  Cloud-based infrastructure has been increasingly adopted by the industry in
distributed software development (DSD) environments. Its proponents claim that
its several benefits include reduced cost, increased speed and greater
productivity in software development. Empirical evaluations, however, are in
the nascent stage of examining both the benefits and the risks of cloud-based
infrastructure. The objective of this paper is to identify potential benefits
and risks of using cloud in a DSD project conducted by teams based in Helsinki
and Madrid. A cross-case qualitative analysis is performed based on focus
groups conducted at the Helsinki and Madrid sites. Participants' observations
are used to supplement the analysis. The results of the analysis indicated that
the main benefits of using cloud are rapid development, continuous integration,
cost savings, code sharing, and faster ramp-up. The key risks determined by the
project are dependencies, unavailability of access to the cloud, code
commitment and integration, technical debt, and additional support costs. The
results revealed that if such environments are not planned and set up
carefully, the benefits of using cloud in DSD projects might be overshadowed by
the risks associated with it.
