Current and Future Trends of Cloud Computing - Essay Example

Full Paper Contents 3 2 Introduction 3 3 Current Trends 4 4 Cloud Computing Layers 5 5 Cloud Computing Storage 6 6 Open Source Cloud 7 7 Workstations, Printers, Internet Connection and Network Justification 9 8 Conclusion 12 9 References 13 1 Abstract This paper discusses current and future trends of cloud computing along with security requirements, costs and management issues. Moreover, cloud computing layers are also discussed in detail. 2 Introduction Cloud computing is considered to be a value driven technology, as it saves cost along with advanced Virtualization of business functions that is globally accessible. Organizations consider it a cost effective tool, as the requirement of maintaining a complex technology infrastructure along with resources is not essential. Likewise, risk factors are also being considered, as the risk, mentioned in the underpinning contract is now owned by a third party i.e. cloud computing vendors. Martin Sandler, who is a director of HP systems security Lab says, “People often think of virtualization as adding to security problems, but it is fundamentally the answer to a lot of those problems,” (Anthes, 2010).In a nutshell, cloud computing delivers major advantages along with negative consequences as well. For instance, information of an organization needs to be protected and is the ultimate responsibility of the board of director for which they are also liable. Cloud computing will derive many valuable benefits for ‘Business Cloud’, as they are discussed as (Wilshusen, 2011): The first factor is justifiable, as there is no requirement of managing or maintaining software, hardware and infrastructure associated with network area storage (NAS) because cloud is taking care of the application as a whole. Secondly, the most important factor is the cost. For instance, an information security manager needs to sell security to the business by using an efficient business case. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is the core component of the business case that may justify the cost required for implementing security on the cloud. Therefore, low TCO enables information security managers to justify minimal expenses and more cost savings for getting approval on security projects. Likewise, availability of cloud services is also high resulting in value delivery i.e. low cost of ownership and high availability. Moreover, cloud services also eliminate the requirements of a high profile hot site that may involve a lot of cost. In case of unplanned service outage, cloud computing ensures reliable delivery of core business applications that eliminates the needs for off-site storage. 3 Current Trends Since 1990’s, millions are invested and contributed in the information technology sector and the cloud computing domain. In the 1980’s, a popular slogan named as ‘Network is a computer’ publically emerged (OReilly & Associates, 1997). Moreover, SaaS enabled services were already offered on salesforce.com since 1999. In the current era, cloud computing represents advanced and dynamic approach for offering online service with cloud based operating systems. One of the Microsoft products named as ‘Azure’ empowers an online operating system integrated with development functions and tools. Moreover, one of the tools named as ‘Google Docs’ enables online word processing facilities with incorporated spreadsheets and presentation tools. Additionally, another online product named as ‘Google Apps’ enables developers to create new programs and applications on the infrastructure provided by Google. Furthermore, Sun Microsystems enables online computing facilities for $1 per hour for one central processing unit. EC2 and S3 also provides online web services, as Yahoo has also decided to incorporate ‘Apache Hadoop Framework’ for enabling online users to utilize one million bytes of data on more than thousand nodes. Consequently, cloud computing has enabled services on the web for small medium enterprises and corporate organizations with high return on investment (ROI) (Sitaram & Manjunath, 2011). 4 Cloud Computing Layers Cloud computing is associated with five layers, which lays the foundation of an architecture. These layers contribute functionality with each other to support the features of cloud computing services. The hardware layer has no fault tolerance concluding that if the hardware fails, there is no alternate except to replace it with the new one. The redundancy and fault tolerance is managed by the applications. However, the risk can be minimized by providing alternative power supplies to the hardware etc. The Virtualization layer comprises of virtual machines. However, these software applications use a single hardware platform but are presented in many instances. The mainstream server is virtualized by this method, and vendors can provide Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) to the customers. VMware, Citrix, Microsoft is the popular ones. The IaaS acts as a layer of the cloud computing technology by illustrating a mechanism to administer the services of Virtualization. Moreover, the API allows the users to construct templates, which can be deleted anytime. The administration of API facilitates the vendors to save cost. Furthermore, IaaS facilitates storage services that are administered by an API. For instance, Amazon has implemented IaaS storage services for its customers. The next layer is the PaaS layer that facilitates the IaaS layer by eliminating the management of specific virtual machine instances. PaaS also contributes in the deployment of an application in cloud computing. A programming interface is made available for the developer to develop API. One of the examples of PaaS is the Google application engine in which Google has demonstrated an API utilized for storage and database along with a platform. PaaS provides the platform for the developers to code a program and initialize it in the cloud. SaaS has its significance on organizations, which do not want to possess or maintain any application in their premises. Email services, customer relationship management (CRM) services are accessible online via the cloud. The storage and security is the responsibility of the vendor. However, user credentials are required to log in the application on the Internet or a VPN connection. In this way, organizations save the application maintenance cost, cost of physical security measures, security measures etc. 5 Cloud Computing Storage The storage of cloud computing requires a lot of space, in fact, humongous data centers where data is collected and managed. These data centers pose several threats and security risk that may impact these data storage machines. The threat may be from a professional hacker and also in the form of the cloud provider itself, if data is not adequately managed. A minor security incident or misconfiguration can lead to a system failure or unavailability. For instance, in 2008, only a tiny corrupted bit integrated with a message that is utilized by the servers of Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) that provide services of online data storage imposed a system shutdown for many hours (Tipton & Nozaki, 2011). Moreover, another security breach occurred in 2009, password of an employee working on Twitter was compromised, resulting in breaching the email security questions page that was located in the Google apps account (Dannen & White, 2011). In relation to that, one more incident occurred when data was erased from one million T-mobile smart phones due to a server failure that was managing the data of these smart phones (SchÃnbohm, 2012). As Peter Mell, who is a team lead of cloud security team at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) says, public cloud computing models are more vulnerable to threats, as every customer has access to a broad range of services and levels. Therefore, if any one of the services is breached, they gain access to all the data. 5.1 Cloud Computing Security By its vast advantages, cloud computing is now considered the most cost effective option, as employees can connect to critical and non-critical business applications only from a generic Internet connection. However, online threats are also probable for the connection between the organizations and cloud computing providers. One of the threats compromised ‘Google Apps’, as it was hacked by Chinese hackers (Lenssen, 2008). The security and privacy in cloud computing are associated with data storage and data protection. Moreover, monitoring the utilization of resources available on the cloud by the service providers is also included. In order to secure the data in the cloud, it can be stored internally in the organization’s premises. Moreover, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the US and Data Protection directives along with the EU are only two compliances from many other compliance concerns related to data and application of cloud computing. Moreover, the EU has backed up with a legislative data protection for the entire member across the globe. However, the US data protection differs from the EU, as it varies in each state. Moreover, the service provides incorporates the highest level of security in the clouds of their inbound technical intelligence, but these measures is affected due to government regulations country by country. For instance, if a cloud computing service providers is located within a country, the service provider is bound to slipshod provisions on privacy that may lead the involvement of the government enforcement agencies to peek in the hosted data of a particular organization. 6 Open Source Cloud Cloud computing continues to benefit business by lowering down the cost associated with hardware, software and human resource. However, some of the debatable issues including personal privacy, lack of security control and sharing data are still seeking a solution. Likewise, providing superior benefits for ease of development, minimized costs, high scalability along with next generation architecture are facilitating Information technology to evaluate cost benefit analysis while doing risk assessment. At the same time, open source has played a vital role in cloud computing and facilitated to enable low cost input that can also be considered as free of cost and rich features for cloud service providers. Moreover, buzz in the industry concludes that the cloud computing service will utilize the open source to gain power and control to establish next generation proprietary platform-as-a service that is similar to Web 2.0. Moreover, if Linux operating systems are used for cloud computing, there will be no licensing cost as compare to a Microsoft operating system environment. IBM clearly states in the economics of scale that one of the primary drivers for expanding the cloud is open source. Moreover, software or application is considered as a component in a computing environment, though an expensive one. However, open source software is not always successful, as they only become partially in some organizations. 6.1 Open Source Licensing Most of the open source applications are associated with the cloud and it is governed by various obligations included in the relevant open source license. Likewise complying with the software license is similar to any other compliance process, as an efficient compliance processes address issues and mitigate risks. Similarly, cloud computing services do not introduce any new risks but applications associated with these services introduce risks. However, applications that are operational in the cloud are distributed as compare to other software applications that are not shared. Likewise, there is less visibility and no evaluation or examination of the industry, therefore, cannot be categorized or fall under many obligations incorporating copy left licenses. 7 Workstations, Printers, Internet Connection and Network Justification For accessing cloud computing online services via a web browser requires an updated or couple of years old workstation that supports all features of current Web browsers. However, for a fast and rich experience of cloud computing applications, a fast Internet connection is required along with an updated operating system with all critical updates installed. Likewise, upgrading old systems to Windows 7 will cost around $70, however, hardware compatibility issues must be addressed, as Windows 7 or Vista does not support all VGA drivers or chipset available in the old system. As ‘business cloud’ websites are text based and no significant multimedia capture or editing is required, a nominal Internet connection is required. Moreover, for addressing storage requirements, all the documents, critical files and other stuff can be stored online that will significantly save the cost of maintaining and installing large storage devices. As shown in figure 1.1, only a generic overview of the network design is demonstrated. The network is built on a CAT 5 cable with a star topology. Likewise, 2 switches are adequate to connect the 11 staff members of ‘Business Cloud’. Moreover, printers are also connected to the network and can be shared among all the users connected. Furthermore, to avail cloud servicer, a WAN connection is required. In general, cloud computing service providers recommend bandwidth of the Internet connection required to establish fluent and robust connectivity between applications that are accessed from the cloud. We can assume that a broadband connection is used for establishing connectivity with the cloud service provider. Moreover, the router is connected with the two available switches. For security purpose, a firewall is installed after the DSL router or MODEM that will establish connectivity with the WAN. Furthermore, three servers are proposed that includes Customer Relationship Management Server, Email server and Application server. We have calculated Cost of 11 workstations is calculated below: One HP Pavilion p6-2035 Desktop PC costs $392.65. Hardware specification for this desktop are PC (Intel Core i3-2120 3.3GHz Processor, RAM 4GB DDR3, HDD 500GB, Intel HD Graphics, Windows 7 Professional 64). If we calculate the cost of one workstation $392.65 x 11 = $ 4319.15 (Total Cost of 11 Workstations) Cost of High quality A3 Printer Canon PIXMA iX 6550 x 1 = $201.07 Cost of High speed A4 Printer Brother HL3070CW x 1 = $204.30 For calculating price for a broadband connection following are the details that are included in a plan from ‘Talk Talk’ (Gattiker, 2004): $3.25 per month for up to 14Mb TalkTalk Broadband and calls 12 months half-price broadband (save $39) Unlimited evening & weekend calls to local & national UK landline numbers 40GB monthly usage allowance included (heavy user) Customize your broadband plan with Boosts - only $4 a month each Mega Download Boost increases usage allowance to 80GB Super Secure Boost adds F-Secure security protection for 3 PCs Special offer - now only $2 a month with 30-day free trial Landline Boosts also available $7.25 per month for up to 14Mb TalkTalk Plus Broadband and calls 6 months half-price broadband (save $43.50) Free anytime calls to UK landline numbers (including 0870/0845) Free wider-range wireless N router Unlimited monthly usage allowance included Switch to TalkTalk phone line rental from $9.50 per month (required) No need to pay BT line rental or change phone number Only $9.50 a month when paying 12 months in advance (usually $13.80) Free connection for online orders - save $30 Free wireless router - save $30 30 day trial - option to cancel the service within 30 days Free technical support calls from your TalkTalk phone Single bill for broadband and phone 8 Conclusion The First section comprehensively discusses the introduction and current trends of cloud computing. It is evident that cloud computing provides vast variety of benefits and better Return on Investment (ROI) along with high availability. Moreover, total cost of ownership, management and configuration of computing devices is not required and most importantly, critical business applications can be accessed anywhere. Cloud computing has now been a slogan for cost effective online solutions, however, risks are also associated and must be addressed in transit of confidential information across the computer networks. 9 References Anthes, G. (2010). Security in the cloud Communications of the ACM, 53(11), 16. doi: 10.1145/1839676.1839683 Gattiker, U. E. (2004). The information security dictionary: Defining the terms that define security for E-business, internet, information, and wireless technology Kluwer Academic Pub. Dannen, C., & White, C. (2011). Beginning iOS apps with facebook and twitter APIs: For iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Apress. Lenssen, P. (2008). Google apps hacks OReilly Media. OReilly & Associates. (1997). The internet and society OReilly & Assoc. SchÃnbohm, A. (2012). Germanys security - cyber crime and cyber war Verlagshaus Monsenstein Und Vannerdat Ohg. Sitaram, D., & Manjunath, G. (2011). Moving to the cloud: Developing apps in the new world of cloud computing Elsevier Science. Tipton, H. F., & Nozaki, M. K. (2011). Information security management handbook, sixth edition Taylor & Francis Group. Wilshusen, G. C. (2011). INFORMATION SECURITY: Additional guidance needed to address cloud computing concerns. GAO Reports, , 1. Read More