Supporting SMEs during the Risk Assessment Stage of Platform as a Service Cloud Selection: A Case Study of SMEs in the West Midlands, UK

Abstract

The Cloud Computing CC paradigm has become popular among Small to Medium size Enterprises SMEs due to the promise of cost effective access to the latest applications via a Cloud Service Provider CSP There are many factors and pitfalls of Cloud Computing adoption as well as benefits to SMEs which have been highlighted through a research project that involved SMEs from the West Midlands UK This paper outlines the challenges SMEs face when considering Platform as a Service PaaS adoption and highlights that lack of understanding of the technology has either meant SMEs have not adopted Cloud Computing or have experienced difficulties with the adoption as important considerations where not evaluated Through a comprehensive investigation a theoretical framework Cloud Step followed by an interactive tool PaaS Cloud Dial have been developed to aid SMEs in understanding what factors need to be considered prior adoption of PaaS Both have been validated through work with SMEs and the findings obtained from the validation procedure indicated that both the framework and application are valuable and suitable in supporting SMEs risk assessment and decision making process regrading Cloud adoption