1. Differentiate between Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service.
In fact, cloud computing encompasses both the applications that transferred over the Internet systems as simple applications and systems as well as hardware and software that are provided by the conventional data centers. The services offered are also called Software as a Service. Some IT developers also use Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service when they mention about their products.
Infrastructure as a Service means the specific foundation where one runs their system. The main function of it is to provide customers with the servers, firewalls and other infrastructure elements. The user can order this software, which is then used according to their personal intentions. On the contrary to the purchase of the infrastructure where a certain person will run the system, people could simply rent it and decide in what way they will exploit it.
Software as a Service performs valuable tasks immediately after the person has signed up to it. It requires that the person only needs to pay for the software that is exploited. If there is nothing valuable to rent, then people could easily find the company that would buy their solution to the problem.
Platform as a Service can be well used by those people who just want to create something valuable and does not want to be concerned with the exploitation of the servers and networking among others. In fact, people who use PaaS exploit the already provided platform and do not need to worry about the storage of the information, its collecting, and searching.
2. The authors claim: “Developers with innovative ideas for new Internet services no longer require the large capital outlays in hardware to deploy their service or the human expense to operate it.” Discuss the statement, pointing out whether and why you agree or disagree with the proposition.
In general, I agree with the authors’ statement, and I consider that nowadays there is no need in huge sums of money to realize one’s ideas on the Net. In fact, IT products tend to be less expensive, which makes the process of creating and transferring new applications less complicated. Therefore, more people are able to realize their ideas and then to share them with others. The possibility to transfer innovative thoughts, in turn, contributes to the development of different programs. In addition, those who are engaged in IT projects could resell them in relatively short term and earn money for other non-conventional projects. In addition, it is easier nowadays to get acquainted with the basics of computer programming as there are a lot of programs available on the Net, which are free of charge. Thus, everyone who has considerable interest in this sphere could try to start their own projects and realize their ideas. Moreover, a lot of functions could be performed by machines or electronic systems which, of course, make it possible to save money which would be needed to pay for one’s manual job. Furthermore, nowadays the use of internet resources is more accessible for everyone than few decades before. All of the above-mentioned eventually contributed to the decrease of the overall expenses that are necessary to develop an IT project.
3. Discuss the ‘cloud computing economics’, i.e. why cloud computing is an economic choice for companies of any size.
The use of cloud computing is beneficial due to many reasons. First of all, it should be said that overall, today no huge amounts of money or large payments for human labor are to be made in order to use innovative internet services (Armbrust et al, 2009). The companies should not also care about the overprovision of the service that is not as popular as it has been expected to be. In addition, nowadays organizations could use one thousand servers for only one hour price which is money-saving. Since there are infinite resources which could be provided on someone’s request, there is no need to plan future provisions. In addition, due to the decrease in the upfront commitment, people who exploit cloud computing could start using small amounts of services and software and then to increase it according to their needs. Furthermore, the companies nowadays are entitled to pay only for the time when software is used. Therefore, during time periods when the machine is not needed they do not have to pay extra money for its use.
Discussing the benefits of cloud computing utilization, one should also mention that the hours that have been purchased by means of cloud computing could be distributed according to the will of its user (Armbrust et al, 2009). Therefore, a person can surely use a certain amount of hours today and no hours tomorrow and pay only for those that actually have been used. Moreover, as it has been mentioned, the fact of the absence of the necessity to spend money on upfront installments enables business owners to invest their money into core business.
4. See table 2 for the article, on the main obstacles for cloud computing growth. Discuss each of the ten arguments presented in the article.
As it has been mentioned, there are ten obstacles preventing the use of cloud computing. The first one refers to the concerns of the companies regarding software products availability. However, it is possible to combat this fear through different ways. One of them suggests that the company may use several providers and in case of the failure of one of them, the functioning of the company would not change significantly. The second obstacle relates to cloud computing storage. In fact, the latest has not been standardized. The probable solution to it is to exploit the services of several providers and if one of them fails, it will not affect the customers’ data or destroy it.