The Concept of Cloud Computing - Research Proposal Example

Cloud Computer risks Background Information Information technology, just like any other arena of science and technology, has realized a lot of transformation. While it has been conventionally known that most things in the world are dynamic, the dynamism exhibited by information technology is an unprecedented one. It had all began with invention of computer and then followed by developments in computer science and technology. Then came the era wherein computers were intensively incorporated in channels of communications. At first, the computer software was absolutely rendered as products. But all this have currently changed so that the soft wares are rendered as services rather than as products. Such technology has already been adopted by big companies such as Microsoft, Google and New York Times; just but to name a few. This kind of change roughly depicts what has widely come to be known as ‘cloud computing’. Cloud computing is currently still at the initial stages of development. Yet there remains a great potential of cloud computing being widely adopted in field of information technology in the coming years. Many questions could be asked of cloud computing: What does cloud computing mean? How did cloud computing originate and why is it called cloud computing? What does cloud computing bring? What is more about cloud computing? An even more crucial question is whether or not cloud computing should be widely adopted. This term paper attempts to answer these questions. It also goes an extra mile to explore the history, the global concern and the compliance of cloud computing, among other key areas of concerns of cloud computing. This would offer a basis for elaborations for the underlying issues. To begin with, Cloud computing refers to the phenomenon whereby computing is provided as a service instead of as a product (Luit Infotech 3). In this regard, computer software, computer shared resources as well as shared information is provided through a network, such as the internet, as a utility. Farther more, Cloud computing services do not necessarily demand that the end user understands the physical location and the system service configurations in order to get services. This can be compared to the application of the electric grid, where the consumers use electric power yet it does not require of them to know and understand the device components that underlie the effective delivery of the electric power services. Significance of the study Cloud computing currently acts as a supplement for Information Technology, its consumption as well as delivery models. It observes the protocol of the internet to effectively achieve these. Cloud computing encompasses provisioning of resources that are not only considered virtual but also other resources that are dynamically scalable. The cloud computing may seem to have originated as a byproduct of information technology, yet it plays a special role of offering an easy access of computing sites whose data centers are localized. In Cloud Computing, the computing tools that are based on the web are accessed and used through web browsing just as if the programs are installed on the computers (Winams and Brown 9). The providers of Cloud Computing therefore deliver various computing applications through the internet. The business data as well as software are stored at remote locations on the server . There are cases where the lines of business applications are delivered through the technology that involves screen sharing whereas resources of computing are stored at a data center that is remotely located. There are other cases where business applications have been awarded the codes basing on web technologies like AJAX. In cloud computing, most infrastructures are composed of services that are channeled via data centers. These may be a single access point where the consumer meets his needs. Meeting of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is considered necessary requirement for the offerings, especially those that are commercial. The only limitation herein is that the companies which are smaller may not negotiate some specified terms. Research Objectives This study has three key objectives that play the central focus of this paper. The first objective entails providing qualitative answers to the influence of development of cloud computing on the modern technology, and secondly, the study seeks to illustrate the potential of utilizing the cloud computing alongside highlighting the risk factors for cloud computing. Three the research seeks to find attributes that the future technologies including cloud computing ought to embody in order to make them better suited for use in various societal obligation. Purpose of the research The overarching purpose for this research would be find out the risk factors for cloud computing . The topic to be examined would be the risk factor associated with cloud computing. Research Questions There are three essential questions considered in this study. These questions can support the research in its objective of achieving the possible answer to the thesis. What does cloud computing entail? What are the effects of cloud computing? What are the risk factors for cloud computing? Literature review The subject of cloud computing literature contains results of many research projects that were contacted over a period of time. It is evident that the total number of such publications is quite overwhelming, although this does not mean that all the pertinent publication were reviewed, though none of those that were applicable and useful to this work were excluded intentionally. Difficulties that were encountered in review of literature are an attempt to develop the relationship between the two parameters. Initially there has been an attempt to quantify the existing relationship between the fabrication parameters and the cost factor by a wide range of researchers. Some studies like those for Tschmuck (2006) and Howe (1995), focused on characteristics of cloud computing noting that there are various characteristics that are essential to cloud computing. According to these studies, the Cloud computing offers services which are automated (self services). In this case, the studies showed that cloud computing do not require the end user to interact directly with service provider. Tschmuck (2006), in an independent study found that Cloud computing providers who offer such type of self services include Microsoft, Google, New York Times, among others. Tschmuck found out that these companies apply AWS (NIST), characteristics which are then termed to as service based. Secondly, Cloud Computing offers a Network access that is broad. This may involve accesses using the mechanism that are standard; those that facilitate the use by various client platforms, irrespective of whether they are thin or thick platforms (examples of thin and thick platforms include mobile phones and laptops respectively). Thirdly, Cloud computing enables the pooling of resources; the multiple tenant model can be applied to effectively ensure that basing on human demand, various resources that are physical as well as those that are considered virtual may be assigned or even reassigned to serve a multitude of consumers. Arguably, this leads to the set up of the economy of scale. Cloud computing also offers a channel of controlling and measuring of service as well as offering transparency between the consumer and the cloud computing provider. This could be achieved through reporting. Cloud computing has the capability of taking measurement. This enables it to optimize and control the use of computing resource. Farther more, it enables effective billing which ensures that the more one uses the resources the less he pays, and the less he uses the less he pays. In addition, Cloud computing offers multi tenacity, an advocacy by Cloud Security Alliance (CSA). This refers to the need for policy driven enforcements, segmentation, isolation, governance, service levels and billing models for different consumer constituencies. In this case, the consumers have a freedom of choice to utilize a service offering from public computing cloud server as a distinct entity or as an organization which shares the infrastructure. Lastly, cloud computing is characterized by rapid elasticity. The computing provisioning offered to the end user is unlimited and can be purchased at any time and in whichever quantity. According to Bechtolesheim (2011) historically, the term ‘Cloud’ was initially applied metaphorically to refer to Internet. This comprised of application of cloud drawings that had been used to earlier on represent telephone networks. These diagrams were then later applied to illustrate the internet by the use of network diagrams. Cloud computing is therefore an evolution product that come as a result of adoption of integration of service oriented architecture, autonomic, virtualization and utility computing. The concept in which cloud computing is underpinned can be traced back to 1960s. This were the initial time when cloud computing ideas were triggered by the statement of John McCarthy; that computations would, on the course of developments, eventually be organized as a utility to the public. Later, in 1966, Douglas ParkHill had written a book entitled ‘The Challenge of Computer Utility’, wherein various computer utility challenges were addressed. He also proposed some desirable computing characteristics that when adopted would solve the challenges. Most of these characteristics have come to be part of cloud computing. This includes elastic provision and computing provision as a utility, among others. The McCarthy and Parkhill events are considered to have fueled awareness and cultivated the need for concerned groups to strive towards what then came to be referred to as cloud computing. The term ‘Cloud’ was borrowed from telephony who offered Virtual Private Services (VPS) in 1990s. The Virtual Private Services comprised of qualities that are very much comparable to the current cloud computing. It was through the application of this kind of network service and maintenance of traffic balance that telephony utilized effectively the bandwidth. The symbol of cloud was used to depict demarcation boundary of user and provider responsibility. Amazon, after the dot-com bubble, lead the way in the establishment of cloud computing. This comprised of modernization of the data centers. Just like other computer networks, they applied a capacity of as low as 10 percent at one time. The low capacity targeted to provide an allowance for spikes. On discovering how the new cloud architecture significantly improved internal efficiency so that a small and quick moving ‘pizza teams’ easily managed fast addition of new features, Amazon went on farther front to initiate efforts of development of new products that would offer computing to its external customers. On the basis of utility computing, they also founded Amazon Web Service (AWS) in 2006. Two years later, Eucalyptus was founded as an open AWS API- compatible platform for channeling private clouds. It was in the same year that Open Nebula, having been funded by RESERVOIR European Commission, became the first open-source software for channeling of Private as well as Hybrid clouds. Some months later, through the project funding of IRMOS European Commissions, much emphasis was laid on the provision of guarantees of QoS (a real-time interactive applications requirement to infrastructures that were cloud based). This resulted to what is termed as real-time cloud environment. Still in 2008, Speculations on information technology were rife that cloud computing was soon going to alter the relationship between the involved parties; the information technology service consumers, those who sell the services and those in charge of provisioning the service. Other more observations that were noted were that most of the organizations had been changing from involvement with hardware and software owned by companies to the ‘per use’ service involvement. Arguably, this would eventually result in a change to cloud computing and as well result to growth disparities of IT products in different areas. And in 2010, OpenStack announced having attracted contributions of over a thousand codes as well as over a hundred partner companies. It was considered the best and the first growing open source cloud computing project in history. Despite its positive attributes, the cloud computing models have been met with criticism. Most of the criticisms come from those who are concerned about privacy of information (Sullivan 15). They hold opinion that the companies who are the providers of the cloud computing easily monitor and control the users communication and the data stored with them. Even more worse is that there is no complete guarantee that such information and data would be kept private. The cloud providers have the option to meddle with privacy, whether lawfully or unlawfully. A case example of Secret NSA program and Verizon recording a number of over ten million American- American phone calls yet offering uncertain privacy has been a common citing. Farther more, the power that is given to the telecommunication companies in the monitoring of the activities of the user is questionable. Even so, some efforts that have targeted to offer legal framework to cloud computing have been made. An example of these is derived from the roles US-EU Safe Harbor. More so, Cloud Computing providers such as Amazon still command large markets in United States and Europe through local infrastructure deployment and allowance to customers to select availability zones. The community of users may adopt hybrid or community deployment modes if they wish to have compliance and regulation such HIPAA, SOX and FISMA (United States) and Data Protection Directive (In Europe) and the PCI DSS credit card industry. Such deployment modes are often relatively expensive and provide the benefits that may appear as restricted. This practice has seen Google enjoy a vantage position of management and of meeting more policy requirements set by the government even beyond FISMA, QubecSpace and Rackspace Cloud. Most cloud providers often go farther to obtain SAS 70 Type II certification. But this type of certification has been largely criticized since the set goals and standards by both the auditors and the audited subjects are usually not disclosed and therefore can vary beyond some unprecedented limits. Sometimes, the Computing providers may choose to give such kind of information upon requests, yet this has to observe the agreement of non-disclosure. For those customers who deal in contracts with cloud providers who are not part of the EU are required to observe the regulations set by EU when exporting their personal data. The numbers of filings of trade mark involving goods, services and brands in cloud computing have risen drastically since 2007. For instance, an increase by almost 500 percent such kind of filings was recorded between period 2008 and 2009 (Luit Infotech,2010). This can be explained by the fact that most companies strived to put themselves in advantageous position in marketing and cloud computing branding. There were about 116 cases of filing of cloud computing trademarks recorded at the end of 2009. This number expectedly and steadily rose beyond 500 by the end of 2010. In early 2007, Dell Company had applied for a ‘cloud computing’ trademark in the United States. They were allowed, but this was not until 2008 that the notice of allowance for use of the trademark was cancelled, leading to formal rejection of the application of the trademark a few days later. More over, the public sector usage of cloud computing may be determined by some other legal cases. For Instance, Google filed to sue the United States’ Department of Interior which had allowed open bidding for software which needed that bidders apply online the business productivity of Microsoft. Google was concerned that such a deal unnecessarily restricted the competition. Arguably, the onset of open standards as well as open sources will play a vital role in influencing the public choice on cloud computing vendor selection. This may result to shutting down of cloud computing services. The cloud computing provider could shut down its services due to legal or financial attributes as evidenced in many incidences. Transition to cloud computing involves a shift from solutions that are technically managed to those that are contractually managed. In order to effectively maintain the relationship in the marketing field, the skills of IT contraction as well as skills of vendor management are considered essential. It is necessary that all the responsibilities as well as rights that are an association of the end user and cloud computing providers relationship are codified and managed in a proper way, unless the contract reaches termination. The cloud-computing providers usually apply terms and conditions. It is therefore upon the users to make well-informed choices. Usually, risks and issues that are to be addressed in the contracts vary. However, this depends on the user needs. The major risks and issues may be unique to cloud computing or be essential to its effective adoption, normally involving service level agreements, data processing and access, provider infrastructure and security, and contract and vendor management. It is very important that the parties involved evaluate and address these in contracts. An internet connection that follows a protocol is important in establishing an effective network among several computers. In this regard, information can be well shared from one layer to another. A good example of such layers include cloud application, cloud platform, cloud client, cloud infrastructure and cloud server, among others. A cloud client is composed of both computer hardware and software, which uses computing as a means of delivery the applications. PaaS is tasked with offering a platform of computing a service. In order to function well, it consumes cloud infrastructure while it sustain applications. PaaS enables the deployment of the applications in such a way that the costs of buying and managing concerning software and hardware are done away with. IaaS, on the other hand is tasked with the service of delivering the infrastructure of computer. Instead of buying servers, data center spaces, software and other software equipment, the users could buy the resources as services. The cloud-computing providers may then bill the services depending on how much they have been utilized by the users. The server’s layer is composed of both computer hardware and software as products that are specially organized to deliver the cloud services effectively. This includes Multi-core processors, specific cloud operating systems and a combination. Additionally, the public cloud gives a description of cloud computing in the sense of traditional mainstream. In this regard, most resources are provisioned dynamically to the public through the web browsing. Resources are delivered in a self- service fashion. A Community cloud shares infrastructure between several organizations within a community. Such organizations are bonded by common concerns such as security, jurisdiction and compliance. This is regardless of whether they are managed internally or by a third-party. The costs are spread over fewer users than in a public cloud so that only some of the benefits of cloud computing are realized. Hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more clouds that despite being bound together, maintain their unique entities. They offer the benefits of multiple deployment models. Private cloud consists of infrastructure which is specifically operated in the interest of a single organization. They have been criticized because they require users buying, building as well as management. Cloud architecture is the systems’ architecture of the software systems involved in the delivery of cloud computing. It normally involves various cloud components that communicate with each other through loose mechanism of coupling. Cloud engineering comprises application of various disciplines of engineering to cloud computing. It offers cloud computing a systematic approach to the high level concerns of commercialization, standardization as well as governance in deliverance, development, operation and maintenance of cloud computing systems. Basing on NIST, cloud computing can be categorized three models of service. These are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). What matters so much and of particular interest is nature of service. Therefore, before the end user contracts with the cloud computing provider, he will have to negotiate on level of services that meets his demands. SaaS is cloud computing software characterized by the delivery of single application. The single application can then be accessed by a population of customers via browser through an architecture that is multitenant. SaaS relieves the server providers and user customers. While the server providers may be relieved that low costs are incurred in maintenance of products on one hand, the user customers are relieved by the fact that there would be no investments in licensing of software or other forms of investments in the server, on the other hand. The Service Level Agreements (SLAs) outline the terms and conditions that are to be applied in provisioning of cloud computing services. They are also very necessary in ensuring that a good relationship between the consumer and the provider is maintained. This is especially because the relationship is governed contractually. The service level agreements should be enforceable as well as offer alternative solutions for cases where the agreements are not met. Examples of areas where the service level agreements may greatly find practicality include the availability or unavailability of service, service performance, response time, the correction time of error and latency. More so, it is also important that service level agreement terms, which are pertinent, be defined. This would provide a quick and easy way of measuring the service level agreement parameters. A practical example of this is whereby a cloud computing Provider Company may choose to define the time under which the service may be available or unavailable, more possibly so as to give an allowance for scheduled maintenance period. This requires the calculation of down time. This is achieved through spreading it over a period that may be specified; it could be a week or a month. Yet down time calculation could be restricted to the least numbers of minutes that run consecutively. Alternatively, it could be restricted to the percentage rate of error. Yet it is possibly for the statements that underlie to culminate in less well defined run time. The contracts should include the statements that specify remedies for the cases where the service level agreements are not met. This could include terms of penalties or corrections. While corrections offer statements of what should taken as steps to ensure that such problem does not occur again in the future and that service level agreements are met, the penalties come as financial credits. How and when such credits are provided shall again depend on the codification. Such penalties often target to give the suppliers the motivation of offering a required level of service rather than just giving credits. The service suppliers can be motivated in other ways. This could include the introduction of penalties that are reputational as well as giving rewards for exceptional levels of service. The vendors in cloud computing are often not equal. While some may be new and even be on verge of reaching full establishment, others may be old, experienced and fully established in the market. It is important that before the user chooses a cloud computing vendor to contract with, he should find out how established a vendor is in terms of infrastructure and record of service delivery. Perhaps a good step of carrying out this kind of information collection is by the use of the Cloud Security Alliance Consensus Assessment Initiative (CSACAI) questionnaire. Such a questionnaire keeps into the consideration the key areas that can effectively guide one through the evaluation to arrive at well informed decision. The key areas may include capacity data replications and resource planning, data storage, data distribution and recovery, data management policies and procedures; virtual server provisioning and management, asset inventory and management policies, and procedures and software development quality assurance. Having identified the provisions as per the questionnaires, one could consider next stating his specific needs and codifying them in the contraction process. What is simply required for one to enjoy cloud computing services is to first, negotiate effectively the language of service level agreements then secondly, adopt the cloud computing services of choice. What would follow thereafter is the process of continual monitoring of the performance of the provider basing on the service level agreements up to the time when the contract comes to an end. When using cloud computing, it is easy for one to even forget that the service delivery depends on a data center. The Cloud computing allows information technology to increase capacity of service delivery. This does not necessarily require investing in new resources, training new personnel or licensing new software. However, one major problem concerning cloud computing is that there is no guarantee that the cloud computing provider could handle the data and information as securely as the end user customer may demand (Sullivan 29). Indeed, this is a problem that is common to all providers of cloud computing. When using cloud computing services, one entrusts the information with the cloud computing service, regardless of whether the information is personal, regulated or sensitive to other persons. In this regard, the information that is stored this way loses the owners control. In order to mitigate this, the end user customer must read, scrutinize and understand the terms and conditions that are provided by the server. It also calls for the user to find out the mechanisms the server has put in place and how dedicated the provider is at ensuring for the security of whichever information that belongs to the user before deciding on the choice. Conclusion In conclusion, cloud computing refers to provisioning of computing resources as a service rather than as a product. Currently, cloud computing is yet to become fully fledged. Indeed there is a great potential for the world’s adoption of cloud computing. Although the ideas of cloud computing were born as early as 1960s, cloud computing has been realized and adopted very recently. There are various advantages that cloud computing brings; those that the cloud computing and the end users could benefit from. For instance, cloud computing relieves the cloud computing provider of the costs incurred in maintaining of software since just a single application is enough to serve a large population of users (Sulivan 44). The end users would also be relieved by cloud computing as they would be spared from incurring costs on software licenses and other forms of server investment. In general, Cloud computing allows information technology to increase capacity of service delivery without necessarily requiring to invest in new resources, training new personnel or licensing new software. Even so, cloud computing has some disadvantages too. It is for this reason that it has been criticized by activists who advocate for privacy. The activist are concerned that cloud computing does not give assurance of privacy of user data and information privacy. This has sparked a debate of whether indeed cloud computing should be adopted. In my opinion, there is no reason as to why it should not be adopted. The end user has a freedom of understanding, scrutinizing and evaluating a cloud computing provider so as to ascertain whether or not to contract with. Even so, The Service Level Agreements exist and outline the terms and conditions that are to be applied in provisioning of cloud computing services. They are also very necessary in ensuring that a good relationship between the end user and the cloud computing provider is maintained. References Bechtolesheim, A, (2011). Cloud Computing, n.d. Web. 5 October. 2011. Luit InfoTech, (2010) . What is Cloud Computing?, n.d. Web. 4 October. 2010. Winams, B and Brown, S. (2009). Cloud computing: A collection of working papers, 2009. Web. 4 October. Sulivan, D. (2009). The definitive guide to cloud computing. San Francisco: Realtime Nexus Publishers. Howe, T. (1995). The History of cloud computing. New York: Rolling press Tschmuck, P. (2006). Creativity and Innovation in cloud computing. Austria: University of Music and performing Arts Read More