Business benefits of cloud computing
The business benefits the companies that have subscribed to cloud services such as Amazon Web Services division (AWS) gain include access to flexible computing powers, cheap messaging services, e-payment services, and flexible data storage and data management capabilities (resource pooling). On-demand computing and storage self-services are automatically allocated to those customers willing to use Amazon’s cloud formation platform. Additional costs are not charged for using cloud services.
Cloud computing solves many problems by basing the solutions on business models that easily accommodate high scalability. For instance, Zynga uses Amazon’s cloud infrastructure to run its game services, which are later moved to Zynga’s cloud platform after the games have stabilized, making the process more energy-efficient.
Disadvantages of cloud computing
The case study shows that starters or new companies do not need to look for money to make additional investments in building costly data centers because Amazon provides data storage services on the cloud. In addition, Amazon provides back up and disaster recovery services that are cost-efficient and scalable. In addition, once the cloud services have been deployed, it becomes easy for a company to offer real-time access to different services.
The disadvantages of using the cloud include the vulnerability of Amazon’s cloud services to disruptions because of technical problems that sometimes are difficult to fix. The case study shows that Amazon’s cloud services are 99.9% available and 0.01% down. Other disadvantages include a lack of reliability, privacy, security, and limited control.
Application of the concepts of planning, scalability, and TCO to Amazon and its subscribers
Amazon has successfully applied the capacity planning concept because the company offers services based on the pay-as-you-use model, which depends on long term and short term storage capabilities. Success also depends on cloud elasticity and the use of the on-demand service model (PaaS, SaaS, and IaaS). Other factors include effective planning and disaster recovery strategies, use of low energy consuming servers, which makes it possible to meet the business requirements of the customers.
On the other hand, customers are successful in capacity planning because they consume the services based on the tenancy model, which depends on volumetric capacity performance, usage virtualization, workload deployment, and balancing, high throughput, good response time, and ability to share resources when they are in demand. In general, the mean utilization time of cloud resources depends on the ratio between the demand for services and the capacity of Amazon’s cloud infrastructure and computing power.
Amazon achieves Scalability by using a multi-tenancy model to offer services using its high computing capabilities. Business organisations use business models of their choice to make good decisions on capacity planning and effective utilization of resources to meet the computing demands that are often provided automatically using Amazon’s cloud formation services.
Business owners achieve the Total Cost of Ownership by using commodity cloud services that consist of infrastructure and computing capabilities that have been migrated to the cloud. Amazon gains by billing the services based on the capacity of demand, policy-based provisioning, and storage economics.
Businesses that benefit from using cloud computing
Startups and smaller companies without initial capital to invest in IT infrastructure, for instance, an online company that sells crafts, can reach a wider audience of customers using Amazon’s cloud services. Business organisations such as Zynga are able to use private and public clouds to launch and sell games because their business models do not put unnecessary pressure on their systems.