Cloud Computing has brought a whole world of new possibilities when it comes to managing business workloads effectively. For this very reason, the adoption of cloud solutions by businesses has consistently shown robust growth. As is the case with most technologies, you have to see the whole picture to make an informed decision.
In this post, we will highlight some of the major pros and cons of cloud computing. This in turn will assist your business in arriving at the right conclusion.
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Cloud Benefits
Here are a few reasons why you should seriously consider availing a Cloud Based Solution or Service.
Accessibility
Modern cloud solutions are designed around a wide array of accessibility options. Employees can login to their work using multiple device platforms, regardless of physical location. All one needs is a decent internet connection and a login device such as smartphone, tablet, laptop or PC.
Costs
When a business decides to migrate to the cloud, cost saving is a high priority consideration. In case of the cloud, organizations no longer have to maintain capital intensive data centers in house. In most such cases, hardware is the sole responsibility of your Cloud Service Provider (CSP).
In this way, businesses can focus more on their core area of expertise. In the absence of an elaborate hardware on premise, organizations also save a lot of operational costs incurred on extracting optimal performance from such hardware, especially in the case of small to mid-sized entities.
Disaster Recover (DR)
Any cloud solution can also serve as an effective Disaster Recovery (DR) mechanism. Firstly, it is readily accessible in case of any disruption. Secondly, you data resides over an external infrastructure in the data centers of some CSP. Businesses can easily leverage cloud computing as a robust DR mechanism.
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Scalability
Cloud solutions are offered purely on usage basis. A CSP has a vast pool of computing and storage resources that are instantly accessible for an additional usage fee. The cloud is extremely useful for businesses that experience seasonal trends during the course of business operations.
In cases where the demand for computing resources declines, a business can instantly scale down its usage of CSP’s resources. The rapid scalability of cloud solutions make them a highly viable proposition, purely from an operational stand point.
Speed
Cloud solutions are built around state of the art hardware. The cloud management software that allocate resources are also designed for optimization. With the proper enterprise infrastructure in place such as bandwidth, a cloud based solution can rival the performance delivered by any on premise solution.
Sustainability
IT hardware has some of the highest obsolescence rates. In case of a cloud solution, hardware is the sole responsibility of the CSP. With hardware maintenance and up gradation costs out of the equation, an organization can greatly increase the lifespan of its existing hardware, as minimal resources are used on site.
Drawbacks of the Cloud
Below are a few reasons you should avoid availing a cloud computing solution.
Remote Workforce
To improve efficiency and increase employee motivation, organizations these days are promoting remote workforce. For businesses, cloud computing is the perfect enabler for providing a secure, efficient and compliant productivity platform to employees that is independent of the constraints to time and space.
Security
The internet is infested with cyber threats. Every now and then, we hear news about data breaches that affect millions of users. When an organization moves to the cloud, it has to entrust its data to the CSP. This raises serious concerns about security of your business critical or sensitive data.
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Privacy
When a business embraces the cloud, it has to transfer its data over the CSP’s data center. If your data is of a sensitive nature, it may raise privacy concerns. Even otherwise, regulations around privacy are getting more stringent with every passing day.
Performance
CSPs allocate computing resources to businesses purely on the basis of their estimated workloads. In situations where heavy computing or storage is required, most CSPs will charge an incremental fee and inflate the cost of the otherwise viable solution.
Cyber Attacks
The data centers of CSPs are a soft target for cyber criminals as vast amounts of data is stored at a central location. This feature in turn makes CSP data centers highly susceptible to cyber attacks. The situation gets even more complicated if the data involved is of personal or sensitive nature.
Management of Data
To fully avail the potential for a cloud solution, most businesses have to migrate their business critical data over the cloud infrastructure. There are generally data integration challenges as this is entirely a new infrastructure. Such bottlenecks may also adversely affect organizational efficiency.
Long term Costs
To objectively analyze the benefits of a cloud based solution, you will have to consider the long term costs of availing it. No matter how large sums of money you pay a CSP as usage fee, you will never end up owning the hardware of that CSP itself. You will have to weigh the long term costs with owning the hardware and then decide.
Compliance
Regulations around data storage and management are getting much stringent with every passing day. Before you entrust your data and business critical info to a CSP, you will have to ensure it meets region’s and industry’s regulations in true letter and spirit.
Dependency on Internet
In most cases, a business will avail its cloud based solution through the internet. Over the internet, there is always a tug of war between users for the limited bandwidth available. This in turn will adversely affect or even jeopardize business critical functions.
Conclusion
We have presented both the pros and cons of cloud computing solutions so that you can make a well informed decision on whether to avail the cloud infrastructure. In theory, the benefits of reliable cloud computing solutions tend to outwit the more traditional approach of maintaining in house hardware.
Secondly, once a business decides to adopt the cloud, the daunting challenge of selecting the most appropriate CSP has just begun. Instead of focusing on good and bad CSPs, you should give more weightage to the fact that which of the many CSPs available in the market will be most suitable for your organizational needs.
