CLOUD COMPUTING: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Today we are going to take a look to the cloud computing.

First of all I’m going to try a definition of the term cloud: the cloud consists in servers that are available to everybody in internet, so you only need to be connected to internet to access to the files that you can storage in them. Software is also available in these servers and you don’t need to have it installed in your devices.

These are some of the advantages and utilities of the cloud:

•   You can access from anywhere if there is available an internet connection. You can access with several devices: laptop, tablet or smartphone.
• Not only your files but also all the software you might need is available in the cloud. This means that you don’t have to install this software in your devices and you won’t need to worry about the upgrades of the software as your cloud provider will make it for you
• A same program is shared by several users so you don’t need to pay for a single license. As all these programs are executed in the cloud and you can also storage the files in it, you don’t need a powerful computer, so you can save in hardware and software.
• Maintaining servers is carried out by your cloud company so you should have less computer problems.
• If you need more capacity for your files your company will provide it to you immediately 

Some of the disadvantages are:

• There is only storage availability up to  a quantity, it depends on your company cloud, and you need to pay an amount every month if you want more storage
• The lack of privacy and security: At first sight the servers of the cloud seem to be safer that a personal computer, but on the other hand the benefits that a hacker can get from a server with information about many people, is much greater than from your computer. For some companies it is very difficult to trust their research or economic data to the cloud if there is no absolute certainty in the privacy of it.
• If Internet is not available is impossible to access to your data
• Servers can be in any country of the world, so if there is any problem it isn’t clear what law should be applied
• Your company cloud could go bankrupt and your data might be lost.
• The information about the customers is in the servers and it might have problems about the owner of these data, for instance if the costumer would want to change the cloud company.
• If everyone use this technology we will be in the hands of these companies, and in the future they could charge to us what they want. Only competition between companies might ensure a fair price, but all these companies are in several countries, so who is going to judge them?

There is a lot of information you should read before choosing your cloud company. Here you have some links to know more about it. Pay attention, these are only opinions. Only after reading these or other opinions you will be ready to choose one of them.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226845

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-choose-the-right-cloud-computing-service-pr.html

http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Cloud-Choices