The emergence of cloud computing provides benefits of the utility service model to the computing users. Users of computing are now being called subscribers or consumers as they move towards cloud computing. Cloud computing is delivered to its subscribers over the internetwork as well as the Internet. Subscribers can access the computing facility on a subscription basis, anytime and anywhere. The scores of benefits of cloud computing are attracting users towards it. But any innovation comes with a few challenges and cloud computing is not an exception. This chapter discusses various benefits of cloud computing and also presents the challenges before it. The biggest challenge is related to data security and compliance issues. Most of the other critical challenges are due to the absence of open standards where vendors develop using their proprietary standards or technology. The good aspect is that significant efforts have been undertaken to resolve all of these issues. Apart from these, this chapter briefly presents the role of web services in cloud computing development.
The emergence of cloud computing provides benefits of the utility service model to the computing users. Users of computing are now being called subscribers or consumers as they move towards cloud computing. Cloud computing is delivered to its subscribers over the internetwork as well as the Internet. Subscribers can access the computing facility on a subscription basis, anytime and anywhere. The scores of benefits of cloud computing are attracting users towards it. But any innovation comes with a few challenges and cloud computing is not an exception. This chapter discusses various benefits of cloud computing and also presents the challenges before it. The biggest challenge is related to data security and compliance issues. Most of the other critical challenges are due to the absence of open standards where vendors develop using their proprietary standards or technology. The good aspect is that significant efforts have been undertaken to resolve all of these issues. Apart from these, this chapter briefly presents the role of web services in cloud computing development.