Amazons Elastic Compute Cloud Service - Case Study Example

AMAZON’S ELASTIC COMPUTE CLOUD SERVICE By and Introduction Over the recent years, many organizations have increased the use of cloud services for their computing experiences. Cloud services involve an advancement of using the computers and the internet to enhance business activities while ensuring high standards of privacy and security for the user’s data. High security and privacy are necessary to earn customers trust for the online products offered, especially with increased incidences of cyber crimes and related consequences (Sen, N.D. p1). The cloud service operators such as the Amazon have moved to exploit the opportunities of increased online computing demands while strengthening and securing its cloud activities. This includes the developments of the elastic computer cloud (EC2) as a solution to the virtual private cloud. Despite the company claiming that EC2 overcomes problems of private virtual cloud, it is interesting for scholars to evaluate the potential concerns of the service. This paper will explore and critically evaluate the Amazon’s electric computer cloud that would give valuable information for computing firms. To achieve this, the paper will describe the EC2 service and issues related to innovations and design such as software vulnerabilities, privacy risks and security threats. Overview of Amazon EC2 Service The elastic computer cloud is a service based on the infrastructure of the cloud provider that enables people to rent hourly instances (virtual servers) to carry out computing activities. Users of the cloud normally install AMI which is a machine image of the Amazon in advance in order to access the service (Balduzzi, et al n.d. n.p). The user can simply choose from the catalogue of AMIs provided that has web servers, applications as well as databases. Amazon creates some of the AMIs while others are offered by public companies that may charge costs payable using the Amazons payment service. The public machines could be shared among several individual users. Users run the machine by selecting resource configurations, login in the form of specified credentials, a security group and data centre regions where the machine runs. The data centre regions are usually set in some countries in the various continents. Amazon charges the customers through three models that customers can choose depending on their needs. One is a fixed model whereby cloud users pay for very instance hour and a second one offers for subscription within an initial payment and lower hourly costs for data compared to a fixed model (Balduzzi, et al n.d. n.p). The third scheme involves the use of spot instances that would start or terminate data instance based on a maximum price the user could pay. The users of this model set highest price they could pay and data instances stand when charges are below the threshold and stop when charges exceed the limit. This makes it appropriate for tasks that could face interruptions. Upon starting the AMIs, the Amazon API receives respective DNS addresses and makes the machines available for use through remote desktop assigned port 3389 for windows or via SSH for Linux using port 22 (Balduzzi, et al n.d. n.p). Following this, the customers are able to use the service and as accorded complete responsibilities to control instances. The users are liable for any content that is availed in the data instances and hence have to ensure its security. The users do the administration activities to ensure communication protocols are secure. This usually involves applying right passwords, configurations of the firewalls and securing vulnerable software. By achieving these activities, the users exercise control over own computing resources within environments established by the Amazon and are able to avoid failures from outsiders. Reason for Choosing Amazon EC2 Services The Amazon EC2 was selected among other virtual computing cloud providers in the global industry for several reasons. To start with, the Amazon Company offering this service is in a leading position in the global industry. It has a high reputation for its products and services and would display advanced practices in the development and functioning of the virtual clouds in the world (Pearson, S. & Benameur, 2010 p619). Being a large multi-national company, it has influence on the state of virtual computing technology in the world, taking advantages of the strong market, available resources and highly skilled experts to developed edge cutting innovations (Takabi, Joshi & Ahn, 2010 p28). The company has offered strong competition to other firms such as Google, Yahoo and Azure among others in developing innovations for the virtual computing activities. The EC2 service was selected since would provide rich information related to the online privacy and security concerns and how are assured within the company’s infrastructure. Many computer users are worried about the risks they are exposed to through the information and activities carried out via computer technology platform. There is increased use of unauthorized information about computer users behind their backs which violates their privacy rights (Robinson, et al. 2011 p23). In addition, cybercrime activities have become common as ill-willed people attack into computer systems to cause losses to the users. Many people and businesses have incurred tremendous financial losses as well as leakages of their information in public domains. The computer users are interested in the actions of the virtual computer cloud providers to combat these incidences. This study would reveal rich security and privacy information, particularly for the Amazon Company for the benefit of cloud users. The EC2 service was also chosen due to the implications it would have on users in events of hitches resulting from failure of operations as claimed by the provider. There are many people and businesses worldwide using the Amazon virtual cloud and would experience great losses if there could be underlying malpractices or threats to the systems (Hashemi, 2013p.4). The Amazon has assured the users that the EC2 is secure and upholds their privacy needs since they have complete control over the communications taking place during the data instances run by the users. The users may lack capabilities to determine the company’s assurance since they are not experts in the field. However, this study would provide insights for the users about the safety and security of the EC2 service. Innovation & Design Issues The virtual cloud innovations and designs are associated with the various issues that could affect the users as well as the providers. Users would be affected if their systems are used without authority or their information leaks to third parties (Balduzzi, et al n.d. n.p). On the other hand, the cloud providers would be affected through attacks to their systems and software installed to offer cloud services to the customers. Issues associated with innovation and designs of virtual cloud include software vulnerabilities, security threats and privacy risks. a. Software Vulnerabilities Software vulnerability involves the exposure of machine readable instructions or data to undesired actions of people with unauthorized access such as cybercriminals (Jansen & Grance, 2011 p27). The operations of computers depended on a set of instructions that directs on what the computer executes for the user. The software could be in the form of applications or systems data that is well organized to give computer users desired outcomes. Vulnerable software is exposed to actions that would tamper with how it is written (programmed) and therefore hinder it from performing tasks as expected (Hu, et al. 2011 p39). Every task performed by the computers such as the cloud services is designed carefully to avoid any vulnerability. There are standards followed in designing new software, though could change with advancement in technology. Normally, old fashioned software is associated with high vulnerabilities than new ones and this is overcome through upgrading to keep them free from potential vulnerabilities. b. Privacy Risks These are risks associated with sharing or access to confidential information or computer data that users access the servers with. It also involves the confidential information access of private information stored within the computer system (Kalluri, et al. 2014 6095). Privacy risks could be experienced in private keys, browser history, shell cloud history and retrieval of deleted data or files. Private keys are made for use by an authorized person and any other person who accesses these keys constitutes a risk to computer users. The browser history shows information searched by the user and its storage poses risks for other people could access (Balduzzi, et al n.d. n.p). A similar case applies to the cloud history when the computer user fails to clear delete it and is stored in the computer system. Sometimes the deleted files or data may be stored in computers until they are replaced with other information. These deleted files pose risks of retrieval of unwanted people physically or through computers. c. Security Risks Security risks include attacks that would be carried on computer systems and causing malfunctions. There are various types such as malware, unauthorized connections, back-doors and access of leftover credentials. Malware risks include viruses, spyware, Trojans, and worms that target the operating systems of computers (Balduzzi, et al n.d. n.p). By infecting the operating systems, the malware cause malfunctions of the services such as the virtual clouds. The malware seeks to gather information about the computer user for various other actions such as cybercrime (Chou, 2013 p79). The unauthorized connections involve invoking data instances of the outgoing connections through an external address other than the set ones. These unsolicited connections may be due to the use of malware and seek to gather more information stored in a computer. This information is could be used to facilitate attacks on instances from a separate connection. These issues are common, especially where information is shared with other people. The back-doors and credentials left on computers constitute security risks if third parties access them. Credentials include passwords and other authentication details used to connect to servers. Evaluation of Innovation and Design Issues of Amazon EC2 Service The EC2 service was developed to eliminate the issues associated with design and innovations for the virtual computing clouds. From the descriptions of this service great emphasis has been given to personalized experiences with minimal interaction with third parties inclusive of the Amazon team (Balduzzi, et al n.d. n.p). The users are provided with utmost control of the data instances, applying the security parameters known to then only. This is appealing and reduces possibility of others tracking his computing activities. The EC2 does not allow direct participation and users need to develop customized cloud configurations before they are allowed data instances. This is an effective way of combating privacy and security issues as well as vulnerabilities from the possible root cause. This increases the suitability of the service by guaranteeing keeping all other parties out of the exercise. Despite this, the service provider has to connect the user using remote computers and some internal workers could use it to attack customer systems (Balduzzi, et al n.d. n.p). There is minimal use of public AMIs and hence EC2 has little sharing of the data instances with other customers. In addition, there are controlled data loading and termination that eliminate potential interruptions. These combined efforts have security benefits against risks. Nevertheless, sharing of public instances creates a room for potential risks by third parties (Balduzzi, et al n.d. n.p). Other computer users may capitalize on this limitation to access confidential data of cloud users leading to breach of privacy. Conclusion This paper has explored the EC2 service by Amazon and evaluated it applying the issues associated with innovation and design of virtual cloud services. The EC2 is a service based on the infrastructure of the cloud provider that enables people to rent hourly instances to carry out computing activities. It involves the establishment of machine images and personalized security configurations. The service gives users exclusive control of communications contained in the data instances. The design and innovations are associated with issues of software vulnerability; security risks such as malware, unauthorized connections, and credential leftovers; and privacy risks involving private keys, browser history, shell cloud history and retrieval of deleted data or files. Evaluating the Amazon’s EC2 shows the service would provide users with secure and private computing experiences with very minimal concerns related to the little public sharing of data instances and possible unsolicited connections. References List Balduzzi, M. et al (N.D). A Security Analysis of Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud Service – Long Version. www.iseclab.org/people/embyte/papers/securecloud.pdf Chou, T.-S. (2013). Security Threats On Cloud Computing Vulnerabilities. International Journal of Computer Science & Information Technology, Vol 5, No 3, pp: 79-88. http:// airccse.org/journal/jcsit/5313ijcsit06.pdf Hashemi, S. (2013). Cloud Computing Technology: Security and Trust Challenges. International Journal of Security, Privacy and Trust Management ( IJSPTM) Vol 2, No 5, pp: 1-7. http://airccse.org/journal/ijsptm/papers/2513ijsptm01.pdf. Hu, F. et al. (2011). A Review on Cloud Computing: Design Challenges in Architecture and Security. Journal of Computing and Information Technology – CIT 19, 2011, no. 1, pp: 25–55. http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/100837. Jansen, W. & Grance, T. (2011). Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing. U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-144/SP800-144.pdf Kalluri, R. K., et al. (2014). Addressing the Security, Privacy and Trust Challenges of Cloud Computing. International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technologies, Vol. 5 no. 5, pp: 6094-6097. www.ijcsit.com/docs/Volume%205/vol5issue05/ijcsit2014050520.pdf Pearson, S. & Benameur, A. (2010). Privacy, Security and Trust Issues Arising from Cloud Computing. IEEE Computer Society. pp: 693- 702. http://barbie.uta.edu/~hdfeng/CloudComputing/cc/cc05.pdf Robinson, N. et al. (2011). The Cloud Understanding the Security, Privacy and Trust Challenges. RAND Corporation.. http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR933 Sen, J. (N.D.). Security and Privacy Issues in Cloud Computing. Kolkata, India: Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1303.4814. Takabi, H., Joshi, J. B. D. & Ahn, G.-J. (2010). Security and Privacy Challenges in Cloud Computing Environments. The IEEE Computer And Reliability Societies. pp 24-31. csis.pace.edu/~marchese/SE765/Paper/security2.pd Read More