Here's how you can optimize Operations Research with new technology using cloud computing.

Make use of server less cloud computing services. The more you understand the basics in cloud, the more you can use it effectively. The best way to apply cloud computing methods is to start from scratch and have better understanding on all the services.

In terms of TLDR'ing the role of cloud resources: Some Pros: * Shorter turnaround time for infrastructure changes. * Lower up front investment in time and money. * Training to use the platform is often widely available. Some Cons: * Placing 100% of trust in the entity providing cloud services. * If the service changes in ways that affect you, then you and everything relying on that platform will need to change as well, according to the service provider's timetable. * While the upfront cost in time and money is low, the TCO of making heavy use of cloud services can rapidly ramp up with usage.

TLDR; * Your data in the cloud can be secured, but you need to fully understand all of the policies and pieces involved. * Some platforms don't allow encryption after-the-fact. For those, you will need to essentially create a new datastore that is encrypted at the start and then migrat the data over. Or the conversion happens offline. * Moving data from place to place is expensive. Especially if you have multiple places where data resides.

You get what you pay for. You can only make use of what you understand. If you don't have someone who knows how to operate and make use of the advanced tools, you are essentially no better off having them than not having them. You need to make sure your applications can tie into the cloud service's features and make use of the faster and more powerful hardware. There will usually need to be some testing and rebuilding of established system images. There will need to be some additional training. Similarly, these don't come free from the provider. It is another source of variable overhead.

If you don't use a particular cloud service and that cloud service goes down... you have the luxury of feeling relief at your day being ruined. If your provider goes down, you go down. If the provider has a data breech and your data was part of what was slurped up, you have a data breech. Security really is only as secure as the weakest link in the chain. Encryption _can_ help. But even encrypted data needs to be decrypted to be worked on, even if the implementation is secure from a "written in the clear" perspective. There is also the possibility of a cloud provider using their own platform to host their critical infracture. If the platform is hacked or goes down, it can take the management UI/UX with it.

The Pros of Cloud: * Short time to implementation and deployment * Low upfront costs * Costs scale with usage. However, this can also prove to be a source of problems down the road: * Easy deployment means the potential for unaccounted costs for servers being spun up and forgotten. * While low, the costs of using the service scales with your need. If you grow fast, so will the overhead. There isn't much in the way of reuse because many cloud providers take a "ala carte" approach. After all, they are selling you spare capacity... which means you don't have spare capacity to bank. I've seen a _monthly_ invoice for cloud service related expenses tallying up to some $1M-$2M. That's per month. And for a rather large usage footprint. YMMA

Cloud is a double edged sword. Ease of deployment means easy consumption of resources. New services that are self-service will need new policies regarding how said services are to be used. This means an investment in time for both understanding the cloud platform as well as how to convert that understanding into actionable policies. Common issues: * Oversized instances for lightweight services. * Orphaned instances spun up over time and forgotten. * Logging and metrics gathering and processing can be a hidden source of additional cost from logs that aren't pruned. * There are security options every level of the platform.. but that means you and your team needs to understand those security options and how to use them to remain secure.