Availability of Services in the Era of Cloud Computing

One of the most important areas for consumers is security, performance and availability when it comes to cloud computing. Availability refers to the uptime of a system, a network of systems, hardware and software that collectively provide a service during its usage. Traditionally the availability of these has been limited to local installations of hardware and software resources which businesses and consumers deployed and maintained. With the advent of cloud services there is a considerable shift of these resources into the cloud. While cloud computing presents some cost effective benefits for the consumers and businesses, it is also extremely important for the cloud service providers to offer environments that are highly scalable and high in availability. This will in many ways dictate the credibility of these cloud services. Regardless of the size of an organization prolonged downtime of the service might be disastrous to its business, customer loyalty and brand value. This paper discusses the state of availability of services in the cloud.