VOLUME 33

   ISSUE 33

22 April 2014

In fact with the dawn of Cloud computing we can see that this vision has moved from a probability to a definite possibility. Cloud computing, in a broad concept, is the provisioning of services over the internet. At the end of the month, the users of such services are billed for an exact quantum describing the amount of usage of the said services (that the user had prescribed for). Therefore in Cloud computing resources (such as hardware, Applications, computing power, data storage and/or platforms) are available to users, without them actually knowing the exact location of where these services originate from.

  In fact with the dawn of Cloud computing we can see that this vision has moved from a probability to a definite possibility. Cloud computing, in a broad concept, is the provisioning of services over the internet. At the end of the month, the users of such services are billed for an exact quantum describing the amount of usage of the said services (that the user had prescribed for). Therefore in Cloud computing resources (such as hardware, Applications, computing power, data storage and/or platforms) are available to users, without them actually knowing the exact location of where these services originate from
The advantage of this paradigm is multifaceted. One, in its very nature it allows scalability. This enables a company to request the services for one to a million users in matter of days. Thereby allowing, for example, a company to take into account when their business has peek or cyclical sales and plan their resources allocations accordingly. Such that when more users are required, by just requesting for additional resources, the company can make arrangements for such.
Second, it allows innovation and agility. Typically companies cannot take advantage of the full potential that IT brings. As IT consistently evolve, systems are generally upgraded in a slower pace ( due to restriction in funding/budgeting). Where major feature upgrades are done about every couple of years, which results in the company needing to do an overhaul of the current system, which would have a companywide impact. With the concepts of economies of scale, the sourcing company would be able to provide cutting edge IT services to companies that require such cutting-edge services, in mere minutes.

Third is visible reduction in upfront IT capital expenditures. As company would only bear a utility expense in the form of periodic subscription to a service. As such making a shorten deployment effort by the company.
At present, in every company, there have always been notable gaps between technology investment and ensuring rise in productivity. Therefore it can be seen that this style of utility computing could have significant impact for small to midsize companies in certain industries.
The utility computing model is all about using technology only when you need it, for as long as you need it. I think that this shift to utility computing is inevitable, and it is progressively becoming true. As this is a convenient, flexible and economical alternative to the traditional large scale data centre maintained within the organization. We must not forget that when Edison�s first demonstrated his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park he had stated: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles� 7. Because of this audacious thought we can now say, without a shadow of a doubt, that a world without the profession of electricity as a service cannot be envisaged.
References:
1. Paul E. Ceruzzi, 1998 Massachuestte Institute of Technology, A History of Modern Computing, Second Edition.
2. I. Bernard Cohen, 1999, Massachuestte Institute of Technology, Howard Aiken: portrait of a computer pioneer.
3. Nicolas Carr, 2008 W.W.Norton & Company Inc, The Big Switch.
4. google, retrieved 2013, May 9 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
5. google, retrieved 2013, May 10 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_computing
6. google, retrieved 2013, May 10 from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/utility-computing1.htm
7. Wikipedia, retrieved 2013, May 9 from http://www.webcitation.org/5umTbqS3d

First part of this article was published in March issue

Author:

Kumar is the Secretary to ISACA Sri Lanka Chapter and as an information system audit and assurance professional, is currently working as an Information Systems Auditor at SJMS Associates, an esteemed firm of Chartered Accountants independent correspondent firm to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
 

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