The emerged Cloud computing trend is the future of Business or shifting ahed for Zero Luck...???

"There was a time when every household, town, farm or village had its own water well. Today, shared public utilities give us access to clean water by simply turning on the tap,  cloud computing works in a similar fashion. Just like water from the tap in your kitchen, cloud computing services can be turned on or off quickly as needed. Like at the water company, there is a team of dedicated professionals making sure the service provided is safe, secure and available on a 24/7 basis. When the tap isn’t on, not only are you saving water, but you aren’t paying for resources you don’t currently need.” - this is the summary of a Cloud computing system as a whole narrated by an eminent author & former Federal CIO Vivek Kundra.

Cloud computing can apprehend a no-brainer like any start-up because it allows you to test your business plan very quickly for little money. Every start-up, or even a division within a company that has an idea for something new, should be figuring out how to use cloud computing in its plan. In the pre-cloud ERA, the cost of building software was so high that we often have to define a scope and leave out functionality which we feel doesn’t fetch the ROI for automation. Cloud makes whatever that was previously left out of scope as candidate for automation now ! 

Thanks to simplification, access and affordability brought by the Cloud Services as SaaS , PaaS & IaaS.

Cloud computing has been around for approximately two decades and despite of the data pointing to the business efficiencies, cost benefits and competitive advantages it holds over the old way of business, a large portion of the business community continues to operate the old way. 

According to a study by the International Data Group, 69 percent of businesses are already using cloud technology in one capacity or another, and 18 percent say they plan to implement cloud-computing solutions at some point. At the same time, Dell reports that companies that invest in big data, cloud, mobility, and security enjoy up to 53 percent faster revenue growth than their competitors. As this data clearly shows, an increasing number of tech-savvy businesses and industry leaders are recognizing the many benefits of the cloud computing trend. But more than that, they are using this technology to more efficiently run their organizations, better serve their customers, and dramatically increase their overall profit margins. 

Cloud computing operates on a similar principle as web-based email clients, allowing users to access all of the features and files of the system without having to keep the bulk of that system on their own computers. In fact, most people already use a variety of cloud computing services without even realizing it 'Gmail, Google Drive, TurboTax, and even Facebook and Instagram are all cloud-based applications. For all of these services, users are sending their personal data to a cloud-hosted server that stores the information for later access. And as useful as these applications are for personal use, they're even more valuable for businesses that need to be able to access large amounts of data over a secure, online network connection. In simple words, cloud computing may be called as computing that is based entirely on the internet. As in the past, where people needed to run programs or applications from software which would be downloaded from a server or a physical computer, cloud computing services help them to access those applications through the medium of internet. When you make any status update on your Facebook account, you make use of cloud computing. When you check your bank account balance on the phone, again you make use of cloud computing. We can say that cloud computing services are becoming the new common.

The most trending cloud computing services are the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), AWS Cloud Services (Amazon Web Services) and Adobe Cloud Services etc.

There is no doubt that businesses can reap huge benefits from cloud computing. However, with the many advantages, come some drawbacks as well. 

Cost Savings :

Perhaps, the most significant cloud computing benefit is in terms of IT cost savings. The cloud enables you to leverage the power and performance of enterprise-grade IT infrastructure without the capital expenditure of managing and maintaining your own hardware. Its pay-as-you-go model can also help you control costs. Businesses, no matter what their type or size, exist to earn money while keeping capital and operational expenses to a minimum. With cloud computing, you can save substantial capital costs with zero in-house server storage and application requirements. The lack of on-premises infrastructure also removes their associated operational costs in the form of power, air conditioning and administration costs. You pay for what is used and disengage whenever you like - there is no invested IT capital to worry about. It’s a common misconception that only large businesses can afford to use the cloud, when in fact, cloud services are extremely affordable for smaller businesses.

Reliability & Availability :

With a managed service platform, cloud computing is much more reliable and consistent than in-house IT infrastructure. Most providers offer a Service Level Agreement which guarantees 24/7/365 and 99.99% availability. Your organization can benefit from a massive pool of redundant IT resources, as well as quick failover mechanism - if a server fails, hosted applications and services can easily be transited to any of the available servers.

Flexibility :

It offers flexible facility which could be turned off, up or down as per the circumstances of the user. For instance, a promotion of sales is very popular, capacity can be immediately and quickly added to it for the avoidance of losing sales and crashing servers. When those sales are done, the capacity can also be shrunk for the reduction of costs.

Manageability :

Cloud computing provides enhanced and simplified IT management and maintenance capabilities through central administration of resources, vendor managed infrastructure and SLA backed agreements. IT infrastructure updates and maintenance are eliminated, as all resources are maintained by the service provider. You enjoy a simple web-based user interface for accessing software, applications and services – without the need for installation - and an SLA ensures the timely and guaranteed delivery, management and maintenance of your IT services.

Security: 

One major hang up that many organizations have when it comes to adopting a cloud computing solution is the issue of security. After all, when files, programs, and other data aren't kept securely on site, how can you know that they are being protected ? In a cloud environment, security is a shared responsibility. Your cloud hosting provider builds in resiliency and protection at the infrastructure level to minimize the risk of a breach, and can help you address compliance requirements.

Mobility: 

Cloud computing allows mobile access to corporate data via smartphones and devices, which, considering over 2.6 billion smartphones are being used globally today, is a great way to ensure that no one is ever left out of the loop. Staff with busy schedules, or who live a long way away from the corporate office, can use this feature to keep instantly up-to-date with clients and coworkers.

Quality control: 

There are few things as detrimental to the success of a business as poor-quality, inconsistent reporting. In a cloud-based system, all documents are stored in one place and in a single format. With everyone accessing the same information, you can maintain consistency in data, avoid human error, and have a clear record of any revisions or updates. Conversely, managing information in silos can lead to employees accidentally saving different versions of documents, which leads to confusion and diluted data.

Disaster recovery: 

One of the factors that contributes to the success of a business is control. Unfortunately, no matter how in control your organization may be when it comes to its own processes, there will always be things that are completely out of your control, and in today's market, even a small amount of unproductive downtime can have a resoundingly negative effect. Downtime in your services leads to lost productivity, revenue, and brand reputation.

Locked Beats :

Downtime :

As cloud service providers take care of a number of clients each day, they can become overwhelmed and may even come up against technical outages. This can lead to your business processes being temporarily suspended. Additionally, if your internet connection is offline, you will not be able to access any of your applications, server or data from the cloud and hence you will loose your todays Man-hour.

Security :

Although cloud service providers implement the best security standards and industry certifications, storing data and important files on external service providers always opens up risks. Using cloud-powered technologies means you need to provide your service provider with access to important business data. Meanwhile, being a public service opens up cloud service providers to security challenges on a routine basis. The ease in procuring and accessing cloud services can also give nefarious users the ability to scan, identify and exploit loopholes and vulnerabilities within a system. For instance, in a multi-tenant cloud architecture where multiple users are hosted on the same server, a hacker might try to break into the data of other users hosted and stored on the same server. However, such exploits and loopholes are not likely to surface, and the likelihood of a compromise is not great.

Limited Control :

Since the cloud infrastructure is entirely owned, managed and monitored by the service provider, it transfers minimal control over to the customer. The customer can only control and manage the applications, data and services operated on top of that, not the backend infrastructure itself. Key administrative tasks such as server shell access, updating and firmware management may not be passed to the customer or end user.

Hidden Cost :

Several cloud storage services have a specific bandwidth allowance. If an organization surpasses the given allowance, the additional charges could be significant. However, some providers allow unlimited bandwidth. This is a factor that companies should consider when looking at a cloud storage provider.

Zero Locked Beats  !!!

Be careful when using drag/drop to move a document into the cloud storage folder. This will permanently move your document from its original folder to the cloud storage location. Do a copy and paste instead of drag/drop if you want to retain the document’s original location in addition to moving a copy onto the cloud storage folder.

Is it possible to migrate from a cloud to your local Infrastructure within the warmed up time frame with no data loss or any huddle, again in future days.... ???

I think it is a radical & extreme condition when we revive back to our traditional physical computing system with the same resources again. Hard time to follow the different application installation, configuration & SLA conditions and architecture. The re-creation of such infrastructure locally will be at almost panic with limited resources you hav and thus re-build your business goals with such provision & deep drilled situation.