Risks involved with cloud computing
Cloud computing can
be defined as doing work on your desktop or laptop and storing the data in a
server at a different location which is unknown. In this blog I will be
discussing the disadvantages of the cloud computing.
Security issues - In
cloud computing the individual loses his control over the data or the
application and in turn becomes depends on the storage provider to maintain
and manage the same. At any point of time if anything goes wrong, the user or
the individual will not have any control over the data which is stored and will
be completely dependent on the service provider to fix the problem. If the
service provider does not react to take necessary steps to set things right,
both the user and the service provider will experience significant problems.
For example let us consider a firm which uses cloud based payroll soft ware
system. If there is a breakdown in the service on the night before the payroll,
the consequences faced by both the firms will be serious and this would worsen
if there are any delays and back up services are not provided by the service
provider on time to the user. Consider another example of security breach of a
bank or an insurance company which uses cloud services to store sensitive
information of its patrons. Though there are lot of advancements made in the
field of firewall and security, there is still a possibility of breach as all
the information is stored in the third party servers at an unknown location.
These issues would further lead into legal complications between the firm and
the patrons.
Cost issues – Initially
the cloud computing services may look cheaper than software solutions to run an
in house setup. But the customer / user should carefully evaluate the expenses
associated with the service and choose
the features or the plans which suits his needs. Many service providers
claim to charge for the amount of data which is used but in most of the cases
this is not true and it includes hidden costs. Hence the user must carefully
evaluate all these factors before choosing the service provider and the plan.
Slow speeds – This is
one of the disadvantage of cloud computing. The service depends on the internet
speeds between the server and the provider, hence it plays a major role. Also
in many cases uploading and downloading of large documents are usually slow due
to shear size of the data set and the internet bandwidths.
These are some of
the disadvantages of cloud computing. Hence we can say that the user must
evaluate all the variables before choosing the cloud computing service.
References:
http://explainingcomputers.com/cloud.html
sbinfocanada.about.com/od/itmanagement/a/Cloud-Computing-Disadvantages.htm
http://www.examiner.com/article/five-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-cloud-computing
http://boardroombrief.com/2010/08/cloud-computing-advantages-and-disadvantages/
Cloud computing is indeed a great tool, but certain disruptions can cause adverse publicity as well as large amounts of lag in data or in the worst case scenario –loss of data. With the advent of cloud computing, data backup is always done using cloud computing rather than relying on backup data hardware. Using cloud computing saves money, space and is thought of as more ‘reliable’. Well apparently in some cases, that does not hold true. In response to the blog on risks involved in cloud computing, I wanted to share and comment on the following article.
ReplyDeleteChristmas Eve, 2012 was a ‘blackout’ on Netflix as a problem with Amazon’s cloud computing service caused Netflix to go down the whole day. The cloud computing service provides storage and computing power for all kinds of web services for Netflix. Amazon traced the trouble to Elastic Load Balancing, a part of its service that helps spread heavy traffic among multiple servers to prevent overload. The company gave few details about the problems in its data center which primarily manages the Netflix web services.
Netflix is known to have built several redundancies into its cloud-based system. For instance, it stores its data across multiple “zones,” so if there is a failure in one zone, it can retry in another. It says it also spends money on more capacity than it needs, so that if there are large spikes in customer activity, the service is less likely to go down. Despite all redundant policies, service was affected for nearly a day. This goes to show that sometimes cloud computing presents a great form of risk despite some of its advanced applications.