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 center or a privately owned cloud. This makes data-accessing contrivances more reliable and efficient, with nominal administration effort.
Because cloud technology depends on the allocation of resources to attain consistency and economy of scale, similar to a utility, it is also fairly cost-effective, making it the choice for many small businesses and firms.
Portability
This is another challenge to cloud computing those applications should easily be migrated from one cloud provider to another. There must not be vendor lock-in. However, it is not yet made possible because each of the cloud provider uses different standard languages for their platforms.
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.
Companies can save some money on system maintenance, management, and acquisitions. But they also have to invest in additional bandwidth, and the absence of routine control in an infinitely scalable computing platform can increase costs.
Interoperability
It means the application on one platform should be able to incorporate services from the other platforms. It is made possible via web services, but developing such web services is very complex.
Performance Challenges
Performance is an important factor while considering cloud-based solutions. If the performance of the cloud is not satisfactory, it can drive away users and decrease profits. Even a little latency while loading an app or a web page can result in a huge drop in the percentage of users. This latency can be a product of inefficient load balancing, which means that the server cannot efficiently split the incoming traffic so as to provide the best user experience. Challenges also arise in the case of fault tolerance, which means the operations continue as required even when one or more of the components fail.
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.
Multi-Cloud Environments
Due to an increase in the options available to the companies, enterprises not only use a single cloud but depend on multiple cloud service providers. Most of these companies use hybrid cloud tactics and close to 84% are dependent on multiple clouds. This often ends up being hindered and difficult to manage for the infrastructure team. The process most of the time ends up being highly complex for the IT team due to the differences between multiple cloud providers.
High Dependence on Network
Since cloud computing deals with provisioning resources in real-time, it deals with enormous amounts of data transfer to and from the servers. This is only made possible due to the availability of the high-speed network. Although these data and resources are exchanged over the network, this can prove to be highly vulnerable in case of limited bandwidth or cases when there is a sudden outage. Even when the enterprises can cut their hardware costs, they need to ensure that the internet bandwidth is high as well there are zero network outages, or else it can result in a potential business loss. It is therefore a major challenge for smaller enterprises that have to maintain network bandwidth that comes with a high cost.