5 challenges of running systems in the cloud
author: Abby Tan, 14 February, 2026
The challenges in cloud computing
Modern businesses have started running systems in the cloud for its flexibility, scalability, and speed. If you are considering cloud adoption for your business, it is one of the best decisions for its advantages. Just like traditional systems, there are challenges in cloud computing as well.
As long as you learn and understand its cons and pros, you can make smarter decisions and avoid costly mistakes. Running systems in the cloud helps you build a more resilient environment. But the challenges of cloud computing are not your simple technical concern. They can also affect your organisation’s security and budget.
Once you recognise these problems early on, you can turn them into opportunities and get the best performance out of them. Here are the five challenges of running systems in the cloud, how to prevent them from happening, and fix them.
5 Challenges of Cloud Computing
1. security & compliance risks
The most discussed challenges on cloud computing are security. While cloud systems are complex, it is harder to infiltrate them. In the moment that it does happen, fixing the problem will be challenging as well. These happen not due to advanced attacks but because of setup errors.
You can expose sensitive data by misconfiguring storage or by granting users excessive access. If you disable monitoring tools, you may not be able to catch these breaches early on. While operating systems in the cloud, your provider protects the physical data centers and core infrastructure. You, on the other hand, are responsible for securing data, identities, configurations, and any applications you need for your business.
This means challenges in cloud computing tend to increase over time as your environment and business scale. The more services there are in your business, also means more possibilities of human error. If you are working with industries that require HIPAA and other industry-specific regulations, you need to constantly monitor and plan your cloud system properly.
2. cost management and cloud sprawl
A not-so-obvious challenge in cloud computing is cost control. Although cloud promises pay-as-you-go pricing, your spending can quickly spiral due to unused elements running in the background. Your test environments and virtual machines get overlooked. When these elements add up, the hidden costs appear.
Other elements to consider to manage your costs are your data transfers, API calls, and backups. To fix this, you need to practice cloud financial management practices early. This way, you can track usage in real time and tie it directly to your business value.
When you manage to conduct financial management practices early, you can make these challenges in cloud computing manageable and measurable. The root cause is the lack of monitoring rather than the cloud itself.
3. performance and technical limitations
Another major challenge in cloud computing is performance. While organizations have shifted to cloud systems for their adaptability, it still has some issues you need to be aware of. One example when performance becomes a problem is when you move your systems off-premises. This means you have new variables, like your network latency, internet reliability, and other shared infrastructure, which could become bottlenecks.
Another possible challenge in cloud computing is the geographic distance between users and data centers. The distance will play a part in lags and performance issues. If your business requires real-time responses, these delays can affect your organisation’s experience.
To curb these challenges in cloud computing, you need to make thoughtful decisions in your architecture. You need to look into the right regions and use content delivery networks. If you deal with legacy systems, it adds to the challenges of cloud computing.
Older applications are not designed to run in cloud-native environments. If you do want to integrate them, you need your IT team to refactor and modernize its features. The whole process can be overwhelming, but with the right planning, any performance-related challenges in cloud computing can help you make a scalable system.
4. strategic and personnel challenges
People and strategy are challenges in cloud computing. You may have to deal with vendor lock-in, and when you are deeply in a provider’s services, switching to another platform can be time-consuming. Another problem dealing with vendors having a locked-in service is the expense of moving it to another service.
There are skilled professionals with experience and knowledge handling cloud security, automation, and architecture, but the challenge is it is not that many. So if you are creating a team, recruitment is one of the challenges in cloud computing, especially for growing organisations.
A strategic issue with cloud systems is the loss of control. If you are relying on a third-party infrastructure, they have access to the hardware. Many organisations see the benefits outweigh the concerns, but to avoid such issues from happening, you need to clear contracts and use transparency tools. These can help you stay informed.
5. misconfigurations and operational oversight
Misconfigurations are responsible for most cloud security breaches, and this makes it the most critical challenge on cloud computing. These errors often occur when you conduct deployments quickly and miss updates. When security settings and practices are overlooked, incidents can happen. These are the most common causes of cloud security issues.
● Providing more access permissions than necessary.
● Accidentally showing your storage, network ports, and administrative consoles in public.
● Disabling your logs, unencrypted data, and insecure backups.
● Having gaps in the modern infrastructure or PI misconfigurations.
These challenges in cloud computing may scare you, but they are not failures of cloud systems. These are reflections on how fast cloud environments move. When you monitor, automate, and use policy-based controls, you can reduce these challenges in cloud computing.
Operating Systems and the Cloud Environment
When discussing challenges in cloud computing in system stability and security, operating systems get overlooked. You need optimised operating systems to support virtualisation, containers, and automation.
When you understand how operating systems in cloud computing work, you can help design environments. The knowledge that you get from learning how both work will help produce environments that perform better while remaining secure.
To prevent instability between operating systems and the cloud environment, you need to keep your OS regularly updated. You also need to configure it properly. These can prevent several challenges in cloud computing related to performance and misconfiguration.
Turning Challenges into Advantages
The challenges of cloud computing are not roadblock nor reasons for you not to try cloud systems. These issues are simply a reality check that your cloud environment may need a better structure, visibility, and management. Most issues come from the lack of updates and monitoring, and when these are strengthened with the right strategies, your security risks, cost control, and performance limits will improve over time.
You need to approach cloud adoption with awareness and planning so you can experience the flexibility of cloud systems. When you understand and prevent the challenges of cloud computing, you allow your organisations to grow with confidence. You can also help adapt to the changes and realize the benefits of cloud technology.
Author Bio:
Abby Tan is a content writer with a knack for turning ideas into engaging, SEO-friendly stories. With years of experience in blogging and Pinterest strategy, she writes about travel, skincare, food, and the latest in tech with equal passion and creativity. Abby is currently part of the writing team at Softvire, a leading IT distributor, where she helps bring digital content to life.