What Are the Benefits of Cloud Computing?

One of the many potential benefits that cloud computing offers is the ability for many different clients to access stored information and services from a wide variety of locations (Katzan, 2010, p. 1). This effectively creates a network of information that can be easily shared among particular group of people, making cloud based technology particularly attractive to educational institutions, small businesses, research groups, etc. 

According to Steve Aylward, Microsoft's General Manager of U.S. Health and Life Sciences, cloud computing can greatly benefit today’s healthcare systems by allowing information to be shared freely between physicians and providing new healthcare delivery models (Aylward, 2010).

Along with the ability to share and access information from different locations, users of cloud computing will enjoy the benefit of increased and hassle-free security. Whenever a user uploads information into a server, that server provider is now responsible for maintaining the security of said information. Major cloud service providers, such as Google and Amazon, will have employed hundreds of administrators dedicated to the security of their servers (Anthes, 2010, p. 18). 

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Compare this type of security with how vulnerable a personal computer is to an attack, and it is clear how secure your information can be. Also, new types of server-side security measures are being developed by companies such as IBM ensuring that there is a safe future for cloud computing.

Lastly as with increased security, cloud computing can also provide a cost-efficient way of delivering services as users are not required to pay for underutilized resources. Instead of paying an absolute cost for servers and personnel, users, like electrical costs, will only be required to pay for the services that they actually use (Katzan, 2010, p. 37). This will dramatically decrease the amount of money a company may spend on its unused servers. A user will not be required to buy the latest hardware to run the latest software as cloud services will provide the user with both whenever it is needed.

Maintenance costs required to keep servers running will also be taken care of by the cloud service provider running those servers (Katzan, 2010, p. 37). This means that companies will no longer need to hire employees whose sole purpose is to keep a server maintained, allowing them to spend those funds elsewhere.