Benefits of Cloud Computing
Every organization can choose to use the cloud to store data and execute logic as much, or as less as necessary to fulfill their business requirements. There are cases where existing businesses may choose a gradual movement to save money on infrastructure and administration costs (known as “lift and shift”), where on the other hand a new company may start in the cloud.
Primary Advantages of Cloud Computing
A. Cloud Computing is cost-effective
Cloud computing has a pay-as-you-go or consumption-based pricing model. This consumption-based model offers many benefits, such as –
- No upfront costs
- No need to purchase and manage costly infrastructure which may not be use to its fullest
- Only pay for additional resources when needed
- Stop paying for resources which are no longer needed
- Paper bill and a cloud representing cost effectiveness
- Permits better cost prediction
B. Cloud Computing is scalable
Use of resources can be increased or decreased based on the demand or workload at a given point of time. Cloud computing supports both vertical and horizontal scaling depending on the requirement.
- Vertical scaling (scaling up) – Process of adding resources to increase the power of an existing server. E.g. Adding more CPUs, or adding more memory.
- Horizontal scaling (scaling out) – Process of adding more servers that function together as one unit. E.g. When we have more than one server processing incoming requests.
C. Cloud Computing is elastic
Based on workload changes due to a rise or fall in demand, a cloud computing system can compensate by automatically adding or removing resources.
- In case of spike in traffic overnight, system automatically allocates more computing resources to handle the increased traffic, since cloud is elastic.
- In case the traffic begins to normalize, the cloud automatically de-allocates the additional resources to minimize cost.
D. Cloud Computing is current
Cloud computing eliminates the burdens of maintaining software patches, hardware setup, upgrades, and other IT management tasks which ensures that we are using the latest and greatest tools to run the business.
- Computer hardware is maintained and upgraded by the cloud provider such that if new hardware update becomes available, it is not required to go through the process of replacing the hardware.
- Cloud provider ensures that the hardware updates are made available automatically.
E. Cloud Computing is reliable
- Cloud computing providers offer data backup, disaster recovery, and data replication services to ensure the data is always safe.
- A redundancy is often built into cloud services architecture such that if one component fails, a backup component takes its place.
- Cloud computing offers fault tolerance which ensures that the customers are not impacted when a disaster occurs.
F. Cloud Computing is global
- Cloud providers have fully redundant data centers which are located in various regions all over the globe.
- Cloud Computing offers a local presence close to the customers to give them the best response time possible without considering the location.
- Option to replicate the services into multiple regions for redundancy and locality, or select a specific region to ensure that data-residency and compliance laws are met for the customers.
G. Cloud Computing is secure
- Cloud service providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies, controls, and expert technical skills that can provide better security than most organizations can otherwise achieve.
- Strengthened security, to helps to protect data, apps, and infrastructure from potential threats.
- Physical security to cloud infrastructure is maintained by cloud providers by investing heavily in walls, cameras, gates, security personnel, to protect physical assets. Strict procedures in place to ensure employees have access only to those resources that they have been authorized to manage.