• Corpus ID: 167634286

Bulut Bilişim: İşletmeler için Fırsatlar ve Zorluklar

@article{Seyrek2011BulutB,
  title={Bulut Bilişim: İşletmeler için Fırsatlar ve Zorluklar},
  author={Ibrahim Halil Seyrek},
  journal={Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences},
  year={2011},
  volume={10},
  pages={701-713}
}

• I. H. Seyrek
• Published 1 December 2011
• Computer Science
• Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences

In today’s business environment, companies use information technology (IT) to improve their productivity and excel in factors like quality, cost, speed and flexibility to stay competitive. In order to leverage the new capabilities that IT provides, companies make large investments in IT every year. But as the capital investments made for IT and operating/maintenance costs associated with IT increase, firms have started to be concerned about these costs and question the value of their IT systems. These concerns coupled with the fact that the utilization rates of many hardware and software resources in companies are very low are now leading companies to find alternative ways of getting IT services. Cloud computing is a new computing model where businesses don’t need to make large capital investments for IT, but instead get IT services from service providers as if they get a utility service. Cloud computing can be defined as accessing computing and storage services supplied by a provider through the internet without making huge hardware and software investments and without keeping a datacenter within the company. Cloud computing has been envisioned long before today, but it has become a reality recently due to some technological developments. The underlying three technologies for cloud computing are web services, virtualization technology and grid computing. Web services enable developers to use software components developed by other programmers without programming language or operating system restrictions. Virtualization enables to create several virtual computers on a physical computer which makes better utilization of existing hardware and reduces power consumption. The grid computing, on the other hand, enables to combine the computing power and storage capacities of computers distributed in different locations connected by fast communication links and using powerful parallel and distributed algorithms. Currently, there are three main types of cloud computing applications: Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as as Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). SaaS basically means accessing software which are traditionally installed on personal computers through the internet and using a browser. The user doesn’t need to install software or store data files in her machine. The PaaS help developers to write software by providing development tools and services like database management. And finally in Iaas, the users are given a complete virtual computer with processor, memory and storage and they can use it for any purpose and install it any operating system or software they want. Cloud computing offers several benefits to businesses. First of all, businesses get great cost savings using cloud services because, with cloud computing, they don’t have to make large IT investments to access the IT capabilities they need. This is a very attractive option especially for SMEs since they don’t have much financial resources compared to larger firms. Also companies get rid of IT maintenance and personnel costs. Additionally, firms don’t pay for hardware and software upgrades. Another advantage of using cloud services is flexibility. As the companies’ computing needs increase, they get the extra computing resources simply by paying for the extra service they consumed. But in the traditional IT settings, firms often need to make extra IT investments to fulfill these needs. Service quality can be another benefit of cloud computing. Since service provider firms concentrate their activities on providing better computing services, they will have more resources for quality IT service which is mostly not possible for individual firms. Although there are several benefits to using cloud services, there are some risks and challenges associated with it. Security is one of the most important concerns for companies planning to use cloud computing. Since cloud services are accessed through internet, all IT resources of a company become susceptible to attacks that can be made over the internet. Also, the possibility of access to company resources by unauthorized users residing on the same cloud is an important security issue. Any data loss or theft should be prevented by service provider. Privacy is another issue related to cloud computing. In order to enforce privacy of the users’ resources, the service provider may enforce security related access policies and the data may be stored in an encrypted format. Other than that, the service provider should take measures to provide quality and uninterrupted service. Another challenge for the widespread use of cloud computing is legal issues related to data access and storage when the data stored in the cloud are originated from a country which is different than the country where the data are stored. Even though there are some risks associated with cloud computing, it seems that cloud computing applications will evolve and become more widespread soon, so firms should develop their strategies to benefit from this new computing model.