Cloud Computing

Essential characteristics of cloud computing: Some benefits of cloud computing are given below:

It is very cheap and efficient to use. All we need to access cloud computing is an internet connection.
All the application are provided as a utility.
It provides unlimited access and configuration without any matter of time, user, device and place.
Cloud is a self-service and it is on demand so there is no need to waste money for a service provider.
There is no requirement for any special software for using cloud services.
It has greater ability to balance and manage the load so it doesn't get overloaded and it is very reliable.
It gives us freedom and elasticity for sharing resources on large pool and its services can be monitored and measured very easily.

Risks associated with cloud computing:
Although it has a lot of benefits but it also has some drawbacks. These are given below:

Security and Privacy: It is very serious concern about cloud computing because the management services are provided by third party and we have to give a lot personal information to the providers. It can cause a huge loss in the business.
Failure of isolation: Sometimes there can a technical failure in the separation of different types of tenants like as memory, storage and routing etc. Therefore it can become a big mess up of all the information.
Lock in: Customers have to stick with on service provider because it is not easy to change the service provider. So they don't have any fear of losing their customers and they don't provide effective and efficient service.
Compromising of management interface: Customers who use public cloud service can get into trouble because their customer interface can be accessed very easily by any one and it is not secure.
Incomplete data deletion: The data which is deleted by users can't be deleted properly because there can be more copies of the data so we can't get rid of the data which we don't want anybody to check.

Here is a for you to get good understanding of this topic:

References: Tutorialspoint. (2013). Cloud Computing overview. Retrieved from www.tutorialspoint.com: http://www.tutorialspoint.com/cloud_computing/cloud_computing_overview.htm

John. (2012, May 21). Cloud Risks Vs Cloud Benefits. Retrieved from www.cloudreviews.com: http://www.cloudreviews.com/blog/cloud-risks-vs-cloud-benefits

SenseiEnterprises. (2012, September 12). What are the benefits and risks of cloud computing? . Retrieved from www.youtube.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEHTscmW-eE

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