Managing Knowledge and Information Systems

Introduction

This paper discusses about the key differences between Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) in relation to business organizations. The two major factors contributing for the growth of cloud computing in business organizations will be discussed. In addition to this, the study also explains about the three key challenges associated with the adoption of cloud based services and their implications in business organizations. For each of the identified challenges, one approach for each challenge is discussed to minimize its impact.

Difference between PaaS and SaaS

The cloud based infrastructure provides basically three type of service, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service). The main differences between the PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service) are as below:

Importance- In the PaaS modal, the service provider uses the cloud bested environment to the business. In addition to this, it provides the hardware, software, OS and web environment according to the business demand. The PaaS model provides the running technology to the business which provides protection to sustain in the competition. Moreover, PaaS provides a platform to develop or run custom software according to the demand of the business and software are developed for the specific work such as Java, SQL, Oracle, etc.

PaaS model is important because it provides high security of the network and solutions are provided by the remote access by the developers. On the other hand, SaaS provides the applications and business software that are easily accessible at anywhere by the using login ID such as Gmail, Yahoo mail facebook etc. This model is also important to the small organizations that are not able to afford the high costly software.

It also provides the up-gradation in the software that is available at online for the business changes. The SaaS is useful to business because it provides the facility of online web based and there is no need to work in the specific or individual computer. It includes the remote access to login and access the software application and ongoing maintenance that upgrades software & patches.

Popularity- PaaS modal is the most popular modal for the developers. It is because; the developers can focus most of the time on their apps and on their scripts. There is no need for the developers to worry about the load of traffic on server and no need to manage the server. In the concern of the business, the PaaS model is useful for the employees to work within organization.

PaaS is the most popular between the public because it provides a computing platform and includes the popular Operating System, web server, programming languages, database etc. that are most useful to operate the computer. On the flip side, SaaS model of cloud computing is most popular among the common consumers or within the small companies.

The reason of this popularity is that they use the normal software for sharing of the data and try not to worry about the technical things. Sometimes, the people need work to home or outside then there is possibility for the employee to control on the work. The SaaS is popular because of the some software like email, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and collaboration based software. In this, all the things related with the cloud is operated by the vender.

Two major factors contributing for the growth of cloud computing

The factors which contribute for the growth of cloud computing are as follows:

Technological factors- The growth of the cloud computing is done by the use of high technological work in the organization. A business needs improvement on day by day basis and cloud computing is providing a technology where the cost of hardware and software is reducing and now organizations are able to pay affordable price of the demanded software. These technological factors provide a proper task and skills to business.

The changing technology is generating the need for an organization to adopt the cloud computing for the better result of the task in a systematic manner. The reliability and continuity of a business also grows by the use of cloud computing. The cloud computing improves the time of the recovery of any disaster and most of the issues are resolved. There are three advantages for the growth of the cloud computing in business including relative advantage, complexity and compatibility.

In the concern of relative advantage, the technological factors provide many competitive advantages such as fast and smooth process of the software, design to the business. On the other hand, the complexity of the technology is also a barrier for the business, so the new technology acceptance removes the slow and long process of customer support by the cloud computing. The new technology of the cloud computing should have a compatibility that can fulfill the need of the business.

Environmental factor- The cloud computing provides different offers to the environment for business. In this environment, the cloud computing also provides growth to the business by the business to business collaboration. The environmental factor also indicates on the several risks in the public sector that can reduce by the adoption of the cloud computing in an organization. The several study participants also believe that the cloud computing is trend to the market that affects the costumer so there is a need to adopt this technology.

At the time of the dealing with the customer, the adoption of the cloud computing makes a positive effect on the company. The organizational environment is demanding about the cloud computing for the purpose of best technology, to remove the fraud in the organization. In addition to this, cloud computing needs less investment and uses pay as you go price model.

Key Challenges in adopting cloud based services

The following are the key challenges in the adoption of the cloud based services:

Privacy and Security- This is the main threat that seems to be a challenge for any business adopting cloud based services. It is risky as sometimes these essential services are outsourced to a third party, which makes it hard and difficult to manage the data and privacy, to ensure the availability of service and support data (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012). There can be chances of hacking and other issues like attacks to infrastructure that will result in affecting the various clients.

Service quality- It is another reason why business organizations don’t want to move their business application to cloud. The SLA’s provided by the providers are not adequate to assure the requirements like availability, scalability and performance for the smooth working of production applications on cloud (Marston, et al, 2011). SLA’s which are not giving proper services causes loss to business, yet some business get refunded when the service was down.

Performance / cost- The delivery of complicated services by the network is very difficult when the bandwidth of the network is not proper. Before any business switch to cloud they wait for better bandwidth and lower costs. Because businesses have to spend more for the bandwidth, as it is used for delivering the complex data.

Implication on business

Using cloud will provide advantage to a business but it will also have impact on the business organization. The main impact that the business will be facing is the issue related about the security of the data, the business will have to depend on the services that are being controlled by the third party. Apart from this, the competition in the market will be introduced as some organizations will be leaders in charge while others will lag behind.

In addition, the already existing corporate will pose challenge to the other businesses. The organizations will have to move to global applications, rather than just the enterprise applications. This will result in knowledge sharing (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012).  This impact will leave harsh effects on the internal operations and the practices of the business and the business will be affected in number of ways.

It will have an impact on the human resources of the business as it becomes vital to see that whether the workforce has the required skills and expertise which is needed to run the new processes. Changes are always tricky, so it is important that the business can handle them with due care. The introduction of cloud in the business will impact the budget of the business as it can become more complex and uncertain to manage (Mell & Grance, 2011).

The training of the personnel will also incur charges. On the other hand, using cloud computing will make business dependent on the reliability of internet connection. There is also an inflexibility of using some of the cloud apps for the business. Another impact business will face is the poor customer services delivered by using cloud in early days. The cloud users also exercise limited control over the implementation and function of the hosting infrastructure.

Ways to minimize its impact

The ways to minimize the impact of the above-mentioned challenges can be described as below:

Privacy and Security- Using cloud based services have many privacy and security issues. It can be minimized in number of ways. People who are the current users like the employees who have access to the information and important data should be trained on handling the application and data. The data accessed by the people should be limited which can result in the security of data and information. The data and information which is highly important and crucial should be given extra protection, monitoring and encryption.

The data of the business should be detached from the personal data on the mobile device, and the applications should be scanned regularly to check for any issues or threats (Armbrust, et al., 2010). The cloud network needs due attention and it needs extra control on the users accessing the application. At last, there should be proper ID’s and passwords assigned to the different users so that any potential threats or risks can be identified on time.

Performance / Cost- It is seen that businesses always expect cloud to be economical, but it is not guaranteed. The best remedy that can be used to manage the costs is to assign different people that can keep the budget updated and manage it effectively. The third- party tools can also be used to handle the cost issues. To acquire benefits of cloud’s financial rewards, a cost optimization plan can be effective.

Adding virtual machines can also be helpful to the company in short- term. The increased traffic can also be reduced by transferring some of the traffic to the nearest available servers by the cloud service providers (Subashini & Kavitha, 2011). Performance can also be improved by using the high speed edge routers. This will in turn help operators to manage the bandwidth efficiently while delivering effective and smooth services.

Service Quality- Service quality issues can also be minimized with the help of robust application software architecture. It requires acceptable supporting technology components and a network which connects the customer to the application quickly. The service providers always need to follow up with the SLA contracts that are made. It will decide the penalties and the revenues on the basis of the performance level.

The SLA violation can also be minimized by continuous monitoring (Catteddu, 2010). Another thing which can be effective is by using the adoption of agent technology. It will manage the monitoring of the Quality of service (QoS) requirements, to support verification. It helps to analyze the allocation of resources and deployment.

Conclusion

It is concluded that there are differences between the PaaS and SaaS in relation to business organization. Also, there are factors like technology, environmental which contribute to the growth of cloud computing in business organizations.  It is clearly seen that cloud based services have many challenges for the business organizations and it represents opportunities and risks.

Challenge of privacy and security are related to the performance and cost and the service quality. The business has also been impacted by the adoption of cloud based services. Yet, there are ways to minimize the impact like by limiting the access of data by users, ID’s and passwords, the budget, the high speed edge routers, etc.

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