Essay: Cloud Computing In Healthcare.

How Making use of cloud computing for healthcare provision?

Present business computing resources and usage

Cloud computing has brought several advantages for business. It has ability to reduce cost and increase satisfaction of the customers. In addition, features like auto-scaling, updating software automatically as well as maintaining are the powerful advantages that every business can obtain using cloud computing. Present study deals with reviewing present computing resources and use, future computing requirements and potential enhancements to business operations with staffs. In addition, types of services provided by cloud computing and their respective costs are analyzed in the current study. A business case for deploying cloud-computing services and short-term and long-term introduction of cloud computing are presented in the present study.

Chang, Kuo and Ramachandran (2016) stated that with the assistance of virtualization technology and enabling more use of computing resources businesses, it is required now start sharing datacenter infrastructure along with computing infrastructure, software and platforms in businesses. Innovations of business management applications such as customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning lead businesses to adopt cloud service applications. In addition, with rapid growth of technology, present businesses require implementation of enterprise level software that can be possible with Software as a Service. Salesforce, Marketo and Hubspot become popular resources and applications of the model.  The method is cost-effective as well as efficient for customers as well as service provider (Avram 2014). On the other hand, customers desire to receive hassle free management, security and maintenance of the services in efficient way that can be achieved by deploying cloud-computing applications.

In future, merging of infrastructure, platforms and software into a single computing resource is assumed as one of the major business requirements (Dawson et al. 2016). Furthermore, business-computing resources blur with the resources of consumer computing and computing intelligence proliferations to sensors will be business requirements in future that require effective training to the staffs or team members to use these efficiently.

Moreover, current business organizations are looking for scalable usage of the applications (Da Silva et al. 2015). It assists to pay for the computing resources only that are used. In addition, managing spikes based on demands without permanent investment in computer hardware is one of the major requirements of current days’ business that can be achieved by implementing cloud-based applications in business operations.

Cloud computing assists businesses to be more efficient and save costs for hardware and software required for business. There are mainly three types of cloud services are used such as Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service. IaaS helps in minimizing total costs of ownership as well as capital expenditures and users need to pay only for the services that are required. In addition, it helps to evaluate the enterprise-grade IT resources as well as infrastructures (Hashem et al. 2016). On the other hand, with the help of PaaS Solutions, organizations are not required updating the software infrastructure. The organizations face lower risks as they do not have to create upfront investment in software and hardware. Deploying SaaS Solutions can assist to make rapid scalability, accessibility from any location with internet (Sultan 2014). It has ability to eliminate concerns of infrastructure and custom the levels of service offerings. The costs of IasS implementation for five years are $299/month with full server management, whereas the cost of on-premise is $1477+ costs of staffing to manage the server 24*7.  On the other hand, the cost of SaaS is 25-40% of on-premise implementation costs.

Cloud computing services to meet business requirements

Jain and Sharma (2016) mentioned that the business case for cloud computing services consist of positioning as well as relatively short timeline to the process of mainstream adoption as per Gartner’s Hype Cycle. The value services provide consumers as well as extreme satisfaction rating for cloud service and forecasted development in the market. In addition, the advantages to providers consist of the ease of sale, deployment as well as ongoing maintenance for the service and subscription-pricing model (Gangwar, Date and Ramaswamy 2015). It allows developing annuities to be realized over time, as more consumers are involved for them.

Implementation of cloud computing in business can be helpful to obtain short and long-term benefits. Cloud service implementation can be beneficial in short term for minimizing costs in business (Lian et al. 2014). It is useful for several reasons as a recent survey conducted by Cloud Cruiser confirmed that present business organizations are moving their business to cloud in order to save money. For long-term benefits, implementation of cloud computing would assist to improve efficiency of the organization. In addition, improvement of data security, flexibility, quality control and disaster recovery are the long-term benefits of cloud computing in business.

An exit strategy is important for cloud solution as it has ability to document contingency plan in order to migrate records in secured way to a different solution. In addition, liabilities with the requirements of security are important for the organization to transfer the process. The existing strategy needs to consider the business scenario that is required. The approaching market agencies need to determine the contractual terms and anticipate a standardized agreement can be helpful (Di Spaltro et al. 2016). The agencies need to determine proper model and meet the general demands that can apply to procurement consisting of the compliance with Commonwealth Procurement Rules as well as Chief Executive Instructions. It is required to select the data centre as service. The ability provisioning the resources, speed and the ability to cap the resources is important for adoption. The agencies will require ensuring that proper level of security, interoperability as well as data probability that are factored into architectural design.  

Implementation of cloud computing can be helpful in business as it assists in scaling the infrastructure. The cloud has less operational issues and requires less capital to invest for adoption and use of the services.  Cloud computing has the ability to increase collaboration among team members in business organization (Chang and Ramachandran 2016). Cloud computing minimizes carbon footprint and provide employees a better work-life balance. Deploying cloud in business makes it easy controlling the documents of an organization. Furthermore, improving communications among the stakeholders associated with a business is one of the major requirements in current business (Di Spaltro et al. 2016). Securing data as well as meeting legal and compliance needs and saving businesses from the capital outlay for developing infrastructure and maintenance are considered current business computing requirements in line with the organizational requirements.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

On the other hand, as the demand for cloud computing professionals is continuing to increase, it becomes to give training to the staffs for adoption and using cloud. In this perspective, it is required to align training with the change management strategy and deliver role as well as process-based training to the employees (Da Silva et al. 2015). It is required to avoid ‘one-and-one’ approach and invest in continuous training.

Conclusion

From the above study, it can be concluded that use of cloud computing helps to gain competitive benefits in business. By collating information gathered in review and summary of the computing business needs presented in the study assists to understand fundamentals of cloud computing and types of services offered and costs. On the other hand, cost benefit analysis for introducing cloud computing would be helpful to determine business strategy for implementing cloud computing in business. Moreover, training and coaching maximizing cloud computing potential and encouraging, support individuals and work groups for efficient usage of cloud computing assists to determine the strategy to deploy cloud computing in business.

References

Avram, M.G., 2014. Advantages and challenges of adopting cloud computing from an enterprise perspective. Procedia Technology, 12, pp.529-534.

Chang, V., Kuo, Y.H. and Ramachandran, M., 2016. Cloud computing adoption framework: A security framework for business clouds. Future Generation Computer Systems, 57, pp.24-41.

Chang, V. and Ramachandran, M., 2016. Towards achieving data security with the cloud computing adoption framework. IEEE Trans. Services Computing, 9(1), pp.138-151.

Da Silva, D.M., Hines, M.R., Ryu, K.D. and Silva, M.A., International Business Machines Corp, 2015. Resource management using reliable and efficient delivery of application performance information in a cloud computing system. U.S. Patent 8,954,982.

Da Silva, D.M., Hines, M.R., Ryu, K.D. and Silva, M.A., International Business Machines Corp, 2015. Resource management using reliable and efficient delivery of application performance information in a cloud computing system. U.S. Patent 8,935,704.

Dawson, C.J., DiLuoffo, V.V., Kendzierski, M.D. and Seaman, J.W., International Business Machines Corp, 2016. Optimizing cloud service delivery within a cloud computing environment. U.S. Patent 9,274,848.

Di Spaltro, D., Polvi, A. and Welliver, L., RACKSPACE US Inc, 2016. Methods and systems for cloud computing management. U.S. Patent 9,501,329.

Gangwar, H., Date, H. and Ramaswamy, R., 2015. Understanding determinants of cloud computing adoption using an integrated TAM-TOE model. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 28(1), pp.107-130.

Hashem, I.A.T., Yaqoob, I., Anuar, N.B., Mokhtar, S., Gani, A. and Khan, S.U., 2015. The rise of “big data” on cloud computing: Review and open research issues. Information systems, 47, pp.98-115.

Jain, D. and Sharma, Y., 2016. Cloud computing with ERP-A push business towards higher efficiency.

Lian, J.W., Yen, D.C. and Wang, Y.T., 2014. An exploratory study to understand the critical factors affecting the decision to adopt cloud computing in Taiwan hospital. International Journal of Information Management, 34(1), pp.28-36.

Sultan, N., 2014. Making use of cloud computing for healthcare provision: Opportunities and challenges. International Journal of Information Management, 34(2), pp.177-184.