The Cloud Computing And Businesses

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

With the developing quickly of Internet, a new technology call" cloud computing" was born. For many people, this name is still new and they do not have any idea about it. In the content, the definition of cloud computing would be explained as well as its application. Then, how businesses can exploit benefits from cloud computing would be the main topic, two sides are developers or providers and users are both have their own advantages. However, everything has its weakness and cloud computing cannot get rid of this. With a huge amount of data information, the management is a significant issue. However, there are still solutions for businesses. Applying cloud computing helps businesses to reduce cost as well as push up the sale. Some example of successful pioneers in investing for computing would prove that they chose the right way. Cloud computing with its advantages is attracting multiple new members and predicted as an irresistible trend for future.

Contents

Introduction:

Today, computers, laptops, smart phones or other devices with Internet connection are more and more common in our life. The increase of work related to computers and Internet mean the resource we need should be increase as well. For international corporations, paying to exploit this resource is not a significant problem. However, to small and medium sized companies, it actually makes them headache with issues like hardware upgrading, information technology infrastructure, Internet broadband and so on. Then, cloud computing appears as their best solutiAon. It was a spectacular revolution of transferring from a personal computer, even servers of companies into the Cloud. Data and services were hidden in the Cloud has ability to expand and accessible from everywhere in the world with devices connected to Internet. Cloud computing is a network where information technology workloads are provided as a service on the Internet and users or customers has to pay for what they use. There are more and more providers joined in Cloud Computing market, namely some "big ones" like Google, Apple, IBM, Amazon. Cloud computing is used in every type of work form web hosting, graphic design, servers, searching to data storage, information sharing.

Cloud computing and its application:

Users, developers and web administrators have used cloud computing for years. By using Internet, people could simply complicated codes to make communication and information transfer quick and convenient with only one global network. The term "cloud" in cloud computing is in fact just one example to describe services running on the Internet. According to the definition, cloud-based measure is used to connect the Internet, where users share the same network servers, software and data.

As can be seen in the figure 1 below, with "the cloud" has duty like its names, it connected multiple networks, multiple computers, tablets, mobiles. Information and data now is easy to access and stored.

Today the term "cloud computing" describes the abstraction of web-based computers, resources and services that system developers can utilize to implement complex web-based systems. Basically, these cloud based resources are viewed as virtual , meaning that if a system or solution needs more resources, such as processors or disk space, the resources can simply be added on demand of clients. (Jamsa, 2012)

F:\Bedfordshire\New Advance\ass 2\Cloud-computing.jpg

Figure 1: How devices and application are connected by Cloud Computing

(Source: http://www.ip2c.net/cloud-computing/cloud-computing-2/)

It is well known that there are three kinds of cloud computing deployment models, divided by purposes of using: Private, Public and Hybrid (Singh, 2012). The private cloud, as its name is usually used by companies or organizations just want to use cloud services to control and manage their data under secure of firewall and protection of providers. Some private cloud providers can be named as HP, IBM, Cisco. The public cloud, on the other hand, is permanently free to every user. Social networks are representations of this type, which are Facebook, Tweeter or Google, Youtube. However, with the needs of businesses are more complicated, hybrid appeared for organizations want to have their data half in public and half in private.

There are also three main models of cloud computing, named as services provided: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Application as a Service (AaaS), says Dustin Amrhein, a staff software engineer of IBM. However, the last type: Application as a Service is the most popular for many businesses.

So what applications of Cloud computing are? If using the web application from major companies such as Google or Microsoft, we are using Cloud Computing. Web applications such as Gmail, Google calendar, Hotmail, SaleForce, Dropbox and Google Docs are based on cloud computing because when you connect to the services, users has accessed to the massive cluster servers group on the Internet. Cloud computing provides multi kinds of data that enterprises need: communication tools (chat, blog, call, and social network), entertainment (movies, music) to documents and contact books.

For small sized business, Google Apps is a service provided from Google which give users a series of free and useful applications. According to a report by Pingdom posted on Techblog, be the end of 2012, there were over 400 million Gmail users, an impressive figure. Gmail helps users to manage and arrange their inbox easily as well as spam mails are filtered considerable. Live chat system was also embed for Gmail users can connect anytime. Another application from Google is Google Docs. With this service, people do not need to care about installing paid applications on their desktops like Microsoft Office, Excel, Powerpoint but they can still the functions and feature similarly on Google Docs. Moreover, data will be saved on Cloud and easy to edit. One of the most popular services on the Cloud is data storage. From now, with Google Drive or Dropbox, we can easily save our data on the Cloud and synchronize it anytime, anywhere to our devices. This services are free but if we need more storage, fee will be applied depends on how much more data we want to store.

Many big companies pay for applications on the cloud. The reasons can be explained by they want to customize their service or they need specify softwares to manage a great deal of customers as well as employees. Some paid applications can be named as Desk.com (social networks for integration, easy to access dashboard), Clarizen (useful for project management with features like time and schedule management, grant chart) and Zoho CRM (famous for customer relationship management, marketing and sale). Moreover, these companies pay money for providers of web hosting, data servers so they do not to worry about this information technology infrastructure system. Furthermore, providers are now providing all-in-one package which helps businesses transfer all their information to the cloud in parallel with management.

Chart 1: the number of users of popular applications on the Cloud till 03/2013

(Source: http://expandedramblings.com)

Discussing about Cloud applications, we could not deny the popular of social media, they are Facebook, Tweeter, Blog, Youtube. Social media which include social networks are known as the second life or virtual life where every people or users can update, post their status, share their photos, information or emotions to their friends. With a huge number of users, social media is a potential area for businesses to approach customers.

How Cloud Computing supports businesses:

Providers:

When talking about advantages of cloud computing, we often concern on the side of businesses’ users but not many know that providers also get benefits from the cloud. Profit from cloud computing services providers can be come from data storage sharing, servers (Dropbox, Google Drive, IBM…), website hosting, social media ( Facebook, Tweeter, Youtube…) and more.

Social media is booming, especially social networks. Billions of users are available on social networks every day. With a huge number of members, social networks are believed to influence strongly to society. Then, making businesses on social networks is a new and potential way that is very popular. Facebook appeared and seemed to dominate in this market with over 1 billion active users, count to March of 2013 (chart 1). There is not too difficult to realize that how Facebook makes profit from providing a communication channel for society. The two forms of the current main benefit of Facebook is from advertising and virtual goods. This is also validated by the document analysis as well as world press. Two forms of benefit are not new, but Facebook is clearly demonstrated they are the most successful company which applies these methods.

Advertising: every time we log into Facebook, we always see the word slogan: "It's free and always will be". In fact, Facebook is too wise to encourage, rather than offering providing as much personal information as possible. On behalf need to analyze information, to help you connect with others and Facebook can better serve you, Facebook obviously get one huge repository of user information that most of it is real. This user information is "fatty bait" for advertisers. Specifically, they will buy the place to put the banner based on the user's preferences and profile. In other words, the advertisers will place ads on your true potential customers, so that efficiency gains will be very high. For example, one brand KFC logo will be placed right at the site of someone clicked" like to eat at KFC page. Moreover, with the amount of expensive information without much effort, Facebook can fully analyze the market, the trend of consumption used to calculate business strategy, or simply negotiate trading of consumer data which companies need.

Virtual Goods: Another big profit which not many of us know so far is the virtual goods: including Facebook Gift and the applications on Facebook. For example, with the most hit game is CityVille developed by Zynga. The game is free, but regards to the Facebook platform that after playing this game, times of accessing to Zynga greatly increased and Facebook can collect money from it. And we should remember that in addition to Zynga's still one long list: King.com, EA PopCap, Disney Playdom…On the other hand, when players want to purchase virtual items like: clothes, accessories, cars, houses in the game, Facebook can get some commissions from Zynga. As can be seen in chart 2, with 12 percentage of total revenue in 2012, the profit it got from in-app purchasing was not small.

Chart 2: Revenue of Facebook in 2012

(Source: http://www.theverge.com)

Data Storage and Servers:

Businesses needs of an intelligent information storage, backup solutions, recovery for enterprises to better management information infrastructure, while still controlling levels at low cost. When the enterprise information system development, increasing the server and operating system issues cannot be avoided, the servers can be located inside of businesses’ offices or service providers’ center. Then, it is necessary to have a service for servers controlling and management. In case of Dropbox, one of the most famous companies in data storage online service provider, which got a lot of honor award in information technology industry. Dropbox was established in 2006 and now got about 100 million users in all over the world (Source: http://expandedramblings.com). Dropbox has hard battles in this market segment. It can be explained because of its great competitors like Google, Apple, Amazon or Microsoft, is attacking cloud storage market, but also more and more new smaller competitors are joining in this potential market. Then, it has to spend large amounts of money to maintain position in the mind of the users. Dropbox also invests time contract with the telephone company, making it cloud storage providers exclusively. PC and TV manufacturers are also co-operated with Dropbox to have exclusive contracts with these units. This may seem obvious, but in the world that everyone likes to use a "free" service on the Internet, the running of a business model is not simple profit.  So, how Dropbox made profit. Dropbox gives free 2 GBs (gigabyte) users store data, but there are many users (such as companies) want to purchase additional storage and monthly registration fee. If you want 50GB of data, you have to pay $ 10 / month, if you want to 100GB, the amount is $20. The company has over 50 million users and is adding a new user every second, but only 4% of them pay. However, due to the number of people exceeds the default 2gb always increase, Dropbox can still be profitable even without adding any new users in 2012.

Users:

Cloud computing is a powerful and huge resource: Cloud Computing Service-based virtualization technology, the resources here are mostly virtual, they are flexible depends on the needs allocation (dynamic) of different users, service providers can serve more users than allocating resources (static) tradition. Cloud Computing Service systems automatically control and optimize resource use include: storage, processing units, bandwidth, etc. Resource usage can be monitored, controlled and reported in a transparent manner for both service providers and users.

Currently there are many enterprises uploaded their applications onto the Internet and was added so many new features through a web browser, and the most recent evidence is the appearance of Chrome OS, an operating system with full interface and applications on the web browser. Sooner or later, you will be able to connect to any available only with applications through a web browser on a PC.

With the huge numbers of users using social networks, these channels are excellent for businesses to approach customers. In essence, the social network is the channel of communication, two-way dialogue that businesses can utilize to interact with customers, from the media and community-wide marketing. One of the most popular models for the construction of images on the social network is a fan page. The interests of business fan page can help disseminate information and receive feedback at the same time. Far from the traditional methods of communication one-dimensional focus on providing information, social networking features spread (viral) has helped put the product information spread in the community has allowed the business can listen to the voice of their customers to adjust their products and services to suit what consumers need.

In addition, administrative tools on the fan page will help brands and businesses can directly measure the return on investment (ROI), which has driven online advertising strategy that effectively. ROI on the fan page interact data volume, growth members (Facebook); number of fans, followers (Twitter); views, likes (Facebook, Youtube ) ... the numbers will now see the level of interest of customers with products and services that businesses, brands provide. Not just that, with the development of web 2.0 and trends of open source platform, built-in social networking also many other tools that brands can utilize to organize online events to increase the integration between customers and businesses: video, photo applications, blog, link, video …Fan page is especially suitable for small and medium businesses because the cost is not high, even free if you know how to exploit what it got. The investment in caring and maintenance activities for the fan page is not too complicated and time-consuming. If enterprise resource has limitations, all they need is to spend in an average of few hours per day for interactive activities, share information on the fan page. Through the fan page, business information, news would be updated as soon as possible without any delayed. Moreover, everyone can do their marketing for their products, even some small retail shops, they sales directly and get the unexpected results.

Cloud computing is convenient, accessible: Cloud computing service is a collection of services and information technology (IT) environment is provided through internet service where users like what they use that service, just pay as you go, and are selected the best service anywhere burst at any time. So users can connect to the Internet can use the services, cloud computing service does not require the user to have high processing capabilities, users can access by mobile devices such as phones, PDAs, laptop. With a laptop, tablet or smartphone, and they can easily download data from the cloud as well as data synchronization. They do not care about stored data in one device and use data on another device. Information and data sharing cannot be easier. (Miller, 2008).

As on an article of TheGuardian UK, in 2009, 97% of businesses have to suffer from bad weather, especially snow. It is known that snowing is one of the most concerns for not only businesses but also employees in winter. In snowing time, roads can be closed or dangerous, trains, flights or other public transportations will be delayed, cancelled or reduced services. Consequently, many workers could not get into their workplaces, telecommunication would also be affected. According to Sky News, on Friday 18 January 2013, the heavy snow costs the UK half a billion pound. It was shock news for everybody because what if we could save that wasted money for charity or investment. However, there is always solution and cloud computing is the best choice. With the supporting of applications via Cloud, employees now can access Internet at their homes or anywhere to check and compose mails, make trading and workflows, communicate with colleagues and customers through free or paid services like Skype, Viber, FaceTime or at least, rearrange a face to face meeting after bad weather problem. Then, home workers could save their own money which may be spent on travelling and their companies could save costing from electricity, heating, and hardware system.

If we were employees, we have never thought that the company that we are going to use Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office or Open Office? This trend is growing stronger because then users (businesses) do not have to spend money to buy, no need to install. But what if your company would like to offer service to others? You will be able to take advantages of cloud computing by creating applications on the Internet with resources from big company like the Google App Engine, Microsoft Windows Azure, EC2 Amazon's framework.

Some services are charged by relying on the amount of resources used. Almost these applications on cloud are free and companies just have to pay for broadband Internet fee, a not expensive cost.

On-demand self-service and lower costs: When users send a request via web service providers, system suppliers will respond to self-service users, such as: up - down time using server and storage capacity and so on without need to directly ask the service provider, all customer needs are handled on the internet.

Traditionally, large companies, large corporations often install all applications or software on their server cluster. If a company has a server system, the two companies will be the 2, and in 1000 the company will own the corresponding server. Therefore, to reduce the load of the costs arising from the massive server system of individual companies, cloud computing was born. And, as noted above, the "cloud" is used to refer to the Internet, a network of almost endless

Each company runs applications on their own servers. The server is placed in the right position of the company. That requires a lot of effort in maintenance, maintenance, money and time to keep things constantly running, upgrade and secure. On the other hand, if the application of cloud computing business, they will still use the same applications they are placed in the cluster of servers on the Internet. The only one network connects business through the Internet without having to take a bit of effort to maintain, upgrade and run the server. Moreover, businesses can give their customers using applications that do not have to install. Everything becomes very simple. In short, cloud computing allows the company to sell more services in one package new and more attractive.

Costing for businesses is a significant problem. In order to gain more profit, they have to cut down as much cost as possible. Cineworld Uk group realize this important thing and made a huge change in their marketing campaign. Cineworld is well known in Uk as one of the biggest cinema group which has almost 80 cinemas in all over the country. Managing many cinemas with the thinking of how to do marketing and sell more tickets to customers, they have to find out a solution. Then, in 2008, they decided to co-operate with Carrenza, one of biggest Cloud services providers in the UK. Now, with the website moved to the Cloud, Cineworld can posted its new movies’ trailers, promotion events, selling ticket online and so many more features. "We were originally looking for a hosting-only solution, but the Carrenza proposals showed us what could be done with cloud technologies. With Carrenza, for example, we did not have to commit to purchasing specific hardware or bandwidth. Carrenza offered to provide everything on an as-needed basis, with no capital outlay for fixed components, as well as all the necessary support and advice", said Vicent McGann , IT management team of Cineworld. With the supporting from Carrenza, Cineworld group do not need to worry about IT problems (websites management and maintenance, hosting, servers), Internet, power supply and almost related infrastructure system, they just have to pay for Carrenza for what they uses. Therefore, when costing was reduced, profit will be increase as a result. It is clear from the chart that profit of Cineworld Groups increased considerably after they put their stuffs on the "cloud".

Chart 3: Profit after tax of Cineworld group from 2008-2011

(Source: Redmayne.co.uk)

Disadvantages with cloud computing:

The benefits of Cloud Computing are very clear: cost reducing, data storage increase, pay as you go, auto updated, upgraded and maintenance services… and so on. However, which comes along with advantages and convenience are risks should be concerned.

Chart 4: Main issues which users concern about Cloud Computing

(Source: TechSoup Global 2012)

The chart shows how businesses care about Cloud Computing’s problems. This survey was done by TechSoup Global in 2012 to over 10,000 interviewees in various countries. Interviees were asked which issues of cloud computing they conern and there are three main things: knowledge, cost and data securtity.

Lack of knowledge and control:

Users become dependent on the technology and quality of service providers, making their flexibility and creativity reduced. Users only have the right to do things within the administrator allows, moreover, the latest information is often not timely updated network, while customers wish to keep up with the latest innovations , so customers do not feel satisfied, proved by the losing control or the result of an error, network congestion.

Cloud computing with many businesses, especially from under developed countries is still a new idea. Therefore, when they use this service, there would be difficulties for not only staffs but also manager teams. Normally, companies pay for service providers and use applications and features on the Cloud. However, to manage and keep controlling data online is not always easy. So, businesses need their members to be trained inadequately and the supporting from service provider.

Cost:

It takes thousands of pounds for businesses to transfer a great deal of data into Cloud and save it for a long time. Some companies do not realize this fact. There are costs will be added from using Internet broadband, the provider may charge fees for upload, download, others including internal labor. For small businesses the internal labor fee may not be applied but for big companies are different. When the workload is scale, the complexity management of servers will increase as a result. Another cost is data storage. With a huge data would be stored on Cloud in a long time, the budget for monthly or annually storage is not cheap.

Information Security:

The last hazard for businesses in using Cloud Computing is the losing control. By using service’s infrastructure, customers have to cede control to others which can relate closely to security. At the same time, the agreement (or contract) cannot give a commitment to provide this service in a part of the cloud provider, thus leaving a gap in security defenses. There are currently very few tools, procedures or standard data format to ensure portability service. This can make it difficult for customers to change to another provider or transferring data to other applications of customers, leading to reliance on a cloud service provider. In particular, the flexibility of the data, the most fundamental aspect, is not activated.

One of the main characteristics of Cloud Computing is centralized data. This can lead to a risk that cannot be separated memory storage of different customers; there may be security attacks to confuse different customer data. The attacks on resource isolation mechanisms are still much less and much harder for an attacker compared to the attacks on traditional operating systems

The Cloud also poses a risk for data protection for customers and suppliers. In some cases, it can make customers (in the role of data controller) difficult to check the efficiency of data processing vendors and hard to ensure that data is handled in a legal way.

When there is a request to delete a resource on The Cloud is done with most operating systems, we are not sure one hundred percent that all data is cleaned or not. Data is erased or deleted right time cannot be done, or for a reason of backup data, or the requested erase data was saved by other customers’ orders. Therefore, when using centralized data as well as hardware resources, the risk of data which cannot be removed clearly is very high and dangerous.

Solutions for future using of Cloud Computing:

Cloud computing will be a dynamic market:

As forecasting of many information technology experts in the world, Cloud Computing will be spreading strongly not only in developed countries but also in developing countries, according to an online Forbes article. The market for cloud computing will welcome new companies in both side providers and customers. More services, servers, applications will be provided as well as the increase of amount data could be stored on the cloud.

Almost all of the major software development companies are looking to develop new products with customized designed for the cloud. Thus, the moving to cloud-based networking systems for businesses is very convenient with new useful and cheaper applications. This is great news for users because they will not have to wait long to exciting new applications.

Personal device with Internet connection:

In recent times, the demands for mobile devices with browsing capabilities have skyrocketed and there is no sign of reduction. The only drawback to this device is always hardware. While the new devices are smaller and faster are continue being developed and implemented, the simplest solution is right before our eyes is the mobile cloud computing. Because cloud computing is not much emphasis on hardware (at least according to the user's perspective) should finally be easily combined with mobile devices. This helps the users can carry the mobile device (even smaller) but still have strong enough to access to the cloud but not to use a computer at home or office.

Unlike the scope of enterprise-model operation in the past few years, the cloud-based services, referred to as the "cloud", will play a central role in the digital life of each user. Be called "personal cloud", this trend is and will continue to shape more clearly in 2013. We store personal data, synchronization between the applications (app) and for a variety of devices that users use, allowing quick access or edit as needed over an Internet connection. Then, each staff of companies can work individually but they still get connected every time they want, information and data can be shared easier than ever. Each staff with their device are considered as "small clouds" will be participate in the "big cloud".

Data transfer speed and cloud computing tight symbiotically together. The development of the 4G network with a bandwidth of 100Mbps download and 50Mbps upload speed will help mobile cloud computing operation more efficient. When the data transfer rate increase, the inherent within the general capacity of cloud computing has been reinforced.

Unlike the scope of enterprise-model operation in the past few years, the cloud-based services, referred to as the "cloud", will play a central role in the digital life of each user. Be called "personal cloud", this trend is and will continue to shape more clearly in 2013. We store personal data, synchronization between the applications and for a variety of devices that users use, allowing quick access or edit as needed over an Internet connection.

More cares from Government:

The dramatically increase of cloud computing providers lead to some unexpected consequents. Then, there were not enough polices or rules to verify these new services. The point is that governors should pay their attention to this new trend of technology to help and support businesses when they need, even guild them to the right way. Services must meet the requirements for a license, certificate, for example, industry standards or legal requirements. There may be risks when moving applications to the cloud if the cloud service providers are not able to provide evidence of their compliance with the relevant requirements. On the other hand, if the service provider of cloud computing does not provide control mechanisms for customer service.

Conclusion:

Thus, the technology cloud computing is the remarkable progress of science and technology and modern information technology, capable of storing and processing the entire huge amount of information in the "cloud" Internet, brought a lot of benefits to both users and economic information. With any Internet connection, anyone in anywhere can access to the cloud and enjoy the how amazing it is. Reducing cost in parallel with increasing sale and marketing are the main advantages which cloud computing offer to enterprises. However, the limitations of the technology cloud computing, in particular are management, cost for cloud service upgrading and information security problems, when using this type of service are of concern to the user. But these drawbacks actually could not prevent more and more businesses want to joint this potential technology. The technology Cloud computing is still the people's choice in the current century.

Recommendation:

"Cloud computing" can help businesses save millions of dollars each year. However, in terms of net economic interests, reality shows, there are large enterprises, small and medium enterprises, have the customer as an individual, so the utility by "cloud computing" to them is different. Each business has different size as well as capital, and then each of them has a different method to exploit the cloud. Depend on specific situation of each enterprise, they should find out by themselves how much they should spend on cloud computing to get back maximum profit.