Cloud Computing Limitations: Staying Within the Stratosphere

Downtime

By far, the biggest drawback to cloud computing is downtime. Cloud outages can occur for many reasons, including power disruptions and poor internet connections. Data centers undergoing maintenance can also cause delays. 

Cloud computing can only happen on the internet. A cloud computing machine will automatically disconnect if you don't have an internet connection or if the connection to the cloud provider goes down. One challenge with the public cloud is that everyone uses the same server, so it can be prone to attacks.

If you are worried about cloud computing downtime, you are not alone. An InformationWeek/Network Computing survey of IT pros showed that more than half of the respondents were worried or very worried about the impact of cloud outages on their networks. In 2022, the leading cause of network outages was an incident with a third-party cloud provider.

Security and Privacy

In the cloud, a company's data stays online. It is important, therefore, to stay vigilant when preventing information theft. It can feel risky to store confidential data in the cloud, but a variety of security tools and measures exist to keep your data safe.

Cloud service providers manage and secure the hardware infrastructure. Your responsibilities lie in user access management, so you need to weigh the risks carefully. The shared responsibility model can introduce uncertainty as to who is responsible for the security of your infrastructure, apps, and data. As a result, make sure you understand your responsibilities and follow best practices.

Cloud computing can potentially expose vulnerabilities in your security. Even the best teams can suffer attacks and security breaches. Most cloud vendors won’t check your administrative skills before granting you an account, so it is your responsibility to ensure your strategies are safe.

Vendor Lock-in

Another cloud computing limitation is vendor lock-in. Changing cloud services isn't always easy. Differences between vendor platforms can make migrating from one cloud platform to another somewhat complicated. Gaps or compromises can also introduce security and privacy vulnerabilities during the migration process.

Relying on another platform to host and run the apps of your current cloud platform may cause support issues, configuration problems, and extra expenses. The compromises you make during migrations might also leave your organization’s data vulnerable to attack.

Limited Control

On the cloud, you may have limited control over your deployments. Since public cloud services run on remote servers that cloud providers own and manage, it can be difficult for companies to have complete control of their backend infrastructure.

The cloud service provider handles the ownership, management, and monitoring of the cloud infrastructure. You can manage applications, data, and services in the cloud, but you can't access the server shell or update the firmware.

You may also have less control over the function and execution of services within a cloud-hosted infrastructure. Cloud providers' end-user license agreements and management policies might limit what you can do. 

Synopsys is the industry’s largest provider of electronic design automation (EDA) technology used in the design and verification of semiconductor devices, or chips. With Synopsys Cloud, we’re taking EDA to new heights, combining the availability of advanced compute and storage infrastructure with unlimited access to EDA software licenses on-demand so you can focus on what you do best – design chips, faster. Delivering cloud-native EDA tools and pre-optimized hardware platforms, an extremely flexible business model, and a modern customer experience, Synopsys has reimagined the future of chip design on the cloud, without disrupting proven workflows.

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Synopsys technology drives innovations that change how people work and play using high-performance silicon chips. Let Synopsys help you overcome cloud computing limitations and power your innovation journey with cloud-based EDA tools. Try Synopsys Cloud free!