Understanding Cloud Computing

Abstract

Cloud computing has become very popular because it offers a wide range of computing services to a large group of businesses and individuals. Businesses have many choices to select a cloud service provider. The process of selecting and deploying the cloud service requires careful thinking on the part of the business to weigh the benefits against the possible drawbacks such as lack of control over the computing resources, applications and data storage. In this chapter we discuss in detail the many benefits and drawbacks of this service. Small and medium sized businesses tend to benefit from cloud computing because they are able to use sophisticated computing services without a large cash outlay. Individuals benefit from the ability to store and share information using the cloud. It is important for businesses to evaluate the various cloud service providers against their offerings and their fit with the business. The analysis in this chapter highlights the things that a business should look for in contracting with a cloud service provider. Even though cloud services are known for their high reliability and availability, over the past 5 years there have been several well-publicized outages. Because of the outages several other niche service providers who depended on other major cloud service providers were unable to deliver their service. We conclude this chapter with a detailed analysis of several cloud outages over the past 5 years that have eroded the confidence of businesses on the availability aspects of cloud computing as a 24 × 7 service. This discussion highlights the importance of service availability to build trust.