Cloud Based Infrastructure, the New Business Possibilities and Barriers

Abstract

Realization of the cloud computing infrastructure requires access to data anywhere, anytime at any device at a sufficient perceived quality of service. Many Western European countries, such as Denmark, have a high percentage of individuals (inhabitants and companies) that has access to broadband internet via cable, satellite and mobile. This gives a unique position in roll-out and deploying intelligent cloud based services that can be applied for a number of purposes, but where lack of sufficient capacity/quality and IT readiness will be barriers in realization of the “Global Information Multimedia Communication Village (GIMCV)”. Broadband is here defined as more than 2 Mbps. In this paper, the combination of e-commerce, cloud computing and broadband infrastructure has our focus, and its unique possibilities for the overall IT society. However, it is also about a significant number of Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) that today applies manual billing systems or Excel like systems in combination with severe lacks of sufficient IT skills. This means that the most commonly used systems are the ones requiring the most of our time. Therefore, the move for the SME towards e-commerce and electronic processes has a significant economical potential for the SMEs. E-commerce and other internet based services will simplify their business, and hence allow the SMEs to focus on their core business which was their raison d’être. In addition to this can be added other fundamental IT systems that will help their business, but that is outside the scope of this paper. Furthermore, this paper focuses on infrastructural barriers and cloud computing; not only focusing on bandwidth, but also the entire issue of service offering. Services offered via cloud computing solutions will minimize the SMEs investment in own hardware (HW), software (SW) and maintenance. The focus is also the upgrade to a superior infrastructure that provides the platform for efficient cloud computing, for e-commerce, and beyond.