VRUTA CHOTALIA13030241136

DIV – C, SCIT2014

Benefits of Cloud ComputingIT SALES ASSIGNMENT

Cloud computing is fast transitioning from an alternative delivery system for applications, infrastructure and platforms to a necessary component of the business technology infrastructure. Nearly every enterprise is using at least one cloud-computing service today, and expectations are for rapid expansion of cloud-service adoption over the next five years. Enterprises want to source cloud-computing from reliable, flexible, scalable, secure and affordable application and infrastructure service providers. Service providers need to make choices about their cloud strategy, applications and delivery infrastructure to capitalize on this multi-billion-dollar opportunity.

FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF BUSINESS OWNERS

Cloud computing has been around for some years now, initially as a somewhat hazy concept to describe the move from on-premise to off-premise IT, and in more recent times, as a more defined hosted service delivery model. Greater numbers of businesses - both large and small - are now choosing to embrace the cloud, eager to make the most of their IT budgets and maximise return on investment. Cloud computing can benefit companies in a number of ways, depending upon their size, scale, sector and strategic goals. Here are five of the top advantages of sourcing IT services in the cloud:

Project Portfolio ManagementGetting the compute resources whenever needed, shortens the time to deliver, better quality, lowered costs brings competitive advantage for the organization.

New business modelsIt has become much easier to start business innovation initiatives, often enabled by readily available cloud services. Utilizing or combining these services can result in new and innovative business models, generating new value propositions and resulting in new revenue streams. There are even companies that are building entirely new business models and value propositions solely using cloud services.

Less operational issuesUtilizing standardized services can significantly reduce issues and defects. This increases business continuity and reduce time spent on operational issues, focusing more on the things that matter. Cloud computing allows you to deploy the same service or topology of services repetitively, with the same result every time. This allows organizations to predicatively deploy pre-build server images; application services or entire application landscapes defined using design patterns.

Document control

If a company doesn’t use the cloud, workers have to send files back and forth over email, meaning only one person can work on a file at a time and the same document has tonnes of names and formats.Cloud computing keeps all the files in one central location, and everyone works off of one central copy. Employees can even chat to each other whilst making changes together. This whole process makes collaboration stronger, which increases efficiency and improves a company’s bottom line.

Better use of resourcesOn the other side of the “business agility” model, more efficient projects and less operational issues allow employees to spend their time on other more useful activities that may offer a greater potential value to business. This benefit is different for every organization and harder to quantify, but people are an organizations biggest asset and this allows you to better utilize this asset.

Less expenseThis can be achieved by:

Lower power cost Lower people cost Zero capital cost Fully utilized hardware Minimizing licensing of software

Compliance and Corporate Governance

Compliance and corporate governance are facilitated by cloud computing. Compliance and governance now take up more time and attention for IT and business teams alike, and the risks of being out of compliance or operating outside of corporate governance standards carry a heavy weight. Using an experienced cloud computing partner helps to share the burden for ensuring that all IT practices and data-handling procedures conform to industry, geographic and governmental requirements.

Business continuity

Protecting your data and systems is an important part of business continuity planning. Whether organization experience a natural disaster, power failure or other crisis, having their data stored in the cloud ensures it is backed up and protected in a secure and safe location. Being able to access your data again quickly allows you to conduct business as usual, minimizing any downtime and loss of productivity.

Security

Rather than weakening IT security, there is a case for saying that cloud computing improves companies' defenses. This is because of the huge amount of money cloud providers spend on

securing their data center infrastructure, and keeping their customers' data safe. Vendors benefit from economies of scale - they can afford to invest in the latest solutions and preventative approaches, whereas relatively few individual businesses can to the same degree.

Go Global In Minutes

With Cloud Computing, organization can easily deploy their application in multiple regions around the world with just a few clicks. This means they can provide a lower latency and better experience for their customers simply and at minimal cost.

Environmentally friendly

Businesses using cloud computing only use the server space they need, which decreases their carbon footprint. Using the cloud results in at least 30% less energy consumption and carbon emissions than using on-site servers. And again, SMEs get the most benefit: for small companies, the cut in energy use and carbon emissions is likely to be 90%.

FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF INDIVIDUALS (EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS)

Flexibility of work practices

Cloud computing allows employees to be more flexible in their work practices. For example, you have the ability to access data from home, on holiday, or via the commute to and from work (providing you have an internet connection). If needed access to their data while off-site, they can connect to their virtual office, quickly and easily.

Access to automatic updates

Access to automatic updates for your IT requirements may be included in your service fee. Depending on your cloud computing service provider, your system will regularly be updated with the latest technology. This could include up-to-date versions of software, as well as upgrades to servers and computer processing power.

Backup and Recovery

Allows individuals to back-up their critical applications & data and make it available without any additional costs.

Lower Costs

By the Consumption-based computing individuals can meter their use of IT applications and resources in a fashion similar to utilities.

Ease of access to advanced technology

Cloud computing brings in benefits for domestic users:

It is clearly evident, one of the obvious advantages of cloud computing is getting fast and effective email for free. However, email is just the tip of the iceberg. Being a power user of Google Apps, one can create spreadsheets and presentations as well, also for free. What’s more, one can easily share and collaborate on such files.

Perhaps the second most popular cloud computing service enjoyed by end consumers are cloud-based photo-sharing services like Flickr and Picasa.

Nowadays, cloud computing is not restricted to documents, spreadsheets, presentations and photographs only – music and video is also part of the deal.

Also, due to cloud computing, access to huge amounts of information is no longer restricted to computer, but is possible with your phone. This brings in mobility.

FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF SERVICE PROVIDERS

Generate profits

Service providers charge huge amount from the organizations for providing the services. Their cloud services being innovative have higher market value resulting in high amount of investments from the organizations. Profit margin from end customer remains low but they do contribute to the revenue generation of service providers.

Market positioning and value retention

Earlier cloud services were not providing much of innovation into services. But now with cloud being most emerging technology provides a greater market and scope to providers to create their market position. By providing better services they can retain their current customers.