Also as a constant concern in both traditional and cloud based environments is always security. Recently many companies have been caught without good security mechanisms. Things like credit cards, personal information, and data storage will all become a critical point. If implemented right cloud computing will allow these companies to reach further, faster, at a lower cost, and with less complexity around security.

References

Marinescu, D. C. (2013). Cloud Computing : Theory and Practice. Saint Louis, MO, USA: Morgan Kaufmann. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com

News.microsoft.com. (2010). The Economics of the Cloud. Retrieved February 25, 2015, from http://news.microsoft.com/download/archived/presskits/cloud/docs/The-Economics-of-the-Cloud.pdf

PRATT, M. K. (2013). Making Time for Innovation. Cio, 26(8), 22.

Rajaraman, V. (2014). Cloud computing. Resonance: Journal Of Science Education, 19(3), 242-258. doi:10.1007/s12045-014-0030-1

Viswanathan, Priya. (n.d.). Cloud Computing – Is It Really All That Beneficial. Retrieved March 3, 2015 from http://mobiledevices.about.com/od/additionalresources/a/Cloud-Computing-Is-It-Really-All-That-Beneficial.htm

What Is Cloud Computing. (n.d.). Retrieved March 3, 2015 from http://aws.amazon.com/what-is-cloud-computing/