Challenges and opportunities at Cloud scale
We saw what is IaaS or PaaS in our previous article. Joe's may choose to rent computing or storage resources and may also use ready-to-use platforms from the cloud provider to build their internet applications.
Joe's may expand their business over time, but would remain to focus on their business in one region/country - say Bengaluru, India.
Let's imagine a different business customer who wants to expand their business across multiple countries.
He may choose the same or a different cloud provider to deploy his business application software that is closer to his customer base, with minimal effort. For eg, a retail business focusing on south east asia, middle east and India can choose to offer their services in North America with minimal effort from their desk.
This brings new challenges and opportunities at cloud scale.
- Compatibility with multiple cloud providers - What if the current cloud provider, doesn't offer his service in a country/region of choice
- Network speed for customers when accessing the retail application - If the application is slow, customers may choose a competitor
- Edge services - As a retailer, pictures of products drive my business. If the pictures are slow to load, customers may choose a competitor
- Data sovereignty - Are there any local rules imposed by the country on where the data should reside? Should we have data centers within the country?
- Data exchange - The retailer may choose to exchange internal data that help in analyzing the business from one cloud region to another. He may also need to keep some data across the regions in sync
- Disaster recovery - What if there's a war, flood or an act of God that damages the cloud provider's server rooms aka data centers
- Critical business - There may be customers with sensitive data for eg, stock exchanges, government and military, who may need the offerings from the cloud provider but may have restrictions with the data stored in the cloud.
And numerous others.
Each of these challenges make cloud a fascinating area to understand and explore.
Today, every one of us either choose to consciously work on cloud or unconsciously consume cloud applications in our day-to-day life.
This completes our 5 part series of understanding cloud.
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