Should business move to the cloud

1. SHOULD BUSINESSES MOVE TO
THE CLOUD
G S T 5 0 8 3
INFORMATION SYSTEMS & ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
Group Members

2. Question 1 :
What business benefits do cloud computing services
provide? What problems do they solve?
In the case they give us an example which uses cloud computing at the
marketplace that is Amazon. For Amazon they use the Web services division (AWS)
to get flexible computing power and data storage. This cloud application helps
Amazon get a large amount of computing resources. According to the customer
provided information, the AWS can help Amazon separate, allocate and arrange
these resources. The AWS also can help Amazon’s computing resources. On the
one hand, Cloud computing has brought a lot of convenience for Amazon, making
them save costs and increase profits; on the other hand, cloud computing let
Amazon spend more time on other work which had more value (Laudon 234).
Because of that using cloud computing can store large amounts of data and
information, more and more companies are using cloud computing. Cloud
computing helps us build a large database, and can help us to quickly find the
desired information.

3. This improves the work efficiency. “Big Data analytical techniques are being used to
deliver more detailed data – and deliver it quicker”(Top 10 business reasons to move
to the cloud). Another example for using the cloud is that it can help the company
save cost, like the Outback company who used the cloud “to avoid taxing in-house
system unnecessarily” (Laudon 234).. In the case, the InterContinental company use
the cloud to provide customers with more convenient services. According to use the
cloud, the InterContinental company lets their customers receive data faster if the
data ias located on a server that is physically close to them (Laudon 234). With the
development of society, more and more multinational companies are using the cloud,
not only because of cost savings, but because people worldwide can access the cloud,
provided they have an Internet connection(10 benefit of the cloud computing).
CONT’S

4. Question 2 :
What are the disadvantages of cloud computing?
Using the cloud computing, the two major disadvantages are security and reliability. In this
case study, Amazon’s cloud service has shown significant outages in 2011 and 2012, causing
serious consequences. There are many large sites are using Amazon’s cloud computing, so
Amazon’s cloud computing failure will not only affect Amazon, but also spread to many
other companies and have a great impact on them. (Laudon 235). According to the Paris
International Group of a report, after investigation they found that each year there are
about ten hours or more the server fails. Even this small amount of downtime can lead to
large revenue losses for firms that need 24/7 availability. Another important issue is
security. “By leveraging a remote cloud based infrastructure, a company essentially gives
away private data and information, things that might be sensitive and confidential. It is then
up to the cloud service provider to manage, protect and retain them, thus the provider’s
reliability is very critical.”(Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing – Cloud
computing pros and cons)
In addition to these two major drawbacks, another drawback is that cloud computing is
prone to attack. “Store information in the cloud could make your company vulnerable to
external hack attacks and threats.” As we know, the Internet is virtual, so we do not know
what is safe. (Cloud Computing – Is it Really All That Beneficial?)

5. Question 3 :
How do the concepts of capacity planning, scalability, and TCO apply to
this case? Apply these concepts both to Amazon and to subscribers of
its services.
Amazon must provide hardware capacity planning and scalability. With the
development of information technology, Amazon will have more and more
customers. Not just Amazon, but Amazon’s customer requires a large database to
store a variety of data and information. This will help the company grow. Amazon
must bear the total TCO of its services, while Amazon is also needed to maintain
the profitability of the company. However, the services’ subscribers benefit from
not having to worry about these issues.

6. Question 4 :
What kinds of businesses are most likely to benefit from using cloud
Computing? Why?
As information technology and social development, there have been more and
more companies need cloud services. First, the information Internet companies
need to use cloud services, such as Facebook, Google, Ebay, etc. Because the
cloud computing can store large information, and share the information. Second,
large multinational corporations, one of the advantages about the cloud
computing is that people from around the world can get a faster connection.
Cloud services can help employees of multinational corporations to establish
good communication channels and share the company’s resources. This saves
the cost of the work to help multinational companies, improve work efficiency.
Meanwhile, cloud computing is not perfect, it is sometimes also appear outage.
Therefore, it is recommended to use cloud computing company “would be a
major risk consider using another computing service as a backup.” (Laudon 236)

7. THANK YOU