Benefits of Cloud Computing for Healthcare Organizations

1. Electronic Records
One of the most intuitive benefits of cloud computing for healthcare is that the
cloud makes it far easier to archive and use patient records and medical images.
In fact, electronic medical records are such an improvement that care providers
who don’t start using them for their patient records will begin to be penalized in
2015.
The new approach to data will improve access, increase storage capability, and
boost security.
2. Streamlined Collaboration
Many physicians find cloud computing makes it easier to collaborate and offer
care as a team. Through mobile devices, video conferencing, and applications
built specifically for health care organizations, the cloud speeds things up and
allows better communication at a distance.
Patients receive the expertise they need when they need it. Rural care and
disaster response become more realistic.
3. Saving On Data Storage
Big data has become an overwhelming challenge for many health organizations,
and the cloud allows providers to save money by minimizing in-house storage
needs.
The information also becomes more accessible from various locations, and even
if something happens on-site, the data is still preserved.
4. Accessing High-Powered Analytics
One of the most interesting fields of cloud computing is data analytics. By
tracking and computing data in the cloud, in real-time, providers can “harvest”
it for medical research, referral generation, trend-spotting, and more
personalized care.
5. Combining Efforts for Data Sharing
The ability of the cloud to gather and use data doesn’t stop in-house. Health care
organizations can combine these technologies and easily share industry data to
create even more comprehensive big data pools for everyone to learn from in
larger, more complex systems.
6. Advanced Clinical Research
The cloud enables a lot of high-powered data solutions to superpower the
research process. Big data used to be far too comprehensive for smaller
computers to handle, but through the advanced computing power of the cloud,
using these giant data sets for progress becomes a reality. It thus becomes
easier and more costly to develop new drugs, and it especially presents
interesting possibilities in DNA sequencing.
7. Telemedicine Capabilities
Thanks to the cloud, higher-tech devices, and mobile technology, providing
health care from a distance has become a reality. Examples include
consultations, tele-surgeries, and monitoring patients without having them
come in.
education

The benefits of cloud computing are being recognized in businesses and

institutions across the board, with almost 90 percent of organizations currently
using some kind of cloud-based application. The immediate benefits of cloud
computing are obvious: cloud-based applications reduce infrastructure and IT
costs, increase accessibility, enable collaboration, and allow organizations more
flexibility in customizing their products both for their brand and for their
audience. But cloud computing is having other effects as well, which have the
potential to greatly change how education works, both in online courses and in
traditional classrooms.
HERE ARE FIVE SURPRISING WAYS CLOUD COMPUTING IS CHANGING
EDUCATION:
1. No more expensive textbooks. It’s no secret that university-level textbooks
are expensive. The cost of textbooks has outpaced the cost of virtually
everything else in education, including tuition. As a result, many students are
simply refusing to buy them. Cloud-based textbooks can solve this problem as
digital content is significantly less expensive than printed content. This levels the
playing field so that lower-income students can have the same access to quality
learning materials as their higher-income counterparts. Currently, higher
education institutions across the United States are piloting an e-textbook
program involving 50 publishers and close to 30,000 textbooks.
2. No more outdated learning materials. In the K-12 arena, the problem of
expensive textbooks means that many of the materials students are using are
outdated. The average social studies book in elementary and junior high schools
is seven to eleven years old, which means that the world maps in these books
are no longer correct. With cutbacks in school budgets, many districts, especially
in less affluent areas, simply can’t afford to replace these outdated resources.
Cloud-based materials are easy to update in real time so that students always
have access to the most current learning resources.
3. No expensive hardware required. Cloud-based applications can be run on
Internet browsers, but most are compatible with mobile devices as well. This
means that schools and students do not necessarily need to own expensive
computers—a $50 smartphone can access these applications just as well as a
$500 laptop. Students also don’t need to purchase external storage devices as
there are plenty of companies, like Google, that offer free cloud-based storage.
4. No expensive software required. One of the biggest advantages of cloud-
based computing is the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Many software
programs are now available either free or on a low-cost subscription basis, which
substantially lowers the cost of essential applications for students. For example,
instead of purchasing a single Microsoft Office student license for $140, students
and their families can purchase a cloud-based subscription for five computers
and five mobile devices for only $10 per month. Even better, they can use Google
Docs for free. Institutions can also save big by using SaaS applications—
traditional learning management systems can cost upwards of $50,000 or more,
but cloud-based learning management systems like ProProfs’ Training Maker are
available starting at $60 a month with no per-user fee.
5. Reaching more, and more diverse, students. Cloud computing opens up a
world of new possibilities for students, especially those who are not served well
by traditional education systems. For example, until education moved online,
the options for adult students who didn’t finish high school were very limited—
now these students can earn their diploma or GED online. There are many other
types of students for whom a traditional school environment simply doesn’t
work, and these students now have many options for pursuing alternative forms
of education.
In these and other ways, cloud computing is not only reducing costs, but also
creating an environment where all students can have access to high-quality
education and resources. Whether you are an administrator, a teacher, a
student, or the parent of a student, now is a great time to explore how cloud-
based applications can benefit you, your children, and your school.

here are the ten ways they are using cloud computing to revolutionize
manufacturing:
• Capturing and applying company-wide intelligence and knowledge
through the use of analytics, business intelligence (BI), and rules
engines. For the many manufacturers who rely on build-to-order,
configure-to-order and engineer-to-order strategies as a core part of their
business models, using cloud-based platforms to capture knowledge and
manage rules is accelerating. A key part of this area is mobility support for
analytics, BI and rules engine reporting and analysis.
• Piloting and then moving quickly to full launch of supplier portals and
collaboration platforms, complete with quality management dashboards
and workflows. Among the manufacturers visited, those in high tech are
the most advanced in this area, often implementing Vendor Managed
Inventory (VMI) and demand management applications that deliver real-
time order status and forecasts.
• Designing in services is now becoming commonplace, making cloud
integration expertise critical for manufacturers. From simplistic services
integration on iPhones to the full implementation of voice-activated
controls including emergency assistance in the latest luxury cars, adding
in services integrated to the cloud is redefining the competitive landscape
of industries today. Revising a product or launching an new product
generation with embedded services can mitigate price wars, which is why
many manufacturers are pursing this strategy today.
• Accelerating new product development and introduction (NPDI)
strategies to attain time-to-market objectives. Using cloud-based
platforms in high tech manufacturing is growing today as time-to-market
constraints are requiring greater collaboration earlier in design cycles.
• Managing indirect and direct channel sales from a single cloud platform
tracking sales results against quota at the individual, group and divisional
level is now commonplace across all manufacturers visited. Dashboards
report back the status by each rep and for sales managers, the profitability
of each deal.
• Using cloud-based marketing automation applications to plan, execute
and most important, track results of every campaign. Marketing is under
a microscope in many manufacturers today, as marketing automation
applications have promised to deliver exceptional results and many
manufacturers are still struggling to align their internal content, strategies
and ability to execute with the potential these systems promise.
• Automating customer service, support and common order status
inquiries online, integrating these systems to distributed order
management, pricing, and content management
platforms. Manufacturing industries are at varying levels of adoption
 when it comes to automating self-service. The cost and time advantages
in high tech are the highest levels of adoption I’ve seen in visiting
manufacturers however.
• Increasing reliance on two-tier ERP strategies to gain greater efficiencies
in material planning, supplier management and reduce logistics
costs. Manufacturers are also using this strategy to gain greater
independence from a single ERP vendor dominating their entire
operations. Several manufacturers remarked that their large, monolithic
ERP systems could not, without intensive programming and
customization, scale down to the smaller operational needs in distributed
geographic regions. Cloud-based ERP systems are getting the attention
of manufacturers pursuing two-tier ERP
strategies. Acumatica, Cincom, Microsoft MSFT -0.76%, NetSuite and Plex
Systems are leaders in this area of ERP systems.
• Reliance on cloud-based Human Resource Management (HRM) systems
to unify all manufacturing locations globally. This often includes
combining multisite talent management, recruiting, payroll and time
tracking. Contract manufacturer Flextronics uses Workday to optimize
workforce allocations across their global manufacturing centers for
example.
Bottom Line: Using cloud-based systems to streamline key areas of their
business, manufacturers are freeing up more time to invest in new products and
selling more.
In today's world, every business is trying to save money by embracing
technological innovations, and the government is no different. Government
agencies need to keep costs low while updating and protecting data. That's why
cloud computing is a great investment. Here are some more benefits that
government agencies can reap by moving to the cloud.
Flexibility
Cloud computing offers government agencies more flexibility than traditional IT
infrastructures. With a cloud service provider, there are no more worries about
limited resources, buying and housing servers and hardware, updating software,
or data protection. Using the cloud makes it easy to add and change services
without the hassle of adding or removing digital space. This flexibility also comes
in handy during risk management procedures, which require more power and
space but only for a limited time.
Cost Savings
One major benefit of cloud computing is the money it saves. By utilizing the
cloud when more space or computing is needed, the cost of additional servers
and hardware is eliminated, cutting the overhead of any project significantly.
Additionally, once systems are moved to the cloud, there's no need to house
hefty, heat-producing servers, reducing the amount of money and energy spent
keeping those machines running and cool.
IT Staff Availability
Going to the cloud frees the IT department to work on other projects because
the cloud service provider takes care of regular maintenance and updates, as
well as security checks and procedures.
Collaboration
The cloud simplifies collaboration between government agencies. Names and
credentials can be assigned to data or documents, and only those individuals can
gain access. More than just sharing documents, the cloud also allows
government employees and contractors to access documents from anywhere in
the world, as long as there's internet access to reach the cloud.
Under the FedRAMP initiative, more government agencies are moving to the
cloud. This initiative ensures that government data is protected and secure,
while saving time, money, and resources via cloud technology. It's time for
government agencies to make the move and show the rest of the world that the
cloud offers a safe and secure way to compute.
In the Caribbean, where resources are often more limited compared to the US,
it's even more important to consider regional cloud providers, in order to get the
benefits of the cloud, while keeping all critical data in the same jurisdiction
where the data jurisdiction is located.
Cloud infrastructure addresses two critical elements of a green IT approach:
energy efficiency and resource efficiency. Whether done in a private or public
cloud configuration, as-a-service computing will be greener for (at least) the
following three reasons.
1. Resource virtualization, enabling energy and resource efficiencies.
Virtualization is a foundational technology for deploying cloud-based
infrastructure that allows a single physical server to run multiple operating
system images concurrently. As an enabler of consolidation, server virtualization
reduces the total physical server footprint, which has inherent green benefits.
From a resource-efficiency perspective, less equipment is needed to run
workloads, which proactively reduces data center space and the eventual e-
waste footprint. From an energy-efficiency perspective, with less physical
equipment plugged in, a data center will consume less electricity.
It's worth noting that server virtualization is the most widely adopted green IT
project implemented or planned, at 90 percent of IT organizations globally into
2011.
2. Automation software, maximizing consolidation and utilization to drive
efficiencies.
The presence of virtualization alone doesn't maximize energy and resource
efficiencies. To rapidly provision, move, and scale workloads, cloud-based
infrastructure relies on automation software.
Combined with the right skills and operational and architectural standards,
automation allows IT professionals to make the most of their cloud-based
infrastructure investment by pushing the limits of traditional consolidation and
utilization ratios.
The higher these ratios are, the less physical infrastructure is needed, which in
turn maximizes the energy and resource efficiencies from server virtualization.
3. Pay-per-use and self-service, encouraging more efficient behavior and life-
cycle management.
The pay-as-you-go nature of cloud-based infrastructure encourages users to only
consume what they need and nothing more. Combined with self-service, life-
cycle management will improve, since users can consume infrastructure
resources only when they need it -- and "turn off" these resources with set
expiration times.
In concert, the pay-per-use and self-service capabilities of cloud-based
infrastructure drive energy and resource efficiencies simultaneously, since users
only consume the computing resources they need when they need it.
4. Multitenancy, delivering efficiencies of scale to benefit many organizations
or business units.
Multitenancy allows many different organizations (public cloud) or many
different business units within the same organization (private cloud) to benefit
from a common cloud-based infrastructure.
By combining demand patterns across many organizations and business units,
the peaks and troughs of compute requirements flatten out. Combined with
automation, the ratio between peak and average loads becomes smaller, which
in turn reduces the need for extra infrastructure. The result: massive efficiencies
and economies of scale in energy use and infrastructure resources.
So migrating workloads to cloud resources, or developing new workloads in a
cloud-native environment, can help an IT organization contribute to energy-
efficiency and sustainability goals.
uyers that want to maximize the green contribution of cloud computing services
should press their suppliers on these dimensions:
• Renewable energy sources. If cloud providers are truly going to position their
services as green, they must invest in renewable energy sources. The reality is
that even the most energy-efficient data center can have a significant carbon
footprint because they are typically getting 70 percent of their electricity from
greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuels, like coal. Ideally, centralized cloud data
centers would be powered by renewable sources of energy, like wind, solar, or
hydroelectricity.
To date, however, cloud providers have prioritized other factors in designing
and locating their data centers, including the cost of land, cost of power,
property taxes, data privacy regulations, and access to power, bandwidth, local
skills, and customers.
• Design-for-environment policies. In 2010, 59 percent of IT buyers included
green criteria in their evaluation and selection of IT equipment, up from only 25
percent in 2007. However, energy efficiency trumps all other design-for-
environment characteristics, such as recyclability, reduction of toxic chemicals,
reduction in packaging, and longevity.
Moreover, the weight of environmental criteria is used as a tiebreaker, not a deal
breaker, and is always subordinate to price, features, and reputation. With that
in mind, it's safe to assume that the same mentality is being applied in context
to cloud-based infrastructure.
• Environmentally sound end-of-life. By pushing the limits of consolidation and
utilization, cloud-based infrastructure minimizes the e-waste footprint upfront
by requiring less physical equipment. But what happens when this equipment
reaches its end-of-life?
While all organizations dispose of their end-of-life IT equipment in some shape
or form, e-waste policies have long been an afterthought and are the least
mature IT asset life-cycle management process. Just because cloud minimizes e-
waste upfront, don't assume those managing cloud-based infrastructure have
policies to ensure e-waste is redeployed, resold, donated, or recycled.
Cloud computing can be an important facet of an enterprise IT organization's
push to be greener. And "the green cloud" (which certainly needs a better
marketing label!) can also contribute to meeting critical operational goals:
• Reduce costs. Consolidation means fewer servers, which in turn means
lower cooling and space requirements, which means lower energy costs.
• Comply with regulation. By tapping more efficient and therefore lower-
emitting resources, cloud computing customers can reduce their carbon
emissions and be better-positioned to meet regulatory standards.
• Improve resiliency. Consolidation and improved utilization create more
space, more power, and more cooling capacity within the same facility
envelope. And tapping into public cloud providers offloads management
of those resources from the customer to the service provider.
DEPLOYMENT MODELS
Private Cloud allows systems and services to be accessible within an
organization. The Private Cloud is operated only within a single organization.
However, it may be managed internally by the organization itself or by third-
party. The private cloud model is shown in the diagram below.

Benefits
There are many benefits of deploying cloud as private cloud model. The
following diagram shows some of those benefits:
High Security and Privacy
Private cloud operations are not available to general public and resources are
shared from distinct pool of resources. Therefore, it ensures
high security and privacy.
More Control
The private cloud has more control on its resources and hardware than public
cloud because it is accessed only within an organization.
Cost and Energy Efficiency
The private cloud resources are not as cost effective as resources in public
clouds but they offer more efficiency than public cloud resources.
Disadvantages
Here are the disadvantages of using private cloud model:
Restricted Area of Operation
The private cloud is only accessible locally and is very difficult to deploy globally.
High Priced
Purchasing new hardware in order to fulfill the demand is a costly transaction.
Limited Scalability
The private cloud can be scaled only within capacity of internal hosted resources.
Additional Skills
In order to maintain cloud deployment, organization requires skilled expertise.
Public Cloud allows systems and services to be easily accessible to general
public. The IT giants such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft offer cloud services
via Internet. The Public Cloud Model is shown in the diagram below.

Benefits
There are many benefits of deploying cloud as public cloud model. The following
diagram shows some of those benefits:
Cost Effective
Since public cloud shares same resources with large number of customers it
turns out inexpensive.
Reliability
The public cloud employs large number of resources from different locations. If
any of the resources fails, public cloud can employ another one.
Flexibility
The public cloud can smoothly integrate with private cloud, which gives
customers a flexible approach.
Location Independence
Public cloud services are delivered through Internet, ensuring location
independence.
Utility Style Costing
Public cloud is also based on pay-per-use model and resources are accessible
whenever customer needs them.
High Scalability
Cloud resources are made available on demand from a pool of resources, i.e.,
they can be scaled up or down according the requirement.
Disadvantages
Here are some disadvantages of public cloud model:
Low Security
In public cloud model, data is hosted off-site and resources are shared publicly,
therefore does not ensure higher level of security.
Less Customizable
It is comparatively less customizable than private cloud
Hybrid Cloud is a mixture of public and private cloud. Non-critical activities are
performed using public cloud while the critical activities are performed using
private cloud. The Hybrid Cloud Model is shown in the diagram below.

Benefits
There are many benefits of deploying cloud as hybrid cloud model. The following
diagram shows some of those benefits:
Scalability
It offers features of both, the public cloud scalability and the private cloud
scalability.
Flexibility
It offers secure resources and scalable public resources.
Cost Efficiency
Public clouds are more cost effective than private ones. Therefore, hybrid clouds
can be cost saving.
Security
The private cloud in hybrid cloud ensures higher degree of security.
Disadvantages
Networking Issues
Networking becomes complex due to presence of private and public cloud.
Security Compliance
It is necessary to ensure that cloud services are compliant with security policies
of the organization.
Infrastructure Dependency
The hybrid cloud model is dependent on internal IT infrastructure, therefore it
is necessary to ensure redundancy across data centers.
Community Cloud allows system and services to be accessible by group of
organizations. It shares the infrastructure between several organizations from a
specific community. It may be managed internally by organizations or by the
third-party. The Community Cloud Model is shown in the diagram below.

Benefits
There are many benefits of deploying cloud as community cloud model.
Cost Effective
Community cloud offers same advantages as that of private cloud at low cost.
Sharing Among Organizations
Community cloud provides an infrastructure to share cloud resources and
capabilities among several organizations.
Security
The community cloud is comparatively more secure than the public cloud but
less secured than the private cloud.
Issues
• Since all data is located at one place, one must be careful in storing data in
community cloud because it might be accessible to others.
• It is also challenging to allocate responsibilities of governance, security
and cost among organizations.