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Chapter 6 The Cloud
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Why Is the Cloud Preferred to In-House Hosting?
Figure 6-3 compares and contrasts cloud-based and in-house hosting. As you can see, the
positives are heavily tilted toward cloud-based computing. The cloud vendor Rackspace will lease
you one medium server for less than a penny per hour. You can obtain and access that server
today, actually within a few minutes. Tomorrow, if you need thousands of servers, you can read-
ily scale up to obtain them. Furthermore, you know the cost structure; although you might have
a surprise in regard to how many customers want to access your Web site, you won’t have any
surprises as to how much it will cost.
Another positive is that as long as you’re dealing with large, reputable organizations, you’ll be
receiving best-of-breed security and disaster recovery (discussed in Chapter 10). In addition, you
need not worry that you’re investing in technology that will soon be obsolete; the cloud vendor is
taking that risk. All of this is possible because the cloud vendor is gaining economies of scale by
selling to an entire industry, not just to you.
The negatives of cloud computing involve loss of control. You’re dependent on a vendor;
changes in the vendor’s management, policy, and prices are beyond your control. Further, you
don’t know where your data—which may be a large part of your organization’s value—is located.
Figure 6-3 Nor do you know how many copies of your data there are or even if they’re located in the same
Comparison of Cloud and
In-House Alternatives

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Small capital requirements Control of data location

Speedy development In-depth visibility of security and disaster preparedness
Superior flexibility and adaptability to growing or
fluctuating demand
Known cost structure
Possibly best-of-breed security/disaster preparedness

No obsolescence

Industry-wide economies of scale, hence cheaper
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Dependency on vendor Significant capital required

Loss of control over data location Significant development effort
Little visibility into true security and disaster preparedness Annual maintenance costs
capabilities

Ongoing support costs
Staff and train personnel

Increased management requirements

Difficult (impossible?) to accommodate fluctuating demand
Cost uncertainties
Obsolescence