week 7

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is becoming the next big thing for smaller businesses who are expanding at a high rate. There are three basic layers to cloud computing, Application, Platform and Infrastructure. Companies use these layers differently to suit their needs.

Infrastructure is the foundation layer of cloud computing. This is where things start and companies begin to build their web site. Cloud hosting is contained within the infrastructure layer. Usually a business would create their web site and have it hosted on a dedicated server. A few people use the website to begin with and then word spreads and more and more people begin to use the site. Now the website has become successful but customers may start to get frustrated as the sheer volume of users will slow the service down as the equipment can’t cope with the demand. This means that the company has to buy or rent more servers and set them up or get someone else to set them up which costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time. Cloud computing aims to solve this problem. With cloud computing you have access to computer power whenever you need it. If your site is hosted on a cloud server and more people start to visit it you may need more power dedicated to your site. Thanks to cloud computing you can scale up the amount of computing power you need from the cloud almost instantly. Having this at your disposal means you can keep you users happy with out them noticing a change. If your business starts to slow down and you find that you need less computer power, which will cost less, you can release servers back into the cloud. This reduces costs for the business since you only pay for the service you use. Cloud computing allows you to concentrate on building your business and not waste time and money worrying about your hardware.

Cloud computing has great potential with smaller businesses and e-commerce. Businesses selling products rather than providing a service may benefit more from cloud computing as they may find that business picks up and dies off around different seasons. Most commercial products will be more in demand in the run up to Christmas for instance. This may mean that a business will attract more sales from its website and this could mean more computing power may be needed. To buy/rent another server to cover this wouldn’t make sense or be cost effective and the increase in sales would have to be anticipated to give the business time to set up the new server. Cloud computing eliminates the need to anticipate a boom in sales as almost instantly the business can increase its computing power to the level needed. When the seasonal sale boom is over the extra power added can be released back into the cloud instantly so the business only has to pay for the power it needs to run the site efficiently. Also if there is no increase in sales then money won’t have been wasted buying or renting server power as with cloud computing the business only has to increase power if and when its needed.

Larger more established companies who have already spent a lot of money on their sites and servers over the years won’t be willing to throw all that time and money away to move to cloud computing as readily as smaller companies. Cloud computing controls all the hardware and equipment used for hosting a site. Big companies like to be in control and know everything that’s going on, so not being able to control the hardware and equipment may well be off putting to them as they could view it as a big risk leaving an aspect of their business in the hands of “strangers”.

Tags: cloud computing, e commerce