Characteristics Of Cloud Computing

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Abstract

Cloud computing is a platform that consists a large data center and contains number of servers to manage data for the public. This term addresses a wide range of needs, ranging from scientific research to e-commerce. Parallel and distributed computation has been an area of technological research and advancement for last few decades. Cloud computing is a recent induction to parallel and distributed processing therefore it includes many issues of privacy, data security, reliability and regulations. This paper focused on providing a basic understanding of cloud computing based on the literately research previously done on the subject and also introduced the need to implement the global level regulation to provide standard policies on the data security in the cloud computing.

Keywords: cloud computing, data security, policy issues, security, privacy, reliability

Introduction

Cloud computing is based on TCP/IP protocol providing end users with a relatively new way of computation technique. It is integration of different computer technologies to form a high speed and reliable system for computing. In the rapidly changing technological world, computing has been changed significantly (Wang, 2011) Now it has been more services oriented like other basic utility services such as gas, water and electricity etc. In cloud computing businesses and users can access different applications and services from anywhere using any electronic device around the world. Now software has became a service to be used by large number of people which broaden software scope of services. In a report by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cloud computing as an on-demand access to share resources such as servers, networks and application etc which can be rendered with minimal effort (Mell Peter, 2011)

Definition of cloud computing

As the definition suggests that cloud computing is about a convenient way of accessing interconnected computing resources to increase the computational speed. Cloud is not just about accessing the share resources but accessing it on-demand is an important aspect. It is difficult to find a standard definition of cloud computing. Different researcher and cloud computing experts have described it in different ways. ACM refers cloud computing as application based service provided over the internet together with hardware and software in the data centers (Michael Armbrust, 2010)

In another study it has found that cloud computing is a parallel and distributed system that connect physical and virtualized machine to form a unified resources to provide users with different services (Buyyaa Rajkumar, 2009)

Literature Review

Characteristics of cloud computing

Automatic Software Integration

Integration of cloud occurs automatically now you don’t need to manually set down the all the application which suits your company profile. You can just pick the service and application which are required in your company (Wrinkler, 2011)

Easy Access to Information

Once you register your account with your cloud service provider you can access your information from anywhere this feature allows you to access data outside geographical and time zone factor (Buyya R, 2008)

Quick Deployment

Cloud computing gives a huge advantage to fast setup and easy deployment of applications. In few minutes you can easily setup whole system on the cloud for the organizations. But it’s again depending on your business requirement that how many applications and modules are using and deploying at a time (Dexter duncan, 2011)

Limitations of cloud computing

Apart from benefits of the cloud, it has also some major critical limitations as well (Tan, 2011), which are as follows

Technical Issues

It is true that now a day's internet based applications need high speed so, that's why cloud based applications need high speed internet connection and therefore any organization can get affected if internet service goes down. Even the best cloud service provider can faced this type of problem but you might have stuck due to connectivity problem (Tsai, 2010)

Security in the Cloud

Security is one of the major challenge in cloud computing because all information is exist on the cloud like company's private information which includes accounts, customer information and sales reports etc which is highly confidential for any organizations and if any security will break the company will might get into the high risk. So, all cloud service providers need to secure the applications for the customers (Yang, 2010)

In approaching cloud computing from a policy-making standpoint, the regulation of government

may serve instructive. While e-government is clearly a government enterprise and cloud computing a nongovernmental one, e-government is an online technology that developed

quickly and needed guiding policies after development was well under way. A series of policies,

regulations, and the E-government Act of 2002, however, gave shape to development and

regulation of e-government (Paul T.Jaeger, 2011)

In a similar fashion, the development of policies, regulations, or even a law to cover cloud computing issues would be extremely helpful in sorting out the concerns and uncertainties currently related to cloud computing for providers and for individual and organizational users. With the current lack of policies or court decisions about cloud computing, however, the lack of guidance presents an impediment to the development of the potential of and to user adoption of cloud computing (Takabi, 2012)

Problem Statement

To study the data security policy issues in the cloud computing which must contains some regulations at global level like cyber security regulation because, now a day's data has been leaked through the cloud based applications which will become the major threat for the customers and organizations.

Objective of Study

The aim of this research is to identify the need of security policies of cloud computing at global level. Because, there is not a proper regulation regarding data security for the cloud solution providers and there is not a global standards for the cloud solution providers.

As, we know that in today's world the technology and software solutions are moving from on premise or desktop based applications to the cloud based solutions and all private information of the organization are exist on the cloud (or internet) which is easily accessible for everyone. But the problem is that, Is cloud based solutions are really securable or is there any global level regulations to ensure data security in the cloud which restricts the cloud solution providers to provide the services must meet the global level standards.

The user always wants the data to be secure at its most basic level, this means that the data entrust to a cloud provider should not be subject to unauthorized access or to modification and corruption. However, other risks are also inherent in cloud computing (Bernice, 2011). So my research will be depending to bring attention to introduce the global level security policies for the cloud solution providers.

Theoretical framework

A range of cloud providers already offer a variety of services, with users employing clouds for massive database management, data mining and the deployment of Web services among other activities (Baker, 2008)

Cloud computing raises a range of security policy issues which include issues of

privacy, data security, anonymity, telecommunications capacity, government surveillance, reliability and liability among others. This section of the paper introduces and examines these issues individually. While some of the trade press and popular media accounts of cloud computing have raised potential issues of privacy and intellectual property (Kevin J.Dalaney, 2007), the range of security issues raised by cloud computing merits significant consideration.

cloud computing sits at the difficult intersection of new computing concepts and data security policies and relevant existing laws do not appear to be applicable to this new idea. Therefore I will suggest the global level regulations for cloud service providers which meets the standards at global level as described in below figure 1

Figure 1: All Cloud Service Providers under the regulation

Methodology and Experiment

This paper focuses on a range of policy aspects of cloud computing specific issues

raised by gaps in current laws and regulations. In the case of cloud computing, technological

innovation, commercial interest, and consumer interest are all fast outpacing current information

policy. The primary goal of this paper is to raise awareness of these issues at the intersection of

computing and policy. This paper will first discuss the nature and origins of cloud computing and key technical characteristics and benefits to users. Current examples of and initiatives in cloud computing are next examined. The policy issues related to cloud computing are then discussed, followed by the policy gaps raised by cloud computing. Finally, the paper describes how issues of cloud computing and policy might be reconciled to facilitate the development of cloud computing as a beneficial development for individual, corporate, and governmental computer users.

The method of data collection for this research will also be personal survey technique. In which questionnaires will be distributed to the cloud solution consultants who are designing and implementing cloud solutions in the organizations as well as distribute 100 surveys to the consumers who are using cloud applications then I will use the literature review to gather information and also used my professional network for discussions or interviews with employees, management or cloud competitors. This method will allow me for a flexible approach for the analysis. when important new issues and questions arise during the duration of the study further investigation may be allowed and also research data gather through published studies from different books, articles from different related journals and studies, and other literary instruments. Furthermore, the statistical method will be used such as regression method use to check relationship between variables.

Variable to be discussed

Independent variables

The below variables are the part of research which is used to identify the need of some regulation standard for the cloud service provider

Cloud based services with security threats

Service level agreements

User authentication

Online services of cloud applications

Scalability of cloud applications

Dependent Variables:

Some of the key dependent variables which is the part of research are as follows

Cloud applications used by consumers

Cost management

Reliability and security

Availability of the severs

In relation to above variables, which are identified on general basis. There are several other variables that identify that needs to identify the development of security regulation for the cloud providers.

Proposed Research Hypothesis

H1: The data is not secure in the cloud so, therefore there must be an global level regulation authority who ensure data security in the cloud based applications.

H2: The data is more secure in the cloud based applications and there is no need of any global level regulation authority.

Sampling Technique and Procedure

In this study non-probability based technique will be used, as the business users, employees and cloud consultants are the entities for the sampling. So, probability based technique cannot be used and under this approach the study will used stratifies random sampling technique by dividing the total number of respondents as 50% organization respondents and 50% user respondents, In my case the gender is not common variable if the data contains all females or males so, it doesn't make any issue for the sampling.

Sample Size

Sample size of research would be 200 persons.

Method of Data Collection & Procedure

A survey would be conducted from our respondents which will be held in cloud solution companies, IT universities & computer markets. The respondents would be approached personally and would be asked to respond to questions designed to measure the importance of regulation authority to ensure the data security and data reliability for the cloud applications.

The information will be collected from respondents through a questionnaire. The total number of respondents would be 200 (organizations and end users equally) The age of respondents must be above 18 and must have a sound knowledge of cloud based applications.

Instruments of Data Collection

Questionnaire and literature review would be the instrument use in this research. The questionnaire would contain two sections. The first section would be about the behavior of the cloud based applications through which consumer preference would be measured regarding the cloud applications. The second section would be the critical part that consist of the necessity of regulation authority who ensure the standard of cloud service providers.

Statistical Tests to be used

The Correlation test & Chi-Square tests would be used to measure the relation between variables.

Results

The results of the research paper will be present with the help of figures, tables and graphs that will help me to present my results effectively and efficiently.

Conclusion and Discussion

In case of Data loss the user may suffer if there is no Service Level Agreement (SLA),the loss will be of user, because he is not able to put claims against the cloud service provider

Data loss or leakage can have a devastating impact on a business. Beyond the damage

to one’s brand and reputation, a loss could significantly impact employee, partner, and

customer morale and trust (Jerry Archer, 2010)

It is hoped that providing serious consideration for and research about these issues as cloud computing is in its developmental stages will allow the policy concerns to be addressed in a timely and satisfactory manner before cloud computing becomes too large or too widely used to regulate effectively (Paul T.Jaeger, 2011)

The information or data gathered will be analyzed through frequency distributions. This will provide a way to review the data and also help me out to come up with some facts and figures on the basis of this I will know that is there really need to develop the strong regulation body for the cloud service providers to ensure the data reliability and security. The information which will be gathered and analyzed will help me to achieve the objectives of desire research study.

Appendix

Questionnaire

Name: ________________________

Designation: ________________________

Organization: ________________________

1) Does your company use a third-party vendor, now commonly called a cloud service provider, to store company data ?

yes

No

2) What do you think that your data on the cloud is secure ?

yes

No

3) Do you know about Service Level agreement of cloud service provider?

yes

No

4) Did you see the security level standard of any cloud service provider?

yes

No

5) If you or your company will loss the data so, what will you do? Did you sign any security level regulation with your cloud providers?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6) Do you know about global level standard policies for cloud service providers?

yes

No

6) Do you think that, Is there any cloud based regulation authority who ensure the data security and reliability and all cloud based providers must exist under that authority ?

yes

No

7) In case of data leakage from cloud service provider what is your action plan? Do you know any responsible authority body who consider your claim?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8) At what extend do you think that all cloud service providers are under the global level regulation authority and must meets the global level standards?

High

Low