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1. What business benefits do cloud computing services provide?What problems do t

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Question

1. What business benefits do cloud computing services provide?What problems do they solve?

2.What are the disadvantages of cloud computing?

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.

4.What kinds of businesses are most likely to benefit from using cloud computing?Why?

For each question, try to write your point first, then rationale of your point, examples you can provide, and re-stress point.

INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS Cloud Computing Cloud computing is taking off. The biggest play ers in the cloud computing include A mazon Web Services division (AWS). Microsoft. sp and Google. These companies have streamli cloud computing and made it an affordable sensible option for companies from Internet startups to established FedEx. Cloud infrastructure spending worldwide is expected to grow at 24 nually and exceed S32 billion in 2015 Fuuture 3 minutes after it happens. By AWS, Netco place include Sports can scale 100 servers in under 10 support streaming for 500,000 viewers. Until recently, banks have been rel reluctant to use able and ranging from tiny public cloud services due to security and tory concerns, but shrinking profits are encourag companics like ing them to take a second look. In the ing in 2015 some banks are using private clouds for their sensi percent an- tive financial transactions. National Australia Bank (NAB), with over $793 billion in assets in 2015 an internal private cloud based on IBM's infra- structure on demand. The private cloud hosts the bank's main production environment, including a new Oracle banking system, and will support short- I5 according to For example, AWs WS provides with flexible computing well as data management subseribing compa- ng power and data storage messaging, payment, nies a nd other services that t can be used togcther or term computing-intense projects such as marketing Siness requires. Anyone with campaigns. NAB pays only for what it uses so that it idually as the bus us an Internet connection and a little bit of money res. Anyone with campaigns have to make large IT capital expendit doesn't can harness the same computing systems that Amazon itself uses to run its retail business. If cus- tomers provide the amount of server space, band- width, storage, and any other services they require, The equipment is all hosted in NAB's dat which is unusual for on Although low overhead and infrastructure agement costs make publie cloud computing man locate those resources. especially attractive to startups, the fin Amazon's sales pitch is that you pay for exactly efits of cloud computing for large and mids what you use instead of monthly or annual fees. organizations are less apparent. Cliff Olson, direc- This appeals to many businesses because it tor of infrastructure sys allows Amazon to handle all of the mainte- Inc., a Frem nance ont, California-based packaging com- and upkeep o ucture or more employees nd more time on higher-value example, using AWS helped Merrifield Garden Center reduce costs, improve the stability and security of its applications and data, and elim- inate the burden of managing IT infrastructure hardware so it can focus on new customer-facing monthly service fee for 10,000 will probably be more expensive than having the company maint usines s own IT infrastructure and staff. Companies also worry about unexpected "runaway costs" from using a pay-per-use model Integrating cloud services with existing IT infra- structures, errors, mismanagement, or unusually initiatives to grow the busines. high volumes of Web traffic will run up the bill for Startup companies and smaller companies are finding that they no longer need to build their cloud service users. own data center. With cloud infrastructures like Gartner Inc. technology consultants advises clients contemplating public cloud services to take week they'll run; and the amount of storage their data will require. Additional costs incl ber of machines an organiza into account the num tion will run; the number of hours per day or technical capability that was formerly available to only much larger busine Socialcam provides a popular mobile so application currently installed on over 20 million iPhone and Android smartphones. The Socialcam that need to be paid for on a recurring basis, the application makes it easy to take a video of any size, rate of change for the data, and how much new data post it online, and share it with friends. Socialcam the business is expected to generate. A very large on's readily available, they have access to sses. San Francisco-based cial video ude licenses company may find it cheaper to own and man iva that ha the re ug lic clouds become more efficient and secure couldn up with demand. By moving to the AWS Cloud, Socialcam can quickly add or remo meet demand. Netco Sports produces the Canal+ sta apa start using more cloud resources. A major barrier to widespread cloud a concern about cloud reliability and app that enables viewers to replay any move from any camera angle, on any device, within

Explanation / Answer

1. Cloud computing has become a standard method of software operation for many businesses. It offers many significant advantages, such as a potential cost savings, ease of sharing data and applications, quickly find the desired information, automatic backups, reduced support and maintenance costs, and improve the efficiencies (Lauder & Lauder, 2015, pg 191-192).

In the case they give us an example which uses cloud computing at the marketplace that is Amazon. 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.

2. The two major disadvantages are security and reliability. In terms of security there is a threat of giving away of private data and information. This information is sensitive as well as confidential. The company is made vulnerable to external hack attacks. In terms of reliability the user loses control over the software application. Moreover the user also becomes dependent on the provider for updating and managing information.

Examples from the case are the outages that Amazon experienced in the years 2011 and 2012. These outages were as a result of power failure in the company’s primary east coast data center.

3. The concept of capacity planning, scalability and TCO (total cost of ownership) applies to this case. In terms of capacity planning Amazon has to plan its future requirements in such a manner so as to ensure sufficient computing power for AWS as well as for Amazon retail services.

In terms of scalability Amazon should be able to have the ability to provide its customers with those services that are easily scalable.

In terms of TCO Amazon must bear the total cost of ownership of its services on one hand while ensuring that it is able to maintain profitability of the company on the other hand.

4. The kinds of businesses that is most likely to benefit from the use of cloud computing are companies in the information internet domain. Examples of such companies are Facebook, Instagram etc. The benefit for such companies is that they can store large quantum of information as well as share these information easily.

Another kind of business that is most likely to benefit from the use of cloud computing are large multinational companies (MNC). The benefit for MNCs is that people from around the world will be able to take advantage of faster connection. Secondly employees of MNCs will be able to establish good communication channels and leverage the resources of the company.