Benefits of Cloud Computing Adoption - Essay Example

Introduction

Cloud computing is arguably one of the most valuable developments in information technology that has great significance to modern businesses. The two great benefits that have been brought forth by cloud computing are the privacy and security of information. Cloud computing works far better than some of the previous efforts that have been utilized to play these functions. Cloud computing has become more important in business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DC). That is because most businesses have utilized the use of information technology in most of their operations. This paper presents various issues associated with the use of cloud computing technology to help in making a sound decision on whether to use this technology or not.

Cloud Services for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Business continuity and disaster recovery are possible strategies designed and executed by businesses to guarantee operational resiliency in case of any service disruptions. Tasevski, (2014) defines business continuity from a business management perspective as a set of activities pertaining planning, preparing and other related activities aimed at ensuring that the critical functions of a business will either continue being operative despite a serious disruption from disasters that would have otherwise interrupted them or the business will recover from possible disruptions within a reasonably short time. On the other hand, disaster recovery in the context of cloud computing refers to a cloud computing service that helps in the storage and recovery of system data, applications, and other resources the service providers or the cloud public (Rahikka, 2020. This service ensures that there is the possibility of restoring the affected data, resources, and applications to the local data system allowing the business operations to resume normal.

Importance of cloud business continuity

Every business aims at making positive growth. Companies must, therefore, adopt plans that ensure such growth and business continuity. Integrating business continuity and disaster recovery in any business is important in ensuring that impacts of any predictable or unseen interruptions. That is because a business is helped to avoid, prepare as well as recovering from such disruptions. With business continuity, a business is likely to enjoy various benefits not available in the traditional system.

Business continuity helps the business to eliminate the causes of downtime. That is because the system enables the avoidance of loss of such important information as emails. Cloud business continuity also allows companies to manage better information and network security (Ristovet al, 2011).

A company can shift into outsourcing non-critical applications and its information to the cloud, allowing better performance and also allow the IT unit to concentrate on the critical applications.

Disaster recovery also benefits businesses in many ways. Once a business adopts the disaster recovery technologies, it minimizes its dependency on the physical infrastructure. It also increases the compatibility for hardware servers migration. According to (Bose, 2019) hardware utilized in the cloud is abstracted for users. It is easy to migrate VMs to the cloud. They run the same way they could run on physical servers without the need to upgrade the physical infrastructure for disaster recovery when you use cloud disaster recovery.

The abstracted hardware also allows scalability. That means that one can upgrade servers and infrastructure for VMs. The pay as you go approach used in the cloud allows businesses to extend their data recovery capacity by paying more to be provided with increased memory or system processing power. With cloud-based disaster recovery, a company is also the possibility of running the recovered VMs in different geographical regions. That is because the cloud can be connected from any location in the world (Reed, 2020). Physical infrastructure is difficult to be in different countries. Still, with cloud-based disaster recovery, a company can purchase infrastructure in any country and connect it via the internet from any location in the world.

Risk Assessment in Cloud Computing

Despite the many benefits that cloud computing can bring to a business, this technology is also associated with various businesses' vulnerabilities. One of the major concerns in cloud computing is security. Lack of security may negatively affect the personal, financial, and ethical harm Subramanian, & Jeyaraj, (2018). As presented by Gadia (2018), data security and regulatory risk may involve such issues as loss, leakage, or data unavailability, which can cause business disruption, loss of business reputation, revenue, or cause regulatory incompliance. According to (Morrow 2018), one of the risks associated with this technology is that customers have limited control and visibility. Once a business transition to cloud computing, some control, and visibility on the infrastructure is lost to the cloud service provider. Also, the use of on-demand self-service increases uses by unauthorized parties. With on-demand self-service features offered by the cloud, organization personnel can provide additional services without the need to have IT expertise. Provisioning or using cloud services increases vulnerability to be used by unauthorized people, thus risking the privacy and security of organizational data.

Cloud computing can also suffer from operational risk. This risk can involve the implementation of IT tasks as well as services that a business relies on. The DevOps approach brought up by cloud migration shortens the deployment to days from weeks, thus affecting the IT operation. This requires the IT personnel to be always updated on cloud management. There could be financial risks, which could involve overspending or loss of revenue. Besides, there could be technology risk, which is caused by constantly evolving technologies. This poses a challenge on how to integrate the new technologies (Gadia, 2018)

Cost Assessment

One of the most crucial considerations when transitioning a business into cloud computing is the cost. A company must be aware of the key considerations in terms of cost. Cost estimation is useful in identifying prioritizing and justifying cloud resource needs. One of the cost considerations is a software development and maintenance costs. Organizations need to ensure that their current applications are enhanced for the cloud environment, and the current software licenses have enough flexibility to be utilized in the cloud. Companies must also consider the cost of existing human resources and existing skills. That is because new skills will be needed in moving to cloud computing.

There is also the need for companies to consider the cost of risk regarding compliance issues. When adopting the cloud computing system, a company should be aware of the additional costs involved in cloud compliance or non-compliance (Connor et al., 2014). Cloud technology also means that the company will incur additional costs of cloud services when they are in operation. This cost may include the fees paid to the service provider when using public clouds. Finally, companies need to gauge the difference between the initial cost and the long-term benefits and savings.

Benefits of using Cloud computing

Cloud computing has many benefits for businesses. One of the key benefits that businesses enjoy from cloud computing is cost saving. Businesses can save substantial capital because it eliminates the need to use physical hardware Kim & Kim, (2016). Businesses that have adopted cloud computing technology improve their competitive edge in their respective markets. Businesses can access the latest applications without spending too much time and installation fees. Once a company adopts a cloud system, it can deploy services at an increased speed and spend less time to get the required resources for the system Chatzithanasis & Michalakelis, (2018). Cloud computing is also very useful in enabling companies to recover and restore data when disruptions occur. The process of recovering data without cloud-based disaster recovery would otherwise be fruitless or more expensive. A cloud-based system is also highly reliable as compared to the traditional systems.

Conclusion

When considering the transition of a business to a cloud-based system from the traditional system, companies have several considerations. These considerations include the benefits analysis, cost analysis, business continuity, and disaster recovery. Cloud computing has proven that it can be extremely beneficial to businesses in the current digital world. Business continuity and disaster recovery are very vital benefits that cloud computing provides to organizations. Besides, there are many benefits that businesses can enjoy as a result of this transition. Although there are risks associated with the transition, one reason for cloud computing is that these risks can either be resolved or avoided. As a result, transitioning to cloud computing is crucial to any organization and can achieve a significant transformation of operations.

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