Cloud Computing Applications&

Challenges
 Cloud Computing Applications

• Cloud Computing in

– Business
– Health Sector
– Agriculture
– E-governance
– Educational Institutes
– Media and Entertainment
 Cloud Computing: in Business
Cloud computing is both:
a business delivery model and an infrastructure management
methodology.
The business delivery model provides a user experience by
which hardware, software and network resources are
optimally leveraged to provide innovative services over the
Web.
The infrastructure management methodology enables IT
organizations to manage large numbers of highly virtualized
resources as a single large resource.
 Cloud Computing: in Business contd…
Business Applications
Cloud computing has made businesses more collaborative and easy by incorporating
various apps such as MailChimp, Chatter, Google Apps for business, and Quickbooks.

1. MailChimp:
• It offers an e-mail publishing platform.
• It is widely employed by the businesses to design and send their e-mail campaigns.

2 Chatter app:
• It helps the employee to share important information about organization in real
time.
• One can get the instant feedback regarding any issue.

3. Google Apps for Business:

• Google offers creating text documents , spreadsheets, presentations, etc. on
Google Docs which allows the business users to share them in collaborating
manner.

4. Quickbooks:
• It offers online accounting solutions for a business.
 Cloud Computing: in Medical Field
Within a hospital or within the medical practices, the patient charts and
medical histories are often kept within a computer system of some
kind. A cloud based server will improve information sharing by allowing
everything to be hosted in the same place.
Cloud computing can also be greatly beneficial to private practice
doctors as well. With a cloud server a doctor can integrate their system
with the local hospitals and any change in the patient file can
automatically reflect in the doctor’s system.
Swine Flu Response Centre
At the peak of the H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic, one of the big
challenges for health authorities in affected countries was dealing
effectively with the massive number of people needing assessment
and guidance.
The H1N1 Flu Response Center (http://h1n1.cloudapp.net), built and
deployed on Windows Azure, allows users to take an Emory
University-designed flu self-assessment, and then offers the
appropriate advice.
 Impact on Healthcare
• Information at right movement
Increases adoption of EHR (ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS)
Quick Access to Medical History
EHR is accessible through any device through Internet
• Higher level of interaction
Any time anywhere access to DATA
Interoperability in Health departments
Facilitates the sharing of EHRs among physicians and hospitals
• High accuracy
Single truth of data
Reduces Human errors Reduces data sharing Errors between
Hospitals
 Impact on Healthcare contd..
• Secure data storage and access
Disaster Recovery
Private Cloud
 High level Encryption across connections
• Reduce IT cost
Pay-Per-Use services
NO Buying & Upgrading of software
NO Additional IT staff required to manage systems
Electronic record reduces Paper costs
Telemedicine
 COVID Vaccination
Vaccination management is already a tricky business. The scale, complexity
and speed required this time around mean that existing systems are unlikely
to cope.

People need two doses .

Cloud technology has been one of the unexpected saviours during these
challenging times. It has given children the opportunity to continue learning
and allowed families to stay in touch while supporting businesses to continue
to serve their customers and enabling people to work from home. Cloud can
also be the saviour for vaccine management.

Simplus, an Infosys company that specialises in developing solutions on the

Salesforce cloud platform, has developed a vaccine management solution
that can bring greater collaborative communication, advocacy and
engagement, demand management, sophisticated analytics, and effective
administration to world governments at just the right time.
Bringing together the full range of Salesforce cloud services, including
Health Cloud, Community Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Tableau (data analytics)
and MuleSoft (data integration from various data sources), along with a
talent pool that can work at scale and at speed, the modular system
architecture provides:

• Candidate Registration Portal: A centralised portal for citizens to find

information, schedule appointments and follow up for additional doses
• System of Communication: Combined technology and campaign design
support for proactive outreach and follow-up post appointment
• Provider Vaccination Portal: Enables providers to coordinate clinical
administration with local governments
• State/County Command Center: Windowpane view to support state and
local officials managing analysis and decision-making
• Cold Chain/Inventory Tracking: Visibility and integrability with key data
points along the cold chain to support efficient supply/demand balance
• Integration Framework: Methodology and suggested platform to manage
multiple integration points with agility and flexibility
 Cloud Computing: in Agriculture Field
Though the farmers have grown the same crop for centuries, the ever
changing weather conditions, soil fertility, pests and diseases etc.
Current challenges in Indian Agriculture:
• Insufficient power availability in rural areas
• Lack of awareness among farmers about the benefits of ICT in
agriculture. ( ICT-Information Technologies and tools)
• Not enough sales and distribution information.
• Deficient production information.
• Poor knowledge about the weather forecast, pests and diseases.
Role of Cloud Computing in Solving these Challenges
• Using the applications of cloud the farmers have nothing to worry
about hardware and software investment and also the technical
knowledge required to learn them.
• They can get most up-to-date farming and propagation techniques.
• They can also leverage the systematic methods in information
collection, supply chain logistics, market forecasting and business
decision-making.
 Cloud Computing: in Education
Cloud computing in education opens avenues for better research,
discussion, and collaboration. It also provides a software desktop
environment, which minimizes hardware problems. Cloud computing
also enables classes to be run on remote locations.

Fig: Services attached to Education Cloud

Benefits of Cloud Computing for Institutions and Students

• Personalized Learning
students can access a wide array of resources and software tools
that suit their learning styles and interests.
• Reduced Costs
Help institutes to reduce costs and accelerate the use of new
technologies to meet evolving educational needs.
Students can use applications like MS Office for free without
having to purchase .
• Accessibility
From anywhere one can login and access the information
• No Extra Infrastructure
Colleges and governments are now free from wasting time on
worrying about the buildings, labs, teachers etc .
• User Friendly
 Cloud Computing: in e-Governance
• e-governance is the application of information and
communication technology for delivering government
services.

• Exchange of information between:

government-to-customer (G2C), e.g. birth/death/move
reporting, tax payments, building permits.
Government-to-business (G2B), e.g. company registration, tax
payments, permit requests, building permits
Government-to-government (G2G).
Fig. Cloud Model for e. Government
 Benefits of Cloud Computing in e- Governance
• Reduce Total Cost of Ownership
Deploying application on a cloud platform and especially in
public cloud reduces capital outlays .
• Minimize Labour Cost
Government does not have to spend on management cost and
overhead .
• High availability
Cloud guarantees uptimes in the range of 99% .
• Interoperability
Between multiple agencies and departments.
• Scalability
Handles the uncertainty in demand and load in e-Governance.
 Cloud Computing: in Media and Entertainment
• Advances in technology and consumer behaviour are leading to a
transformation in the way video content is delivered to consumers.
Due to this there is a migration away from traditional broadcasting
models and platforms towards digital distribution over the internet.

• The three major disruption to the broadcasters:

Consumer want more options , convenience and control on
video content .
Consumer want more offering in limited time.
Consumer want more technological content in limited price.
 Benefits of Cloud Computing for Broadcasters
• The entry of agile, software-based competitors into the video
delivery industry has changed the game for broadcasters.
Cloud enables to conduct analytics on vast amount of data.
Dividing ongoing service innovation through agile development.
Scalability to handle increase workload
Cloud enables faster service delivery.
Cloud will play an essential role in the delivery of content-rich
services to multiple devices.
Cloud will support video content delivery, including video on-
demand services.
Access to video coverage of live events will become ever more
global and social.
 Cloud Computing Challenges
• Cloud computing is used for enabling global access to
mutual pools of resources such as services, apps, data,
servers, and computer networks. It is done on either a
third-party server located in a data centre or a privately
owned cloud. This makes data-accessing contrivances more
reliable and efficient, with nominal administration effort.
• But there are also many challenges involved in cloud
computing, and if one is not prepared to deal with, then he
won’t realize the benefits.
• Here are some common challenges one must consider
before implementing the cloud computing technology
• Cloud Computing Challenges

– Cost
– Security and Privacy or Data Privacy
– Inter Operability and Portability
– Reliability and Availability
– Performance and Bandwidth
– Continuous Monitoring
– Downtime
– Vendor lock-in
– Data access and integration
– Proper usability
– Migration issues
 Challenges contd…

 Cost :- Cloud computing itself is affordable, but tuning the

platform according to the company’s needs can be
expensive. Furthermore, the expense of transferring the
data to public clouds can prove to be a problem for short-
lived and small-scale projects.
Scalable and on-demand nature of cloud services makes
the assessment of cost difficult. Contracting and budgeting
issues arise often with scalable and incremental cloud
service procurements. Heavy use of a service for a few
days may consume the budget of several months.
 Challenges contd…

 Security and Privacy :- The main challenge to cloud

computing is how it addresses the security and
privacy concerns of businesses thinking of adopting it. The
fact that the valuable enterprise data will reside outside the
corporate firewall, raises serious concerns. Hacking and
various attacks to cloud infrastructure would affect multiple
clients even if only one site is attacked. These risks can be
mitigated by using security applications, encrypted file
systems, data loss software, and buying security hardware to
track unusual behaviour across servers.
Industrious password supervision plays a vital role in cloud
security. Businesses should employ multi-factor
authentication and make sure that passwords are protected
and altered regularly, particularly when staff members leave.
 Challenges contd…
 Interoperability and Portability :- Businesses should
have the leverage of migrating in and out of the cloud and
switching providers whenever they want, and there should
be no lock-in period. Cloud computing services should
have the capability to integrate smoothly with the on-
premise IT.

 Reliability and Availability :- Cloud providers still lack

round-the-clock service; this results in frequent outages. It
is important to monitor the service being provided using
internal or third-party tools. It is vital to have plans to
supervise usage, SLAs, performance, robustness, and
business dependency of these services.
 Challenges contd…
 Performance and Bandwidth :- Businesses can save money
on hardware but they have to spend more for the
bandwidth. This can be a low cost for smaller applications
but can be significantly high for the data-intensive
applications. Delivering intensive and complex data over
the network requires sufficient bandwidth. Because of this,
many businesses are waiting for a reduced cost before
switching to the cloud.
 Continuous Monitoring:- Cloud computing often suffers
from frequent outages, owing to the lack of round-the-
clock service on the part of cloud providers. It is important
to monitor the cloud service continuously as well as to
supervise its performance, business dependency and
robustness.
 Challenges contd…
 Downtime :- Downtime is a significant shortcoming of cloud
technology. No seller can promise a platform that is free of
possible downtime. Cloud technology makes small
companies reliant on their connectivity, so companies with
an untrustworthy internet connection probably want to
think twice before adopting cloud computing.

 Vendor lock-in :- Entering a cloud computing agreement is

easier than leaving it. “Vendor lock-in” happens when
altering providers is either excessively expensive or just not
possible. It could be that the service is nonstandard or that
there is no viable vendor substitute. It comes down to buyer
carefulness. Guarantee the services you involve are typical
and transportable to other providers, and above all,
 Challenges contd…
 Data access and integration :- Cloud based servers sometimes lack
effective and appropriate customer service support systems.
Companies are often concerned about data ownership and loss of
data control while moving to cloud. An important element of
decision making process is to select where and how the data is to be
stored. Another challenge for enterprises taking up cloud computing
is integration. Integrating all the existing applications with the cloud
smoothly is quite challenging.

 Proper usability :- Although the benefits of cloud computing are well

established, many companies are still not sure about its
implementation. For this, enterprises need to have a good and clear
view of how to use the technology to add value to their unique
businesses. Comparing specific metrics of cloud computing and
traditional IT can be helpful in evaluating costing and work efficiency.
The cloud ROI model must include components like workload-wise
 Challenges contd…
 Migration issues:- Migrating data from system to the
cloud can pose major risks, if it not handled properly. To
resolve this, there is a need of developing migration
strategy that integrates well with the current IT
infrastructure. Companies often find it difficult to pick the
appropriate service model for their businesses and prefer
to associate with providers who allow the creation of
customized computing environment.

All these challenges should not be considered as road

blocks in the pursuit of cloud computing. It is rather
important to give serious consideration to these issues and
the possible ways out before adopting the technology.