1. What business benefits do cloud computing services provide? What problems do they solve?
2. What are the disadvantages of cloud computing?
3. How do the concepts of capacity planning, scalability, and TCO apply to this case? Apply these concepts both to Amazon and to subscribers of its services.
4. What kinds of businesses are most likely to benefit from using cloud computing? Why?

Cloud computing has just begun to take off in the business world. The biggest player in the cloud computing marketplace is one you might not expect: Amazon. Under its Web Services division (AWS), Amazon has streamlined cloud computing and made it an affordable and sensible option for companies ranging from tiny Internet-start- ups to established companies like FedEx. AWS provides subscribing companies with flexible computing power and data storage, as well as data management, messaging, payment, and other services that can be used together or individually as the business requires. Anyone with an Internet connection and a little bit of money can harness the same computing systems that Amazon itself uses to run its now $ 48 billion a year retail business. To make the process of harnessing the cloud simpler, Amazon added an automated service called CloudFormation that helps customers get the right amount of computing resources. Customers provide the amount of server space, bandwidth, storage, and any other services they require, and AWS can automatically allocate those resources.