Introduction What Is Cloud Computing

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

A single page of typed - up notes on the lecture on Cloud Computing. Note that if you do not attend the lecture you risk being unable to perform well.

Your notes will be judged according to the following elements:

How well you captured the main points of the lecture

Notes of new sources of information given by the guest lecturer

What questions you prepared for the lecture

What questions or types of information you decided might need followed up after the guest lecture on 21 January.

A 4-page article (approximately 2,500 words) on the topic of Lecture 2 in which you show how well you understand the topic and reflect on how you arrived at that understanding. You must find at least 5 and no more than 7 references to cite in support of the critique and any argument that is part of the critique. You should use a mixture of peer‐reviewed and informal sources (e.g. blogs, white papers).This critique will be judged according to the following elements:

Structure, format and style including referencing

Quality of written English

Quality of argument including suitability and use of references. The argument should be clear about the standing/authority of the reference.

The degree of understanding shown about the new topic

Introduction – what is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is really an umbrella phrase for anything to do with the delivery of hosted services over the Internet. These services can be separated into three main types of services: Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The phrase ‘cloud computing’ comes from the early practice of IT experts portraying the Internet as a cloud in networking maps. A Pew Internet Study gave a formal definition of cloud computing in 2008: "an emerging architecture, by which data and applications reside in cyber space, allowing users to access them through any web connected device". Cloud computing is just another way of making sure that information is accessible anywhere where there is internet access. The basis by which cloud computing is defined is that no matter where data is stored, data accessible anywhere and anytime.

A cloud service has a few distinctive features that make it different from conventional hosting. A cloud service can be sold on demand, usually by the hour; it is extremely flexible, a user can buy a service that fit around their needs and a service is usually administered by the provider which leaves the consumer needing nothing more than a computer with Internet access.

Very rarely in the modern era of information technology have there an innovation such as cloud computing. In the eyes of one faction, it is an innovative, not to mention less costly approach to the utilisation and use of IT services. In the eyes of other factions, the concept of storing data on servers supplied by a third party service provider and using third-party platforms to access an application that is being hosted on it is not original, and there are many other factions who claim that this is just overblown hype; an excuse to sell the modern equivalent of snake oil. Nonetheless, there are a number of key distinctions with the recent increase of the cloud computing phenomenon.

Here’s one; there are a growing quantity of applications available to be accessibly remotely on an ad-hoc basis, as well as applications that companies usually bought and installed on their own in-house systems. Secondly, there has been a veritable explosion of entrepreneurial start-up companies throughout the IT industry purporting to offer a wide array of cloud storage solutions and services, including many that cater to small and medium sized businesses. Finally, and possibly most importantly, cloud computing should be viewed from a legal angle, cloud computing has become an internationally provided resource. As a result, a business based in the United States that maintains a cloud provider may discover that data it owns is being stored on servers that are located in numerous countries, and that this data is constantly ‘on the move’.

Where is the data?

Cloud computing is presented by the IT industry to be an accessible solution to data storage and retrieval that can be cost effective, and efficient at utilising all available resources. Storing data in the ‘cloud’ offers the guarantee access no matter how far and where the location is from which a person wishes to access their data. Complete and total accessibility, which is being endorsed as an economical solution to information management, is naturally appealing to both businesses and ordinary consumers alike. One particular concern is whether cloud computing will come at the cost of current legal predictability and the certainty of abiding within the law.

While Cloud computing is used as a catch-all phrase that has become hard to avoid, many in the IT industry by and large find it easy to see it as a logical step forward in the progress of computing. Cloud computing is quite possibly the most ill-considered and has the potential to be a risky improvement to modern computing. There are IT users in the minority in the IT industry who have very serious reservations about the viability of cloud computing services being subject to outside threats and poor IT practices.

However, there are many prospective benefits that must be acknowledged. There are advantages to be had when transferring applications and data storage to remote servers. Being tied down to an operating system is no longer a problem so a user doesn’t have to choose their software that only works on only one operating system. Remote data storage is now more convenient as online storage services like the S3 service offered by Amazon lets normal users operate their own free and proprietary web servers. Just like ordinary everyday services like web-based e-mail and hosted blogging services demonstrates the capabilities of cloud computing to make complex services simple to use. An ordinary IT user can run an internet-connected file server by themselves. Few people have the technical know-how to run a cloud computing service successfully. Why don’t I like cloud computing?

Here’s why:

There are three reasons why many people have reservations about cloud computing. One of the most basic problems of cloud computing means that an ordinary IT user has to use a machine that is run by a third party provider meaning that the only contact with the user is over the internet or by phone. Cloud computing presents another problem of uploading and storing data on a remote server that is not under the user’s control. Finally, the security measures that a cloud computing service provider undertakes cannot always offer iron-clad assurances to concerned customers. Of course, medium-sized upwards businesses can possibly afford an on-site private-cloud service but a service like this is out of the reach of many ordinary users. Cloud computing also has the potential to invite numerous attacks from outside hackers as its widespread use grows. Contemporary computing can barely even keep up with the constant threats from malicious hackers.

Reliability

Reliability is very important for any system. Computers are only useful because they can work properly. Websites are not useful if they are not live on a server and don’t have enough bandwidth available. Compare cloud computing against these requirements, it’s obvious that computing in the cloud can be a lot more risky. If a single workstation doesn’t have enough resources available and hardware that can run properly then running an application is going to be near impossible. Cloud computing needs a server to do exactly just this. If this service is being accessed by a lot of users and the service’s internet connection does not have plenty of bandwidth then the possibility that the service will fail is very likely.

Ownership

The idea of storing and accessing data on a server that is in another country has serious but as yet un-realised consequences to privacy. Somehow current concerns over privacy seem to be confined to a minor faction within the IT industry and the penalty for poor and hastily implemented cloud computing practice really is about who really has control over data. A transition to a cloud computing service leads to lot of legal ambiguity of who ultimately controls a user’s data. The biggest drawback of cloud computing is that a user entrusts his data to a third party service provider. That data will be stored on third party servers in a remote location. A user is essentially placing his total trust in the reliability of the service provider and its staff by storing data through a cloud service. In this way the user is placed into a situation where he has no physical control over his data.

Why is this so important? Data is can be copied and modified with no trouble. This is a problem if another person can simply copy and modify your data and even track you. Another even worse possibility is that a user could even be locked out and be unable to have access to his data and applications. There is always encryption but this is not a solution if a user chooses a weak easy-to-crack password. This makes the system weaker.

Security

Cloud computing has the possibility of being less secure than conventional computing. Web-based services are easily accessible at any time and anywhere. Attempts to exploit these vulnerabilities can come from anywhere at any time. A database containing very sensitive data in the cloud is always accessible to any person wanting to gain access. On the hand, if a person manages to access a desktop will only gain access to the data on just one computer. A cloud-based service is much more of a target than one user. The current vulnerabilities that many internet-connected services have been exposed to from attacks by malicious hackers should motivate cloud service providers to err on the side of caution.

The very nature of cloud computing has thrown up a lot of international jurisdictional ambiguity. For legal circles in the west, however, there has a lot of debate about whose laws apply and who has ultimate control over data stored in the cloud and accessible from anywhere.

Given the nature of cloud computing dealing with such jurisdictional challenges are perhaps predictable. The whole point of the cloud computing model is that a potential customer expects that his/her data may be located across more than one and sometimes many data units that the cloud service provider runs. It obviously not easy to distinguish where the data that is stored in the cloud is really located at any stage and which regulators in various countries wield jurisdiction and what regulations apply to data owned by individuals and businesses.

Owing to the nature of cloud computing the possibility of the sending, storing and processing of data been involved in legal challenges in the coming years and one of the main issues is that the concept of the cloud model may undermine the notion of who ultimately owns data and how much legal protection must be afforded to data in the cloud.

Cloud Computing in general

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