Cloud Computing : Opportunities and Challenges
Manoranjan Kr. Singh
(Department of Mathematics, Magadh University, Bodh Gaya) drmksingh_gaya@gmail.com Deepak Mitra
(Department of Computer Applications, Gaya College Gaya , Bihar) d_mitra123@yahoo.com Abstract
“The rise of the cloud is more than just another platform shift that gets geeks excited. It will undoubtedly transform the information technology (IT) industry, but it will also profoundly change the way people work and companies operate. It will allow digital technology to penetrate every nook and cranny of the economy and of society, creating some tricky political problems along the way.” (Source: Economist, ‘Let it rise’, 23 October 2008.).
In business, the ability to reduce costs and increase productivity often lies at the heart of the decision to adopt cloud solutions. Cloud computing offers general business and organizational benefits, as well as benefits in the exploitation of ICTs.It is these cost savings and others that have led policy makers to enthusiastically embrace cloud computing: “The medicine needed for our credit squeezed economy”.
The scalability of cloud services enables increased productivity and improved responsiveness to changing customer demands and market conditions. It reduces risk for organizations, enabling them to trial new ideas and processes without the need to invest heavily in new technologies. In particular, cloud can facilitate new means of collaborative working practices, reflecting in part models from the open source community, both within and between organizations.
One leading concern is data security, the trust, reliability and dependency in moving data and applications to a remote third party. While such concerns are real and need to be adequately addressed, they are in part also cultural, requiring a change in attitude about how to use ICT systems. In 1999,