Week 12 - The Cloud, Freeconomics

Question 1

Why is the cloud the future for most organizations?

Answer 1

-> elastic leasing of pooled computer resources over the internet

Question 2

elastic (3)

Answer 2

• leasing computer resources
• increased or decreased dynamically, programmatically, in a short span of time
• organizations only pay for resources used

Question 3

pooled

Answer 3

● Cloud resources are pooled
● Many different organizations share the same physical hardware through virtualization (allocate
virtual machines to physical hardware as customers need to increase or decrease)
● Benefit from economies of scale
- Average cost of production decreases as size operation increases
- Major cloud vendors operate enormous web farms (a collection of computer servers that
works together as a single unit to provide massive computer power)

Question 4

positive and negative of in-house hosting

Question 5

positive and negative of cloud-based hosting

Question 6

when does the cloud not make sense

Answer 6

when by law or standard industry practice, a company is required to have physical control over its data

Question 7

what is a computer network (basic concepts)

Answer 7

• computer network
• personal area network (PAN)
• local area network (LAN)

Question 8

Freeconomics + how does it work?

Answer 8

● The leveraging of digital technologies
● To provide free goods and services to customers as a business strategy
● For gaining competitive advantage

How does freeconomics work?
● Marginal cost is getting lower → especially for businesses leveraging digital tech
● It influences price setting

Question 9

Approaches of applying freeconomics

Question 10

The freeconomic value proposition

Answer 10

● Someone, somewhere is paying for the service
● Value proposition includes more than just buyers and sellers