Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

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This article explains what the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing are. But before we delve into it, let us first discuss what cloud computing is. 

What is Cloud Computing?

In today’s time, Cloud Computing is getting a lot more in demand, and its need will only keep on increasing as we enter 2024. Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT as well as computing services. This includes databases, storage, servers, analytics, networking, software and intelligence. Hence these services are provided over the Internet. This ensures flexible resources, faster innovation, and economies of scale. You only pay for the cloud services you use which helps in lowering your operating costs, running your infrastructure more efficiently, and scaling as your business needs change. 

Cloud computing seems to have a great future ahead of itself, as it is highly likely that most companies will adopt the multi-cloud feature in 2024. This feature provides cost enhancement and extra flexibility, as the companies use cloud services from multiple providers.

The advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing are numerous and varied, and hence, in this article, we will be learning more about them. Now let us have a look at them.

The Advantages of Cloud Computing are as follows:-

1. It provides agility- You get easy access to a broad range of technologies. This helps you innovate faster and build nearly everything you can imagine. You get different resources whenever you need them, such as storage, computing, databases, data leaks, analytics, and machine learning. You can use technology services in a matter of minutes and get from idea to implementation much faster than before. 

2. It helps to deploy globally in minutes: – Cloud computing helps you to expand to new geographic regions and deploy globally in minutes. In addition to this, you can put applications in closer proximity to end users which helps reduce latency and improves their experience. 

3. Optimization of costs- Cloud computing eliminates the capital expense of buying hardware and software. Furthermore, the cost of setting up and running onsite data centers also gets eliminated. Moreover, this also removes the cost of racks of servers, round-the-clock electricity for power and cooling, and IT experts for managing the infrastructure. This helps optimize the IT costs quickly.

4. Increases productivity: – Onsite data centers require a lot of things such as hardware set-up, software patching, etc. You don’t have to worry about these tasks once you get cloud computing. This helps IT teams in spending more time on achieving more important business goals, thereby increasing their productivity.

5. It provides reliability:- Cloud computing makes disaster recovery, data backup, and business continuity easier and less expensive because data can be mirrored at multiple redundant sites on the cloud provider’s network. This makes it much more reliable. Out of all the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing, this is an important one.

Some of the additional advantages of cloud computing are as follows:-

1. It provides security: – Another advantage of cloud computing is that it offers a broad set of technologies, policies as well as controls that help protect your apps, data, and infrastructure from potential threats. Moreover, they also strengthen your overall security posture.
   
2. It is elastic and flexible:- You don’t have to over-provision resources up front to handle peak levels of business activity in the future. You can simply provision the amount of resources that you actually need. Moreover, you can scale these resources up or down to instantly grow or shrink capacity as your business needs change.
   
3. Business continuity: The cloud safely stores and protects your data if an outage or crisis happens. Thus it makes it easier to continue work once the systems are up and running again.
   
4. Gives you a competitive edge: The cloud takes care of different business aspects such as licensing software, training personnel to manage your data, maintaining IT infrastructure, etc. It thus gives you an edge over your competitors since the time and resources you invest are minimal.
   
5. Cloud computing is eco-friendly:- Cloud computing is a greener technology than other IT solutions. Businesses can reduce their carbon footprints and energy consumption by up to 90% because of moving to the cloud. Furthermore, businesses can use cloud-based services instead of in-house servers and software to access the same applications and data from any computer or device with an internet connection. As a result, businesses don’t have to purchase and maintain their own IT structure. Thus, cloud computing is greener and more cost-effective.

Now that we have covered the advantages of cloud computing, let us have a look at its disadvantages

The Disadvantages of Cloud Computing are as follows:-

1. Cloud Security and Data Protection:- There are many risks of storing data and business-critical files in virtual data centers. Some of these risks are- data loss or theft, data leakage, account or service hijacking, insecure interface and APIs, technological vulnerabilities, especially in shared environments, and denial of service attacks. 

2. Limited Control:- The cloud infrastructure is owned, managed, and monitored by cloud service providers. The customer has minimal control over it. The customer does not have access to key administrative tasks such as updating and managing firmware and accessing server shells. 

3. Cloud downtime: – The cloud can experience technical problems such as reboots, network outages, and downtime. These events can be damaging to businesses. They can incapacitate business operations and processes. 

4. Vulnerability to Attacks:- In cloud computing, every component is online, which exposes potential vulnerabilities. You can suffer from severe attacks and security breaches from time to time. 

5. Risks to Privacy:- Storing data and important files on external service providers always opens up risks. As everything is online, there is a concern for safety and privacy, especially since personal information might get easily leaked. This is a major point among the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing.

Some of the Additional Disadvantages of Cloud Computing are as follows:-

1. Vendor lock-in:- This is yet another disadvantage of cloud computing. Easy switching between cloud services isn’t completely possible, moreover, organizations might find it difficult to migrate their services from one cloud platform to another. This can result in additional costs and configuration complexities. 
   
2. Cost Concerns:- Adopting cloud solutions on a small scale and for short-term projects can easily become quite expensive. Cloud computing does have the benefit of IT cost savings, but the overall price can end up being higher than you expected. Hence it’s a good idea to experiment with a variety of offerings before finalizing one of them. 
   
3. Internet Connectivity:- In Cloud Computing, every piece of data is stored in the cloud. Due to this, we can access it using only the internet connection. Thus you cannot access the data if you don’t have good internet connectivity. In addition to this, there is no other way to access data from the cloud. So this is also a major disadvantage of cloud computing.
   
4. Lower Bandwidth:- A lot of cloud storage service providers limit their clients’ usage of bandwidth. If your business uses more than the authorized quantity, the extra costs could make things very expensive.
   
5. Lack of Support:- Customers of cloud computing firms are not given adequate assistance and are instead expected to rely on Internet resources. Therefore, this can be time-consuming for non-technical people.

So basically, there are a lot of advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing. This can get tricky and confusing. So if you want to learn more about it, you should try Henry Harvin’s course in Cloud Computing and DevOps.  

About the course:-

Henry Harvin’s course offers Advanced Certification in Cloud Computing and DevOps. You can learn about the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing here, as well as several other important features of cloud computing.

It will also boost your career level and will help you hone your existing skills by working on assignments and projects from certified leading industry experts. You will gain knowledge and master skills in cloud computing concepts, DevOps tools, AWS, Virtualization, Cloud Security, etc. This will also make you familiar with various tools and technologies of Cloud and DevOps.

You can learn more about cloud computing from this video: –

In today’s times, it is very essential to know what are the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing. Hope this article helps you in a better understanding of what they are.

Recommended Reads:-

• Top 10 Applications of Cloud Computing You Should Know
• Cloud Computing Interview Questions and Answers
• Top 10 Cloud Computing Courses in Pune

Frequently Asked Questions:-

Q.1: What are the four types of Cloud Computing?

Ans: The four main types of Cloud Computing are private clouds, public clouds, hybrid clouds as well as multi-clouds.

Q.2: What are the three main models for Cloud Computing?

Ans: The three main models for Cloud Computing are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and also Software as a Service(SaaS). 

Q.3: Who is the father of Cloud Computing?

Ans: Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider, often known as J.C.R. Licklider, is known as the father of Cloud Computing.

Q.4: What are the different job opportunities in Cloud Computing?

Ans: There are lots of jobs available in Cloud Computing such as architects, developers, data scientists, security pros, etc. All these jobs require a specific focus.

Q.5: What would be the average salary of an employee working in Cloud Computing?

Ans: The average salary of Cloud Database Administrators in India is INR 501660/year. 

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