For this week I carried out web research on what “Cloud Computing” is and how it can benefit E-commerce. Cloud computing is a basically virtual servers available over the internet for users that have internet access to get these services. Cloud computing when it is applied to I.T. it can allow the I.T. users increase capacity or add capabilities with out investing in a new Infrastructure which will save a lot of money, this can also can be applied to training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing users pay-per-use or subscription- based a service that, in real time over the internet, extends I.C.T existing capabilities. There are couple of types of Cloud computing and they are; Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) for example Amazon Web Services provide virtual server instances with unique IP addresses and blocks of storage on demand. Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) is a set of software and product development tools hosted on the provider’s infrastructure, such as portals or gateway and the last type is Software-as-a service (SaaS) the vendor supplies the software infrastructure, the software product and interacts with the user through a front-end portal the services can be anything from web-based email to inventory control and database processing. Cloud computing is basically a pay as you use; you can use software such as Microsoft office for a limited time until the user has completed his task.
Cloud Computing could have a massive an effect on the e-commerce world as it could have huge benefits to businesses and for normal everyday user such as students. The main reason why cloud computing could benefit the e-commerce is because of it great ability to be very cost beneficial. In theory, the cost of cloud computing are based on the consumption. There is no software, hardware or infrastructure to buy and in most cases you simple pay for what you use. Using the cloud you only pay for the processing power, storage and bandwidth you, meaning you don’t have to pay for times when your business is idle. Some I.T experts say that 90% of all e-commerce businesses will be leveraging some from of cloud computing in there operations. They also say that companies will simply offload there infrastructures , development and software applications to the cloud, For example, it would be unlikely for major companies such as Google and Amazon to utilize the cloud for cost benefits or added flexibility. However, they probably wouldn’t mind raking in the profits by selling cloud services to others.
