Cloud computing

Cloud computing as an IT revolution

Cloud computing is seen as an IT revolution in the 21st century. As such, cloud computing is considered to be one of the areas in which solutions to the existing market challenges faced by small and large enterprises are provided. It's going to be a spark for the achievement of various transformations. As such, businesses can use cloud services to benefit from the commoditization of resources, fast and scalable provisioning, the democratization of computing, and virtualization.

Commoditization of infrastructure

Commoditization of infrastructure will occur as firms focus on having effective IT, which will assist in the formulation and achievement of successful strategies on the business role of the company. This will contribute to improving the performance level of a firm. The IT web scale will be bridged to have a rapid pace. Hence, a company will have fast provision of its services in a scalable manner, which does not allow for the exhausting of the current resources in the firm. The company enterprise scale infrastructure will also be bridged to medium and small businesses, which supports democratization of the computing experiences. There is also the enhancement of the computing efficiency by having an effective virtualization of the computing network.

Focus on business activities and cost effectiveness

Cloud computing will also enable a business organization to focus on its business activities. As such, a firm is able to achieve cost effectiveness through buying of cloud services. Thus, such a company is able reallocate the limited resources to the growth and expansion of the business. Business agility is also achieved through effective technological investment. This includes having a good structure for the reduction of capital expenditures and improvement on the scalability of the business organization.

Improved efficiency and access to business activities

In addition, a business firm is able to ensure that the efficiency level of the staff members is improved significantly. This includes having good technology staff members who are outsourced for specialization in different aspects of the business. Furthermore, a company is able to access its business activities from different locations. This is a significant benefit for cloud computing services. There is also a quick access to data and applications, which users are authorized to access from different locations. This depends on whether the users have an access to the Internet. Hence, physical presence is not necessary to run the business.

Limitations of cloud computing

Nevertheless, cloud computing may not be a good option for business organizations. This occurs in times of having server downtime. As such, a business firm may not access cloud computing services at this time. Further, there are privacy and security issues, which have to be taken into consideration. This is common when handling sensitive data where questions are asked on how private and safe is the data for the company. Data transparency and ownership is also an issue of concern when using cloud computing for a company. Moreover, inflexibility could pose a significant challenge for the business. It is these challenges, which make cloud computing not suitable for companies.

Conclusion

In conclusion, in spite of the various challenges on cloud computing, companies should resort into cloud computing because the benefits outweigh the challenges. This is because the challenges can be avoided when the company embraces precautions of entering into an agreement with a provider of the cloud computing services. Such includes ensuring that the cloud computing services provider has the correct protocols and security, which ensures that services are not affected. Other concerns should also be discussed with the cloud hosting provider to overcome them in an effective manner.