Cloud Computing cons

[florida]

I am looking at the benefits of Cloud Computing and have some below info.
Please advise if I am on track and any other cons of Cloud Computing.

1 -Centralize location of software enables better Configuration management.

2 - Affordable: Possibly the number one reason companies are excited about cloud computing, and this is the affordability. With cloud computing, you can pay for only what you use and ultimately reduce operational costs and capital expenditures on hardware, software licenses, and implementation services.

3 - Scalable and Flexible: With cloud computing; you can maximize resources for better efficiency and reduce unused capacity. You can also scale up or down to meet the changing demands of your business

4 - Efficiency: Cloud computing gives the benefit of shared hardware, automated processes, and familiar technologies. You and your employees can access the database from anywhere by using any PC, mobile device, or browser. It also reduces overall energy use and your physical footprint.

[Ascendancy]

Yeah basically. I think it'll help a lot with mobile devices since people will be able to sync files wirelessly between one account. Apple has introduced this heavily with iCloud, although this strictly includes Apple devices.

Cloud hosting I've never tried. I have no idea if it's faster than a physical server host, but I'd be willing to try. As price becomes less of a priority we'll probably see a revolution in technology.

[Declan1991]

BTW, pros are good things, cons are bad things from the Latin contra meaning against.

I would say that the major benefit is the ability to access everything everywhere in an age when people seem to be moving more and more towards smart-phones, tablets, netbooks etc.

[Svitla]

Pros: Software as service. Distributed data. Can be cost effective. Scaleable.

Cons: Security, security, security! Do you know who is handling your data? Availability - no connection, no work. Overhyped.

If you need to distribute applications and data to a wide range of geographically separated people, then I guess it is one possible solution. That solution may relate to cost and your IT budget/expertise. It's very tempting to sign up the cloud services and for the IT to be someone else's problem.

I would worry about data security. Specifically who can see the data and is it getting backed up - can you control the backup to suit your needs? What is the data recovery plan and can you download backup data to your own machines.

Whilst the internet is reliable, would you want to put of your eggs in one basket? How many hours could you sustain without an internet connection? I would plan for multiple access points so you can get work done, over a 3G network for example, if your cabled connection is down.

Worse case is that the hosting company for your data/apps goes offline (physical or routing errors). Also, how easy can you move to another provider - that would be my concern to prevent lock-in.

[WonDer9]

listen availability is whats happening right now. You think the last couple of years in technology were break through, you aint seen nothing. And price control, cloud is the new thing to help secure but is that working. I'm assuming building your own server will always be an option, so cloud is there to mitigate the cost of building and maintaining thru the upgrades and changes in technology. lets hope that's what's happening.

I still remember the film Antitrust with Ryan Philips. "Online" you say storage I'll pass.

[aalina]

Cloud computing is an abstraction of traditional server hosting solutions. Instead of buying 10 servers myself to run and manage in my own operations datacentre, I now lease X servers from a vendor where X is a variable number decided by me whenever I want.There is a distinct advantage to leveraging a cloud. If I bought 10 servers, I must manage and maintain these 10 servers even if they are underutilized [say only 1 server is used 90% of the time, while all 10 are pinned 10% of the time at peak hours]. That means I am paying way too much in maintenance for 90% of the time, while being inflexible when I need to grow the remaining 10%.

[chris0]

the inability to customize some of the settings like you can do on a dedicated box, could be quite frustrating in some cases, but could fine for most cases

[dalecosp]

Whilst the internet is reliable, would you want to put of your eggs in one basket? How many hours could you sustain without an internet connection?Does anyone remember the guy who was posting "I need more diesel" from a datacenter in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina? There's still the real possibility that your part of the cloud dissipates ;)

[alexrez]

From my point of view cloud computing is a very useful system

[WolfShade]

I personally don't believe that any advantages of cloud computing is worth the trade-off in security. Bill Gates envisions an internet future where no one has a personal computer, we would all basically own a "dumb terminal" and everything would be stored on servers, you'd lease all your disk space and applications from cloud providers. I don't like this "vision". There would be too much chance for abuse of the system. I'm also pretty sure (the way governments work) that any time any one would be under suspicion of criminal activity, then a warrant to search the contents of said leased disk space would be nothing more than a dream, allowing anyone with a badge to arbitrarily access said information. Invasion of privacy. I don't like it. I like being able to create a document and save it to my local hard drive, and implement my own security measures to protect it from undue search and seizure.

Just my $0.02 worth.