Implementation of Cloud Computing

The Bank of Nova Scotia is one of the biggest banks in Canada in terms of the market capitalization and deposits. Currently, the institution serves over 19 million clients in 55 countries worldwide. Also referred to as the Scotiabank, the institution offers such services and products as the investment, corporate, personal and commercial banking. With an asset base of over $575 billion, the institution is expected to offer the quality services to clients, and, as such, it is expected to quickly adapt to the changing market environment. With the increasing investment to the banking industry, the management has found it necessary to utilize such new technological innovations as cloud computing (Sawyer, DC 2011).

In general, cloud computing refers to the technologies involved in delivering various hosted services via the internet. The cloud services are divided into 3 categories: the Software-as-a-Service, SaaS, Platform-as-a-Service, PaaS, and the Infrastructure-as-a-service, IaaS. There are three major characteristics that distinguish cloud computing from traditional forms of hosting: cloud services are sold on demand; cloud computing is elastic; and management of these services is fully done by the provider (“Essvale Corporation Limited”, 2008).

This paper addresses the advantages that the Bank of Nova Scotia gets by opting to utilize cloud facilities over the traditional forms of hosting. It commences with an introduction elaborating what is meant by cloud computing. The introduction is followed by the review of literature where the various aspects of cloud computing are tackled including the security, reliability, and cost effectiveness. Consequently, the paper addresses the issue of quality of services as well as how the cloud computing works to meet the expectations of the bank. Lastly, the paper lays down a case study before closing with the conclusion and recommendations (Kim, T 2011; John, R 2011).