IN THE NEWS: Russian Hackers Release 5 Million Gmail Usernames and Passwords Online

Check out the full articcle:

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/russian-hackers-release-5-million-gmail-usernames-and-97147084299.html

 

My welcome back post – Plus and cons of cloud computing

After a long break from posting ( I have been quite busy with uni projects) I am back and talking about the new trend in the IT world: cloud. This is just s brief introduction for you to understand what cloud are and why most companies are now considering moving to cloud. 

 What is cloud computing?

The U.S National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines cloud computing as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources […] that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” (Mell and Grance, 2011: 2). In other words, computing resources are made simple to access, easy to use at low cost and on-demand over networks, often Internet (Marks and Lozano, 2010).

The main characteristics of cloud computing are:

• On-demand self-service,
• Broad network access making resources available over the network and accessible through any client platforms,
• Measured services as resources usage can be monitored, controlled and reported (Mell and Grance, 2011),
• Flexibility and rapid elasticity allowing the user to rapidly access resources without human interaction (Mell and Grance, 2011),
• Resources pooling as resources are pooled across multiples users (Mell and Grance, 2011).
• Location independence, as the exact location of the provider is not always known by the users (Zissis and Lekkas, 2010).

Advantages

Easy Management: IT department is relieved from the duty of maintaining computing infrastructures. Clouds are also more user-friendly as users can easily access information through browsers (Jadeja and Modi, 2012).

Cost reduction: This is the main advantage of cloud computing. Cost of infrastructure, cost and maintenance, cost of IT staff as well as IT outsourced services and other cost related to the traditional computing will reduce considerably (Jadeja and Modi, 2012). Furthermore it is Cost –effective based on a pay-as-you-go system, you pay for what you use (Wang, 2013).

Uninterrupted services and data storage: There are practically no records of outage occurring in cloud computing which guarantee the organisation a more reliable and uninterrupted service (Jadeja and Modi, 2012).

Disaster management: Organisations can use cloud for off-site backing of crucial data in case of an on-site disaster. Furthermore clouds storage services have put in place systems for disaster recovery (Jadeja and Modi, 2012).

Green computing and improved data redundancy:  Cloud is environmental-friendly as it reduces harmful emission from extensive use system, electronic waste, e-waste and energy consumption (Jadeja and Modi, 2012).

Latest version availability and mobility of data access: Documents, information saved on a cloud will be updated and accessible as users make alterations (Jadeja and Modi, 2012).

Challenges & Disadvantages

Security and privacy is the main concerns regarding cloud computing with some of the top threats for SMEs being data breaches, data loss, traffic hijacking. Other security issues includes insecure interface and APIs, attackers preventing users from accessing their data, malicious insiders who previously had authorised access to the company’s information and wickedly misuses that access and incompatibility issues due to shared technology. These risks have made most companies reluctant to move to clouds but actually have affordable and achievable solutions (Cloud Security Alliance, 2013).

Data communication cost:  As much as cloud computing significantly reduces the cost associated with infrastructure, it raise the cost of data communication, the cost of transferring the company’s data from and to public and community clouds as well as the cost of computing resources used. Furthermore the cost of tackling the security issues related to data integration (presenting data from different clouds to a user) can be considerable (Dillon, Wu and Chang, 2010).

Complicates charging: The cost analysis/calculation was made more complicated by the elasticity of the” resources pool” (virtualisation or multi-tenancy) (Dillon, Wu and Chang, 2010).

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) which govern the quality, availability, reliability and performance of the service provided is one of the most important elements of moving to clouds. The terms of an SLA are difficult to define as they have to cover all grounds, be measureable, verifiable and enforceable terms (Dillon, Wu and Chang, 2010). SLA relates to the user’s trust and the establishment of a relationship with the provider (Alshamaila, Papagiannidis and Li, 2013).

Transmission of data: When transferring data to a cloud, sensitive information need to be encrypted to ensure confidentiality of data. Some critical information transmissions need to meet standards set by authorities (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2012).

Data Storage: Because data from different organisations/users are being stored in the same storage media, there is a high risk of data spillage, whether unintentional or malicious (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2012).

Legal challenges are related to, amongst other things, the actual physical location of the provider and the physical storage locality, SLAs, regulation regarding data storage (customer information). The company should seek legal advices (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2012).

In my next post I will discuss the different type of cloud services.