Caught in the fuss, we have chosen to ignore the problems and challenges that follow cloud computing today.
This blog aims at flashing the unexplored side of cloud computing that has been intentionally sidelined by cloud providers while blowing trumpets of its superiority. Think twice before being carried away by the wave of cheap cloud hosting.
Trust
A lot of suppliers guarantee a paramount safety through your cloud server. But, not all suppliers are similar. Cloud Services architect had inflated our dependency on a third party for something crucial for our business. Dependencies have their drawbacks. A cloud is only as good as your provider. Power failures, server crashes, etc. can lead to interruptions in the services. Though the probability of happening of these events is next to none, their possibility can be completely ruled out.
Cost
A common misconception spun around computing is that it costs less than dedicated servers and other servers. To an extent, this is true. As an organization increases its reliance on the cloud, the cloud becomes more and more costly. A cloud will eventually cost more than setting up your cheap dedicated servers. Consolidate the amount paid with every billing cycle of your services at some point. The total expense is bound to exceed the capital required to own your server infrastructure technician.
To conclude, though a cloud is cheaper initially, at a later stage may cost more than dedicated servers.
Security issues
The data uploaded on a cloud, stored on a third-party’s server. And it is stored in multiple locations. More instances of your data more are the probability of its theft. It is easier to safeguard a single copy data than it is to protect multiple copies of the same. Moreover, with cloud you lay control of your business sensitive data at the hands of an organization who could misuse it to their advantage.
Though cloud providers claim zero data-tampering policy, there is no means to identify whether or not the provider has tampered with the data.
Dependence upon the internet
No matter how seamless cloud services become, internet will always be the ultimate decider of service quality. A high performance cloud operated with a low end internet is as good as operating a low performance cloud server.
Unwanted business lock-ins
Entering into agreement with a poor service provider can tie you down to an unescapable agreement. As a result, organizations are forced to either pay the contract-breach amount or carry on with the current service provider unwillingly. The shortcomings of a service is exposed only after you opt one. Even the most reputed providers have drawbacks. Choosing the correct provider is always a compromise as to which parameter of your cloud services you can afford to let loose.
Migration
Migrating to and from a server is the biggest problem with no concrete solution yet. Migration requires extensive planning, and the time to carry out migration has to be worked out very carefully. There is always some data loss accompanying migration. Almost equally inescapable is the downtime resulting due to migration.
Upshot
A cloud, as it seems, is not necessarily a win-win scenario for the subscribers. Like any other aspect of a business, it also involves negotiating a compromise between what we want and what we can afford to let go.
A Google search returns a bucket full of results in praise of cloud computing market. But, only a handful of those results expose unbiased opinions on computing.
We hope the above piece helps you arrive at the correct conclusion (of whether or not to opt for cloud computing) without turning your back towards the atrocities that the cloud is capable of committing.
