Perceptions Of Cloud Computing A Student Perspective

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

With the increased demand for computing services, organizations are in constant search for sustainable computing services. Cloud computing is one of the best sought services to provide an alternative to cheaper computing services remotely. This service provides data storage and other computing services remotely. It involves a cloud server who is responsible for providing the storage services to the clients. The technology has been successfully adopted by many organizations (Artur, Kondo and An-derson, 2008). Also, there exist variety providers of the cloud service, some who even organize customized services that comes with their devices. Such providers include iCloud, a cloud service provided by Apple for devices such as iPhone, Macbook and iPads.

However, the growth of the cloud technology continues to raise various serious concerns. Its potential success is threatened by security and privacy concerns existing in the cloud. There are various concerns that seek formal legal and ethical handling. Most of the controversies exist between the cloud providers and the clients of the services. For example, for most cloud services, there is no clear procedure that handles the responsibility in case the client’s data is subjected to security bleaches (Dembo and Freeman, 2001). Is it the service provider such as Apple or is it the clients such as the customers hosting their data in the cloud? What are the legal ramifications incase of data destruction or alteration? Such issues continue to pose a huge threat towards the adoption of cloud computing for organizations (Jansen, 2011).

With this respect, this paper will examine on the both sides of this technology, looking on the potential benefits, concerns and possible solutions to the raised concerns. To provide a deep analysis for this problem, the paper will examine on deep understanding of cloud computing technology, examine on the potential benefits and risks as a result of the technology. To achieve a better understanding, various case studies; illustrating the benefits and risks associated as a result of cloud computing will be discussed thoroughly.

Statement problem

With the rising need for computing resources, cloud computing provides a potential alternative for many organizations. However, security and privacy requirements of the cloud pose a huge threat. Thus, there is the need for comparisons based on the potential benefits of cloud computing and the risks involved. This can only be achieved through an informed enquiry, first by examining on different approaches employed in cloud computing technology, then examining on past case studies that illustrates the benefits and the risks involved. Lastly, a conclusion based on the comparative studies to illustrate the convenience and sustainability of cloud computing from a student approach.

Research questions

What are the different technologies and approaches used in cloud computing?

How does cloud computing impart on businesses processes?

What are the potential risks associated with cloud computing?

What are the security, privacy and ethical considerations involved in cloud computing adoption?

Project Description

The project is aimed at a close examination on the successful implementation of the cloud technology from a student perspective. First, the project will explore on the concept of cloud computing, and how it is perceived by different people such as students, and the staff of cloud service providers. To examine on the possible success factors; the research will examine the four cloud models; the internal cloud, external cloud hosting, the traditional SaaS and the Hybrid cloud. In addition to the technologies involved, the paper will look on how these models are used to support business processes and also cover on the potential risks involved in these models.

From the examination of the models, the project will examine on the benefits and challenges of cloud computing. On this area, the project will examine on comparisons between utility computing and cloud computing and look on the cluster and grid computing systems. To examine on the benefits and challenges the paper will examine on the following cloud elements: economic elements such as pay-as-you-go, no CAPEX and pay-as-grow approaches will be used. On architectural elements, the paper will examine on abstract developmental environment, while on the strategic elements the focus will be on the core business processes while outsourcing the rest services.

The benefits of cloud computing will be discussed on the following criteria:

Elastic resource capacity

Utility pricing

Virtualized services

Self-service provision

Management automation

Third party ownership

Managed operations

On the privacy and security issues, the project will consider the following aspects:

Insider access; this will examine on the possibility of risks emanating from internal attacks, where threats from employees of the service provider can act as potential hackers. Next, the aspect of composite services will be examined. For this case, layering and nesting in other cloud providers will discussed as a potential source of security bleaches. To provide a rationale for security bleach, aspects of data confidentiality, integrity, availability, accountability resilience and assurance will occupy an integral point of discussion.

To offer some solutions, risk management procedures will be examined. In this case, practicability of authentication, access control, software isolation and data protection mechanisms will be discussed. The project will also examine on the role of stakeholder engagement, transparency and legal clarifications as possible methods to complement technology-based mechanisms.

Methodology

In addition to the secondary sources, the research will embark mainly on surveys for primary collection of data. The survey will be based on questioners which will be sent through mails, done over the phone and also from direct observation. The purpose of the survey will be to gather structured information from the involved stakeholders in the information technology field (Fowler, 2002). The big proportion of the respondents will include clients of cloud services such users of Macbook and iPhones that have used iCloud. The researcher will also consider collecting information from the service providers such as Apple’s iCloud staff in order to obtain a direct and reliable source of information as far as benefits, technology and the risks involved in the technology.

The results of the survey will be used to provide a comparative ground on the future of cloud computing. Among the questions that will be covered will include the following:

For the users:

What do you understand by cloud computing?

What are the major cloud service providers can you access?

What are the particular cloud services do you use?

What benefits do cloud computing present in your business and lifestyle activities?

Have you had any instances of security breaches or data destruction? Explain

How do you deal with cases of security or privacy breach?

What do you think about the growth of cloud computing in the next 5 years?

Ethical and professional issues

On the ethical ramifications, privacy issues will be the core area of interest. To examine on the cloud services for example, the researcher will first seek the authority of the respondent (Buchanan, 2004). For example, the researcher will have to examine on the client’s devices that utilizes cloud services such as the Macbooks and iPhones to analyze on the features provided by iCloud. On such cases, confidentiality will be maintained and the client’s data will not be used for any other purpose except for research. In this case, any other use will require the user’s approval. On the same case, the data collected from the cloud service providers will be treated confidential, and will not be revealed to other parties especially competing firms without the prior permission by the cloud service provider company. All the data and other confidential information will be aimed for this research only.

In addition to privacy and confidential treatment of the research data, the respondents selected will be required to voluntary participate in the designed surveys. There will no use of force, generation of fear or inducements. In other words, there will not be any penalties or consequences for the respondents who prefer not to participate. This will guarantee collection of unbiased data that will correctly reflect on the question at hand. The respondents will be surveyed through informed consent, where the use of the research data will be explained thoroughly prior to collection (Buchanan, 2004).

Deliverables

The project will seek to provide data that answers the research questions; both from secondary and primary sources. On this case, the secondary sources will be used to back up primary research data. Among other results, the primary sources will provide the extent on the use of cloud services, the service providers for the target group, the services provided by the cloud providers, any security, privacy and ethical concern raised from the use of the cloud computing, opinions on how such cases can be solved and results on the potential use of cloud computing services for the next five years (Buchanan, 2004). In addition to provide a backup discussion on the mentioned results, secondary resources will examine results about the technologies used in cloud computing, benefits that organizations accrue from cloud computing, the potential answers to questions such as: who will be held accountable incase security and privacy of client’s data stored in the cloud is bleached?, suggestions on who controls the data in the cloud will also be supported by secondary information sources, in case the service provider moves out of business, does it mean that the client’s data will be destroyed or how will it be migrated to other service providers? Lastly, these sources are also aimed at providing the answer on the compensation programs to compensate the client incase his/her data is destroyed or privacy/security/confidentiality bleach.

Schedule and deliverables

Resources required

On the resources to be used, the researcher will first look on the sources of secondary resources. The secondary resource source will be based on the data and information generated by academic, governmental, non-governmental institutions as well as that generated from the private sectors. For academic institutions, the research will embark on the past researches from universities and other academic institutional knowledge providers. This will involve the scholarly research journals, books, magazines and other published materials. For other institutions, scholarly findings from corporate laboratories, business research firms, book publisher and commercial newspapers will be used. Apart from the print resources, the researcher will actively engage the use of online scholarly sources such as journal databases for example proquest, ScienceDirect , Google scholar, research publishing websites such as ACS and other governmental and nongovernmental accredited databanks. Conference papers or the proceedings will also be used extensively.

For the primary data collection, the researcher will conduct surveys to the selected respondents. On this, the resources will be divided into three major categories; the resources to contact the potential respondents. These will require in-person contacts, email support and through the use of telephone or cell phones to collect data. The second category involves resources used for the presentational purposes, where in this case, will involve writing materials; either through manual writing using pens and papers as well as electronic entry. In this case, programs such as Microsoft’s word will be used to process the data. The last category involves the resources used to record the response; in which it will be both electronic and paper based resources.

For data analysis and the presentation, the researcher will require the Microsoft project program of SPSS. For hardware, the researcher will need a smartphone with an ability to use cloud services such as iCloud from Apple. A Macbook will also be essential. For data safety, having external data storage is critical.