Here are the cloud computing benefits:
1. Flexible computing on demand
2. On-demand scalability of IT resources
3. Virtual provisioning of IT resources
4. Pooling of IT resources
5. Rapid elasticity of IT services from a cloud infrastructure
Let us discuss each in detail below:
Cloud Computing Benefits
1. Flexible computing on demand
Flexibility is the key to cloud computing. It allows businesses to access computing resources to deliver IT services more effectively and efficiently. Businesses can configure their IT infrastructure to meet the demands of their businesses, without incurring high costs for procuring and maintaining IT resources. This flexibility means that businesses can scale up or down their IT resources based on the changing demands of their businesses.
For example, if a business experiences a peak in workloads in the holiday season, it can simply request additional IT resources from its service provider, and when the workloads decrease, it can reduce its IT resource usage by releasing the extra capacity. Thus, cloud computing allows businesses to purchase only what they need then.
2. On-demand scalability of IT resources
Cloud computing offers an on-demand scaling of IT resources. Which means that businesses can scale up or scale down their IT resources whenever they need to do so, without having to purchase new hardware or software upfront.
For example, if a business’ workloads have increased significantly due to an influx of new online customers, it may require more processing power and storage space. Without cloud computing, such additional processing power and storage space have to be purchased up front as new hardware or software licenses before they are needed by the business.
With cloud computing, however, the business can simply request more processing power and more storage space from its service provider when needed without incurring any upfront costs for purchasing new hardware or software licenses beforehand. If business workloads subsequently decrease again, the business can reduce its usage of its service provider’s computing resources by releasing processing power and storage space that it is no longer using.
Thus, scaling up or down of IT resources is achieved at very low costs as opposed to traditional on-premise solutions where businesses have to purchase new hardware or software licenses upfront even though they may not need all those extra hardware or software licenses then.
3. Virtual provisioning of IT resources
Businesses no longer need to purchase hardware and software licenses upfront when migrating their applications and services into the cloud as with physical servers. Instead, they only pay for what they use – i.e., consume – in terms of virtualized machines (instances) and virtualized operating systems that are provided by cloud providers instead of purchasing them upfront.
Cloud computing allows businesses to have their own IT resources on-demand, and pay only for what they use. It is this “on-demand” mentality that accounts for one of the top cloud computing benefits – i.e., the flexibility to scale up or scale down IT resources based on changing demands of businesses.
For example, if a business requires more racks of physical servers upfront when it launches its new e-commerce website, it could incur significant costs for procuring and maintaining those physical servers regardless of whether it eventually uses all those physical servers then.