Risks And Benefits Of Cloud Computing

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

risks & benefits

Cloud computing is the use of computing assets (hardware and software) with the aim of delivering a service over a network (in universal the Internet). It is a new theory based on a pay-as-you-go approach. This paper introduces Cloud computing, explores the benefit it promises, the risk & challenges associated with it. The deployment and service models of Cloud computing. It reviews the Cloud service providers & analyses the cloud implementations in UAE. The focus of this paper is to investigate risks, regulatory consequences, local laws, compliance & benefits of Cloud computing to local UAE Companies. What does UAE Organizations look out from the service cloud provider & why they should trust in Cloud computing? To identify cloud computing risks and benefits to different UAE Companies and the implementation of cloud computing in UAE, we have employed critical research approach by extensive study of current resources that refers to cloud risks and benefits & cloud implementation. We have used mainly literature review that includes online library resources and catalogues, published articles, relevant text books, industry specific information and trusted resources from the Internet.

Keywords: Cloud computing, risks, benefits, deployment & service models, cloud service providers & implementation in UAE.

Introduction

This part of the paper Section 1 first outlines the history of cloud computing, the deployment and delivery models, the three varieties of cloud architecture, the benefits along with its risks & challenges during implementation. Section 2 suggests the state of the art of cloud computing in UAE. Section 3 examines the considerations to be taken into account during cloud implementation. A detailed summary is provided in section 4.

1.1 History of cloud computing

Early 1990’s saw the cloud first appearing & referring mainly to large ATM Networks. This can be read in detail in the Ez Castle integration journal (History of cloud computing, 2012) historically, telecommunications companies primarily offered only dedicated, point-to-point data circuits to their users. Beginning in the 1990s, however, they began expanding their offerings to include virtual private network services. Salesforce.com in 1999 first brought in the idea, the main thought of delivering enterprise applications via a simple website. The next expansion in the cloud was in 2002 bought by Amazon Web services 2.0 which offered a collection of cloud based services that include data, storage and computation and above all the intelligence of people. Companies like Google & Yahoo announced plans to provide cloud computing services. Some more companies to name are Sun, Intel, Oracle, SAS and Adobe who brought in a major investment in cloud computing infrastructure solutions specializing in providing vendor – based cloud solutions to the masses. Qian & colleagues (2009) research states that ‘Microsoft Azure™ is released in Oct. 2008, which uses Windows Azure Hypervisor (WAH) as the underlying cloud infrastructure and .NET as the application container’.

1.2 Definition of cloud computing

Cloud computing is where data, software applications or computer processing power are accessed from a cloud of online resources. This allows individual users to way in their data & applications from more than a few devices as well as allowing companies to decrease their capital costs by purchasing hardware and software as a utility service. It is one of the fastest emerging paradigms in the area of information technology. It refers to the delivery of computing resource over the internet. Instead of you using your own computer hard drive or updating business applications for your needs, you use a service over the internet, or at another location to store your information. It provides shared pool of resources, including data storage space, networks, cooling and computer processing power & specialized corporate and user applications.

(Cearley, 2010) Gartner defines Cloud Computing a style of computing where massively scalable IT-enabled applications are delivered ‘as a service’ to external customers using Internet technologies.

(Wink, 2011) defines Cloud computing is the use of a computer other than the one you are actually working on to store or access software, data, and/or computing power (e.g., processing speed, memory, or computational ability.

Cloud Computing- Deployment and delivery models

The three major deployment models of Cloud computing are private, public and hybrid clouds.

Private cloud is a data centre that is dynamically provisioned which delivers services to your business. They are also known as internal clouds which internally reside within the business for exclusive use of the business or for a familiar group of consumers. With the private cloud your data stays in your data centre. It is always available and not relying on third parties and it makes integration with other systems much easier. You own it but you do pay extra for that privilege. Mahmood (2011) states that for mission critical applications and for location of sensitive data, this type of cloud infrastructure is more effective than Public clouds & this in turn provides much more privacy than a Public cloud would. Private cloud is hosted inside the organization’s firewall. It can be accessed by users within the organization via intranet as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: Private cloud (Klancnik, 2013) pp 65-68

(Rouse, 2011) in their research paper suggest that A public cloud is one based on the standard cloud computing model, in which a service provider makes resources, such as applications and storage, available to the universal public over the Internet. Public cloud services may be free or offered on a pay-per-usage model. Public cloud offers anything from a simple personal storage to complex suite of enterprise services. From the customer’s point of view he has got a clear price advantage as compared to the above private cloud as the cost of the infrastructure is shared among many users. Everyone pays less than they could if they ran their own clouds. Some of the accepted examples of public clouds are Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute, Google App Engine, and Blue Cloud by IBM and Azure services Platform by Windows. Organizations selling cloud services offer Web enabled applications and web services through the internet to public or a large industry group as illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Public cloud (Klancnik, 2013) pp 65-68

(Mell and Grance, 2011) describe the Hybrid cloud infrastructure is a work of art of two or more separate cloud infrastructures (private, community, or public) that remain exclusive entities, but are bound together by consistent or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load balancing between clouds). A combination of Private and Public cloud is known as a Hybrid cloud as shown in Figure 3. The deployment of the cloud is more prominent for mission critical processes, as it helps enterprises for better control and management. The main goal of Hybrid cloud is to combine services and data that help to create a unified, automated & well managed computing environment.

Figure 3. Hybrid cloud (Klancnik, 2013) pp 65-68

1.4. Cloud computing services:-

The Cloud model in general consists of three varieties of architectures which pass on normally to three types of services mentioned below:-

A. (Saas) Software as a service-This refers to hosted applications that are only available via a web browser. In simple terms, it can be described as Software deployed as a hosted service and accessed over the Internet. Gmail, hotmail, Google documents, CRM, Virtual desktop are common e.g. as explained in Figure 4. Sales force on enterprise software as a service has been really doing well with their customer relationship management software.

B. (Paas) Platform as a service- Hosted development platform for deploying SaaS Apps. It provides a tool kit for conveniently developing, deploying and administering application software that is structured to support large numbers of subscribers, process very set of software building blocks and a set of expansion tools such as programming languages and supporting run-time environments that help in facilitating production of high –quality scalable applications. As Figure 4 illustrates it refers to software and product development tools, portal servers, database servers, application servers, web servers are few examples and Prime examples include Sales force. Com’s Force. Com, Cog head and the new Google App Engine. Microsoft Azure is a premier development platform as an example of Platform as a Service.

C. (Iaas) Infrastructure as a service: Instead of owing the IT resources you pay for the use. It delivers Computer infrastructure typically all essential hardware such as servers, load balancers, virtual machines storage and networking devices, as illustrated in Figure 4, which enables the platform of the cloud & the software applications to function? Customers using this service are looking to buy ‘computing’ without making any initial investment. The philosophy applied is ‘pay-for-what-you-use’ which is also sometimes referred to as utility computing. Amazon web services have the largest market share. Some of the other providers are Rack space & Dell V Cloud, VM Ware, IBM Blue House in the Infrastructure space.

Figure 4: Cloud Infrastructure (Kouyoumjian, 2010) pp. 75-78

1.5. Cloud Computing Benefits:-

Cloud computing services are considered to be easier, cheaper, and better way to use IT services than traditional delivery modes (Gupta, 2010). Many Small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) have already deployed cloud computing in their networks to utilize the services which they need as per their need. (Mahmood, 2011) research states that there are many reasons that attract SMEs to move their IT infrastructures to the cloud computing such as:

Making some saving on the total cost compared to the capital investment.

Costs reduction with respect to developing and delivering IT services.*

Reduction in management responsibilities and thus allowing key personnel to focus more on production and innovation.

Increased business agility to allow enterprises to meet the needs of rapidly changing markets.

Cloud computing technology promises to provide number of benefits:

Reducing Costs an increasing efficiency:

Many companies are trying to reduce the cost of their IT expenditure, and cloud computing is providing them greater flexibility in payment per utilization. With cloud resource pre-estimation is not required, resources are made available on demand and the company pay for only used one (Gupta, 2011). Cloud will also reducing related cost of patch installation, upgrading, and application support by freeing company’s IT staff from performing such activities and focusing on other companies’ activities. Cloud also helps companies to optimize their capital investments by reducing their hardware expenditures, software costs, and real estate cost for data centres.

Helps small companies to compete:

It provides small organisations the ability to access IT services which used by the large organisations. If we look back to history, there has been a big difference between the IT resources available to small enterprises and to large enterprises. Cloud computing has enabled smaller companies to compete with much bigger competitors in their field. By Renting IT services and resources as an alternative of investing in hardware and software makes the services much more affordable, and allows the enterprises to invest that capital in other vital projects. Many Cloud providers offer large enterprise technology would cost thousands of pounds to SMBs as services for a low monthly fee. (Think Grid, whitepaper).

Increase Flexibility:

With cloud Computing, Enterprises can grow and shrink depend on the actual load and business need to satisfy their customers demand without taking the financial risk of predicting the future customer demand. It also helps the companies to provision additional resources and new services in minimal time and effort by offering them the simplicity and agility. Cloud also provides flexibility for workers to access data and IT services from anywhere at any time using internet connection. It has been stated that if your internet connection fails, you will not have the right to use your data.

Rapid and easy deployment:

Enterprises can provide and offer new services and applications to their customers without bringing or installing new computing capacity to support these services. Simply the enterprises will buy the needed computing capacity from cloud providers, therefore saving time for making data centres and hiring new staff to implement the new services. Approximately 2-3 months will be saved (Gupta, 2010). Without the want to buy hardware, software licences or professional services, a company can get its cloud-computing planning off the ground in minutes.

Disaster Recovery:

It provides companies business continuity and disaster recovery mechanism through a completely outsourcing their IT services. (Mahmood, 2011). Enterprises can achieve this by backing up their important files in the providers’ data centres.

Cloud computing benefits such as cost efficiency, scalability, and flexibility have come on the upper list of benefits that excite enterprises about the cloud paradigm. Figure 5, arranged depends of highest occurrence to the lowest (Carrol & colleagues 2011).

Figure 5: Cloud computing benefits (Carrol et al, 2011)

As shown in Figure 5. The main enterprises driver to cloud computing implementation (as cited by most literature) is Cost efficiency (Carrol et al 2011). Other interesting benefits such as scalability, flexibility, agility, better IT resource management and business focus, efficiency, higher reliability and availability, rapid development, deployment and change management, better performance and greater mobility also shown to be considered by the enterprises. Improved automation, support and management, improved security, and green-IT data centers were also cited as valuable drivers for moving to the cloud.

1.6. Risks and challenges

Despite the scalability, efficiency and reducing capital expenditure and cost and many more benefits that offered by Cloud Computing, there are many risks and challenges for companies implementing this new way of getting IT services to consider. Security is considered to be one of the major risks that faced by the companies.

Security Risks:

The security can be referred to data security, security of place which data reside, data confidentiality, loss of data, organised crime including hacking, and legal implication in case of something goes wrong (Mahmood, 2011). There are many security risks that appear inside and outside cloud providers’ and clients’ environment such as insider threat which arise within the organization, outside malicious attacks which cause releasing organisation’s confidential information, data loss and service disruption (Behl, 2011). Cloud Security becomes the most important differentiator and competitive element between cloud providers (Tripal, Mishra, 2011).

Compliance Risks:

Lack of governance in the industry standard and audit assessment will result the compliant risks. Cloud computing clients could not have access to procedures and practices of cloud providers (Tripal, Mishra, 2011). Legal issues will be very challenging in case of data migration when the company is in a separate place than the IT infrastructure provider. For instance, European Union has issued a legislature stating that EU data should be replicated on multiple locations within EU to immune total failure in case of disaster. (Pohorec, Zorman, 2011).

(Zhen, 2008) has mentioned many important challenges that would face cloud computing implementers including the following:

Data governance: cloud providers sometimes may not commit to Service Level Agreement (SLA) signed between them and the enterprises. The enterprises will lose control to govern their own data and they will depend on the cloud service providers for safety of their data. Service providers need to assure the enterprises that their data are safe and having restricted and protected access.

Monitoring:

Reliability and availability challenge: No clear service level agreement between cloud providers and their clients will result in business being lost.

Virtualization Security: VM-level attacks will be as a result of vulnerabilities appearing in the hypervisors such as VMware, Xen, sphere, Microsoft Virtual PC etc. During the coming phase of these hypervisors.

Figure 6: Cloud Computing Risks (Carrol et al, 2011)

Figure 6. Summarizes cloud computing risks that enterprises considered when they think about cloud implementation. The figure is shown that security is the biggest concern for the enterprises. Hosting the enterprises’ data and applications by the service providers the enterprises data will be prone to vulnerabilities and they lose control managing their data. Putting enterprises’ data and applications in sharing infrastructures.

Cloud providers & cloud implementations in UAE.

This section of the paper aims to outline the local Cloud service providers in UAE along with the cloud implementations done in UAE.

Cloud service providers in U.A.E

There are a few local Public Cloud providers contributing cloud services in the UAE. Most of them are in very early stages of portfolio development. These providers mainly provide SaaS and cloud based enterprises suites such as (ERP, CRM), and BaaS. Paas and IaaS cloud services still don’t have local providers to offer such services. Dubai, being the base area for many large cloud players such as Microsoft, Google, HP, Dell, Oracle, and it has played a very important role in the development of the cloud computing and Information technology in UAE and MENA region.

These Major Vendors like Oracle are aiming to be a leader in cloud computing in the Middle East. Oracle services include hardware and software solutions for public, hybrid and private cloud, and its range of cloud services, including SaaS, PaaS and also IaaS.

BIOS is one of the few leading Cloud computing and Solutions providers in Dubai and the UAE. They offer Go Cloud solution services where the physical components are hosted in their cloud, in their data centres located in UAE. Organizations are free from the hassles of investing in their own IT equipment/ infrastructure or for being responsible for security, powering and cooling of their IT infrastructure. They are offering Backup as a service (BaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and Disaster Recovery as a service (DRaaS).(BIOSME.COM).

eHosting DataFort is another leading of managed IT service provider in UAE. They are providing Cloud infrastructure services (Private Cloud and Virtual Private servers) to many leading organizations such as Dubai e-Government, du, and Ministry of Works and many others. They are one of few service providers who obtained ISO 9001, ISO 20000, ISO 27001, ISO 14001, ISO 18000, BS25999 and ITIL certifications.

Skyline UAE is another provider which provides Microsoft virtual servers to host web servers and Microsoft Exchange 2010 as a cloud e-mail hosting services. They also offers virtual desktop services and dedicated servers (Rack space) for clients who needs to maintain some sort of control.

Etisalat which is one of the leading telecom and ICT services Is planning to run out cloud computing in its datacenters and it will be focusing SMB enterprises by the end of the year of the 2012.(The national, 2012).Organizations are free from the hassles of investing in their own IT equipment/ infrastructure or for being accountable for security, powering and cooling of their IT infrastructure. This helps them to make use of a cloud positioned in the UAE to tackle compliance and provincial connectivity issues & remove CapEx and Reduce Opex drastically for IT infrastructure.

Cloud implementations in U.A.E

The Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company, du (DUBAI: DU), and Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ: QLYS), a foremost contributor of cloud security and compliance solutions, have announced an contract to deliver vulnerability and compliance management services to businesses in the UAE (Qualys, 2012). With the offering of the Qualys cloud suite which includes services like Web application scanning, Vulnerability Management enables organizations to keep a track of their IT assets, also helps to collect large amounts of IT Security data. The unique benefits it offers is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), there is nothing to maintain, install or manage. The Support for working and maintaining the cloud solution falls fully on Qualys. Qualys has built a Global Cloud Architecture developed from the floor up to computerize IT Security and compliance.

EMCOR facilities Services (EFS) in collaboration with E-hosting data fort (EDHF) who is one of the regions leading managed IT Services provider, also a member of TECOM Investments implemented their foremost private cloud in the UAE. The company conducted in detail its cost benefit analysis in examination of carrying out with an outdoor data service provider somewhat than choosing an option of investing in an in-house data centre. EHDF is currently hosting EFS main business application suite, the Oracle JD Enterprise One, which being a Tier-1 application essential an experienced knowledge release stage. To distribute a full technology stack, with a quick turnaround at lower CAPEX and ensuring fulfilment could only come at costs that cloud computing would permit. Ehosting Data Fort was selected from a pool of five proficient international vendors for its proficiency in providing fully managed services. In addition to running with worldwide market leaders, the main parameter for EFS was to make sure it’s hardware and data which is stored and confined inside nationwide borders. EHDF’s ability to meet this necessity through extending well-built local support proved a key factor that inclined EMCOR Facilities Services’ decision.

The organization chose the decision to go ahead with a Hybrid Model, where the Company outsourced their data centre infrastructure which included their core switching and SAN- Storage networks which was given out a leased option to EHDF. So this helped the company to invest only in core infrastructure & rest was shifted to as a leased model. In a private cloud environment, EFS will gain flexibility in business while having control and security on the infrastructure [EHDF, 2012).

Gulf Air, a major established airline for the UAE region, cloud is at the centre of their IT strategy and is already delivering considerable business benefits. The national airline of Bahrain rolled out a major new cloud infrastructure over the past two years that today provides a platform for both more cost efficient and flexible computing across the organization, and to support the carrier as its aims for new heights. The airline implemented a private cloud solution & it helped in generation of 41% savings from their capital expenditure budget and also delivered return on investment on their hardware and software licensing, helped in reduction of maintinenance costs and reduced infrastructure management. The overall implementation of the cloud project helped Gulf Air ‘green’ goals, through eliminating paper i.e. were used for issuing boarding passes and tickets replacing it by issuing e-tickets and mobile check in. (Sutton, M. ACN, Dec 2012).

United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) rolled out education solutions from Arrive systems to connect to its own private cloud network it implemented a private cloud solution to create a campus wide integrated educational network. This helped in cloud connected content delivery using open standards Intel based architecture. 154 laboratories were connected with the new cloud solution at UAEU.

Time Hotels having six properties in UAE is heading for the cloud by running their local data centre, an internal private cloud. The use of cloud service fits with the TIME’s approach to systems, although the company would be unwilling to utilize services that are not hosted in the region. Their main concern was to put more services in a local cloud even their most critical services – PMS ( Property management systems) in a hosted environment outside the country, there are too many factors that can’t be controlled and the "internationally connectivity is simply cost prohibitive’’ (Sutton, M. ACN, Oct 2012) .

Pacific controls a company based in Techno Park, Dubai provides ICT managed services for customers globally. It offers Cloud Services with having partnership with Etisalat, the leading telecommunications provider for enterprise customers. Cloud platform to enterprise customers across the GCC region in the beginning point of its offerings. The PCCS- Etisalat Cloud services are hosted at their Uptime Institute-certified Tier III Data Centre located in Dubai Techno Park. The facility is the largest data centre campus of its kind in the Middle East. (PR Newswire, Nov 2012). The PCCS- Etisalat Cloud services are available in the types of public, private and hybrid Cloud, based on the wants of the organizations and liking of business. Their cloud based services include: on-demand Infrastructure as a service; collective computing resources with high security.

In the education sector, Campuses can look at using public cloud for certain applications e.g. registrations in order to do some cost savings, while keeping more critical functions in house on private cloud. Network Middle East (Jan 2013). Public cloud computing is very good alternative for the education sector where they have very tight budgets allocation, it enables them to take maximum advantage of the cloud based applications offered by the service provider. It helps them in departmental cost savings, helps in enhancing systems and information security and also improves their data storage options.

Market research and advisory Company IDC expects overall expenditure on cloud delivery in the UAE to have grown 33.6% year on year for 2012 as enterprises are showing growing interest in cloud options. IDC predicts total spending forecast towards an annual growth rate of 43.7% over a five year forecast period ending 2016". Network Middle East (Feb 2013) [8]. Many organizations in UAE have been under rising pressure to justify their functioning and resources expenses & in this in turn are inclining them to explore the feasibility of moving towards cloud services. Security of data concerns, infrastructure restrictions taking into consideration the major benefits which cloud offers- i.e. shared IT resources usage , consumption of IT resources and their capability to supervise IT procedure but inside the safety of their own infrastructure/data centre lead them naturally to the concept of private cloud. According to IDC, the general liking for in-country data centres and the wish to make the most of on reserves have expected that much of the cloud expenditure in the UAE is at present on private cloud rather than public cloud.

Substantial growth for cloud computing in UAE has led number of organizations already using Software-as-a Service [SaaS] effectively. In November 2008, Tecom Investments, a member of Dubai holding, unveiled a customer service portal that it provides to its customers in a SaaS representation. Companies like Nakheel, Emaar and Dubai World central have incorporated the different types of Services for their innovations for project management, tenant management and property management. (Cherrayil, 2009).

Market Comparison of Cloud Implementations in GCC.

In Doha, Qatar (a city of 400,000), three major universities have lined together ─ and

Have partnered with IBM to build the region’s first cloud computing environment. Branch

Campuses of Carnegie Mellon University and Texas A&M, as well as Qatar University

Have deployed the region’s first publicly available cloud computing environment – also

Known as the Qatar Cloud Computer Center.

Even though Saudi Arabia is a great marketplace, cloud computing is phenomenon experienced in the UAE. Saudi Arabia is hard market to enter while Qatar is a promising market for cloud computing.

Around 80 per cent of workers may be working external to their companies as cloud services advantage movable workers and those functioning fundamental offices that conventionally have to rely on high speed broadband connections to their corporate data centres for connectivity.

3.0. Things to be considered for cloud implementation

This part of the paper examines the different considerations to be taking into account during Cloud implementations.

3.1. Cloud compliance and legal risk:

One of the main issues that slowing or stopping SMEs from migrating to the cloud is lack of ability to achieve compliance in cloud computing. Enterprises are considering Data encryption as a critical requirement for cloud compliance. Although most of cloud providers are delivering data encryption by somehow, it’s not enough because it is just like leaving the safety deposit box key with the banker. Cloud encryption keys should be shared between the providers and clients by somehow. (Ariel, 2013).

At the beginning, Enterprises in UAE should define the data services they are going to use and type of information they will move to cloud and should understand the compliance risks. Then, they have to look at the contracts with cloud provider. if it is a local UAE cloud, then internal SLAs and internal compliance checklists should be checked. If the provider is abroad, enterprises have to clearly identify which data should be moved to cloud services and how the provider is going to protect that data and how the enterprises will backup their data and reserve their right to audit the security and compliance framework.

Lack of comprehensive sets of laws, regulations and official standards for cloud computing in UAE, make local Enterprises to worry about cloud computing compliance risk when they decided to use public cloud as storage and backup as services. Since comprehensive law does not exist then general laws will be applied in this case. There is no detailed Data protection and privacy laws in UAE that protect cloud users and the sensitive information from the wrong abuse. Cloud Clients and providers should agree in such a way that cloud compliance to be clearly mentioned in SLAs and cloud providers should be compliant with laws and industry regulations and acknowledge their responsibility for protecting clients’ data.

UAE enterprises need to consider the laws and regulations related to cloud services and data protection in the countries of public cloud providers and where the data servers are located. Because laws and regulations differ from country to another country and they are changing quickly. They also need to consider laws and regulations of data transfer to the cloud and collection from the cloud.

If the cloud provider is located outside UAE (public cloud provider), the claims against the provider many not be effective and it will be outside the scope of contractual rights. "For instance, claims for compensation under the UAE Civil Code (number 5 of 1985) will require the cloud user to prove the value of the loss claimed, and this might be difficult" (David Yates, 2011).

3.2. Management and security consideration:

Privacy and security are considered to be most two risks in cloud computing concerned two third of IT decision makers interviewed and surveyed by (Willcocks, Venters and Whitley, 2011). Enterprises are concerned about the security of their data outside their firewalls. This security fears and limitation in infrastructure has limited the widespread implementation of cloud computing in UAE. Many of those enterprises which shown interest in cloud deployment in UAE, they are more attracted to private cloud and they want the security will be within their own organizations (Enzer, 2013). The cloud user will have its own data security and access management policy internally. The cloud user must determine how to ensure that its security measures are reflected in the data hosting service offered by the cloud provider.

Cloud environment has faced increased risk of hacking attacks to access data and applications using remote access methods and web applications. Security attacks such as denial of service (DoS), man-in-the-middle, authentication, and social networking become major risks in cloud environment (Carol, Kotze, 2011).

Lock-in and exit strategy challenges are also other concerns for enterprises want to implement cloud. Executive should be aware of two types of lock-in. First one concerns about the moving the data from one service provider to another. So if the company using one service provider, it is often to be cost effective to have more services from the same service provider. The second type is organizational lock-in, and it occurs when some services used y organization to be routine and practices in the organization. Later it is going to be difficult for organization to switch to different providers. The providers also focusing on increasing lock-in, and their competitors focusing on reducing the cost to attract subscribers looking for switching. (Willcocks, Venters and Whitley, 2011).

Conclusion

Through our research we found that there are very few Cloud implementations in UAE & it is still on the infant stages of acceptance and growth. Cloud computing is being held back in the UAE because of safety uncertainties over the lack of local service providers. There is a gradual softening of end users attitudes towards cloud in the recent times. There is a growing interest in private cloud deployments but only a few handfuls of companies have moved out the filled space in converting their virtualized IT environments to a fully fledged private cloud solution. The analysis found from our paper states that The growth projection for the sector are likely to improve over time as local and nationwide legislation continues to be in closer agreement with the international standards while the growth population and incomes dynamic strengthen the growth for the foreseeable future. Cloud computing is a sizzling subject in the ICT Sector in the UAE and one of the key areas for it to develop. (Olson, 2012).

It is an attractive market and a lot of companies are eager to travel to the cloud this year. The UAE market is alike to the UK.

Over the next five years, about 50 percent of the enterprise market in the Middle East will have adopted cloud computing services. It is a slowly but surely growing market but this is going to be the top & next big thing that will happen over the next five years.

We believe Cloud computing is an expedition; we’re not going to get there tomorrow.

Limitations of Research-

Since our approach was of literature review of data collection, we were not able to find a lot of information on the local Cloud service providers in the UAE that limited our scope of research analysis.

We were not able to find lots of Companies in UAE who have already implemented Cloud solutions in their IT infrastructure for us to meet their CIO’s, IT Managers by taking their interviews to get their reviews, feedback on the benefits & challenges they faced during implementation & to incorporate there feedback in our research paper.