One of the first kind of argument which we had during our Cloud Computing training days was about "Why Cloud? and how it adds value to customers who are of small size and mid size?", in fact one of my colleague even today argues saying hosting applications on GoDaddy.com is better approach as it also provides 99.9% up time, paying as cheap as 10$ for hosting a small website, in fact GoDaddy now claims capable of instantly Scaling! There are several good reasons to do—and a few reasons to be, perhaps, a bit more cautious.
Advantages of Cloud Development
One of the underlying advantages of cloud development is that of economy of scale. By taking advantage of the infrastructure provided by a cloud computing vendor, a developer can offer better, cheaper, and more reliable applications than is possible within a single enterprise. Again the same argument may start, how it is cheaper and better?, but you will feel it only when you go for long run, The application can utilize the full resources of the cloud, if needed—without requiring a company to invest in similar physical resources.
Speaking of cost, because cloud services follow the one-to-many model, cost is significantly reduced over individual desktop program deployment. Instead of purchasing or licensing physical copies of software programs (one for each
desktop), cloud applications are typically “rented,” priced on a per-user basis. It’s more of a subscription model than an asset purchase (and subsequent depreciation) model, which means there’s less up-front investment and a more
predictable monthly expense stream. IT departments like cloud applications because all management activities are
managed from a central location rather than from individual sites or workstations. This enables IT staff to access applications remotely via the web. There’s also the advantage of quickly outfitting users with the software they need
(known as “rapid provisioning), and adding more computing resources as more users tax the system (automatic scaling). When you need more storage space or bandwidth, companies can just add another virtual server from the
cloud. It’s a lot easier than purchasing, installing, and configuring a new server in their data center.
For developers, it’s also easier to upgrade a cloud application than with traditional desktop software. Application features can be quickly and easily updated by upgrading the centralized application, instead of manually
upgrading individual applications located on each and every desktop PC in the organization. With a cloud service, a single change affects every user running the application, which greatly reduces the developer’s workload.
One of the underlying advantages of cloud development is that of economy of scale. By taking advantage of the infrastructure provided by a cloud computing vendor, a developer can offer better, cheaper, and more reliable applications than is possible within a single enterprise. Again the same argument may start, how it is cheaper and better?, but you will feel it only when you go for long run, The application can utilize the full resources of the cloud, if needed—without requiring a company to invest in similar physical resources.
Speaking of cost, because cloud services follow the one-to-many model, cost is significantly reduced over individual desktop program deployment. Instead of purchasing or licensing physical copies of software programs (one for each
desktop), cloud applications are typically “rented,” priced on a per-user basis. It’s more of a subscription model than an asset purchase (and subsequent depreciation) model, which means there’s less up-front investment and a more
predictable monthly expense stream. IT departments like cloud applications because all management activities are
managed from a central location rather than from individual sites or workstations. This enables IT staff to access applications remotely via the web. There’s also the advantage of quickly outfitting users with the software they need
(known as “rapid provisioning), and adding more computing resources as more users tax the system (automatic scaling). When you need more storage space or bandwidth, companies can just add another virtual server from the
cloud. It’s a lot easier than purchasing, installing, and configuring a new server in their data center.
For developers, it’s also easier to upgrade a cloud application than with traditional desktop software. Application features can be quickly and easily updated by upgrading the centralized application, instead of manually
upgrading individual applications located on each and every desktop PC in the organization. With a cloud service, a single change affects every user running the application, which greatly reduces the developer’s workload.
Disadvantages of Cloud Development
Perhaps the biggest perceived disadvantage of cloud development is the same one that plagues all web-based applications: Is it secure? Web-based applications have long been considered potential security risks. For this reason, many businesses prefer to keep their applications, data, and IT operations under their own control. In fact all big players are still following Wait and Watch kind of mode to enter the cloud.
Perhaps the biggest perceived disadvantage of cloud development is the same one that plagues all web-based applications: Is it secure? Web-based applications have long been considered potential security risks. For this reason, many businesses prefer to keep their applications, data, and IT operations under their own control. In fact all big players are still following Wait and Watch kind of mode to enter the cloud.
Another potential disadvantage is what happens if the cloud computing host goes offline? Although companies like Microsoft (Azure Platform), Amazon and Google say this isn't possible, only time can believe their claim.
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