Updated March 21, 2023
Introduction to Cloud Computing Challenges
Cloud computing is an on-demand allocation of computing resource such as data storage has various ups and downs(with challenges like Interoperability, Service Quality, Portability, Computing Performance, Multiple Cloud Management, Compliance, Lack of resource, Security and Privacy, etc.) even though it is increasing exponentially and is still one of the best engineerings of our generation as its capabilities and breadth of the clouds are enormous, cloud service providers are providing enhanced services due to which adoption of cloud computing is increasing.
Characteristics of Cloud Computing:
- On-demand service: You use it when you need it. No upfront payment for the resources.
- Network Access: Use the internet as a medium to connect with all cloud services.
- Shared resources: Computing resources are pooled together & used by many end-users.
- Scalability: Will allow you elasticity of resources i.e you can ad-hoc demand the number of resources as you desire.
Top 12 Challenges in Cloud Computing
A report by RightScale from January 2018 on State of the Cloud survey, major challenges in Cloud Computing were found as follows:
- Security and Privacy
- Managing Cloud spend
- Lack of Resources/Expertise
- Governance/Control
- Compliance
- Managing multiple clouds
- Computing Performance
- Building a private cloud
- Portability
- Service Quality
- Interoperability
- Availability and Reliability
1. Security and Privacy
When we say security and privacy we are talking about the user data that is stored on cloud service providers (CSP) data centers. A CSP should abide by the rules of not sharing confidential data or any data that matters to the users. The data centers must be secure and privacy of the data should be maintained by a CSP. There is always concern about the actual location of your data, where it is stored and processed. Elevating these concerns, many cyberattacks, hacked API, and interface, compromised credentials, etc, have happened in the near past. Before onboarding, yourself on the cloud computing platform one should always check the data security and data recovery (in case of disaster) policy of the CSP.
2. Managing Cloud Spend
Cloud Computing can be expensive if you don’t know how to manage your computing resources and take maximum advantage of them. Many times organizations dwell in a mindset of pay-as-you-go and spend more on cloud than they would have on on-premise infrastructure. One should always optimize the cost by financial analytics and reporting the usage for better monitoring of cost.
3. Lack of Resources/Expertise
As the usage of cloud technologies is increasing, tools to manage it are getting sophisticated, finding experts on top of this in cloud computing is becoming a bottleneck to many organizations. Many companies are adopting automated cloud management technologies but it’s always better to train individuals to satisfy the need of time. DevOps tools like Chef and Puppet are heavily used in the IT industry.
4. Governance/Control
In cloud computing, infrastructure resources are under CSP’s control and end-users or companies have to abide by the governance policies from CSP. Traditional IT teams have no control over how and where their data is and processed. IT governance should assure how infrastructure assets from CSP are being used. To overcome the downfalls and challenges, onboarding to Cloud, IT must adapt its orthodox way of governance and process control to the induct cloud. Now IT is playing an important role in benchmarking cloud services requirements and policies.
5. Compliance
When organizations are moving their native data to a cloud they need to comply with particular general body policies if the data is from public sources. Finding a cloud provider who will comply with these policies is difficult to find, or one needs to negotiate on that front. Many CSPs are coming with flexible compliance policies for data acquisition and cloud infrastructure.
6. Managing Multiple Clouds
In the above-mentioned survey, 81% of companies are having multi-cloud strategies and have a hybrid cloud structure (public and private clouds). Managing multi-cloud infrastructure contrary to a single cloud is very challenging given all the above data-driven challenges. Companies are opting for a multi-cloud scenario because some of the services are cost-effective in public and to manage cost-effectively this cloud model has been very successful in recent years. Managing such highly networked architecture is a difficult task.
7. Computing Performance
Cloud Computing is on-demand compute service and supports multitenancy, thus performance should not suffer over the acquisition of new users. The CSP should maintain enough resources to serve all the users and any ad-hoc requests.
8. Building a Private Cloud
Building a private cloud is very difficult as it involves many tasks such as grabbing an IP address cloud software layer, setting up a virtual local area network (VLAN), load balancing, firewall rule-setting for the IP address, loading the correct version of RHEL, server software patch, arranging nightly backup queue. Many companies are planning to do so because the cloud will on-premise and they will have all the data authority over shared cloud resources.
9. Portability
This means that if the users want to migrate from one CSP to others, the vendor should not lock-in customer data or services and the migration should be ease. There are different laws over data in different countries.
10. Service Quality
The service quality should be good and is a major concern of the end-user. The whole ecosystem of Cloud Computing is presented in virtual environments and thus the CSP should give what is promised in terms of service, be it compute resources or customer satisfaction.
11. Interoperability
CSP’s services should be flexible enough to integrate itself into other platforms and services provided by other CSPs. The data pipeline should be easy to integrate and should drive improved performance. There are a lot of challenges in Cloud Computing like Big data, long hall transfer, transferring data problems but still, it is the best computing resource available to date.
12. Availability and Reliability
The data and service from CSP should be available at all times irrespective of the external condition or the ideal condition. Computing resources should be available for the users and their operability should be reliable. Cloud Computing challenges are basically on the CSP side rather than the user.
Conclusion
Cloud Computing with lots of ups and downs is still the best engineering service of our generation. As more people come on board for using cloud services, CSPs are providing enhanced services and adoption of CC is increasing. I hope with this article you have understood what is Cloud Computing, service models and challenges associated with it.
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