Security Management in the Cloud - Essay Example

Cloud computing enables organizations to achieve convenience, on-demand network access to be obtained over shared computer resources that can be configured to fit each user's needs. The resources can be servers, storage spaces, applications, services, and networks and they can be released with minimal service provider interaction or management. NIST cloud security management aims at promoting government and industry to cloud standards.The base services for the cloud area computation, networking, and storage.

The NIST standards for the cloud are VM image distribution, VM provisioning and control, Inter-cloud VM exchange, persistent storage, VM SLAs, and secure VM configuration. NIST PaaS standards define programming languages that it will support and the APIs for the cloud. SaaS standards could specify authentication and authorization, data formats. NIST standards integrated very well with the already defined standard (Mell, 2009). The ISO and ITIL standards like identity and access management, strong authentication, data encryption, e-discovery, and records management.

These standards are adopted by ITIL and ISO 15489, ISO 27001, 27002, 27017, and 27018. These standards will enable an organization to create applications and cloud services that will easily integrate with other cloud services and resources. The integration will be easy and seamless because with other services since they use the same NIST, ITIL, and ISO cloud standards. These eventually reduce the cost of cloud deployment for both the vendors and organizations that use the services and resources.