Cloud computing is internet based development and use of computer technology. Cloud computing provides various business applications which are developed on internet and can be accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers. These applications are broadly divided into the following categories: Software as a Service (SaaS), Utility Computing, Web Services, Platform as a Service (PaaS), Managed Service Providers (MSP), Service Commerce, and Internet Integration.
Cloud Computing Taxonomy
Layer
– Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
– Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)– Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
– Data Storage-as-a-Service (DaaS)
– Communication-as-a-Service (CaaS)
– Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS)
Type
– Public cloud
– Private cloud
– Hybrid cloud
Security Issues in Cloud Computing
European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), European Network and Information Security has addressed on this issue with a comprehensive report - Cloud Computing: Benefits, Risks and Recommendations for Information Security The report deals with various political, technical and legal issues and various recommendations on how to maximize the benefits for the users. It tackles with 35 major security risks and privacy issues concerning a transition into Cloud Computing.
To know how can it be safe to reveal in a cloud your data providers and, in some cases the entire company's infrastructure; the report was produced based on various checklists depending on various cloud computing scenarios, focusing on commercial customer's need.
RSA has published a Guide to Cloud Security - Identity and Data Protection in the Cloud: Best Practices for Establishing environments of trust. This guide, which was written jointly by experts from the security company EMC, RSA and VMware gives an overview of cloud-specific security and compliance requirements. It says Clouds may exceed the safety level of conventional IT infrastructures in the future. Various guidelines and protocols can be implemented directly in the Clouds in the virtualization layer. With fully functional cloud computing, the result is a potential would be leaner, smarter security architectures than what is currently available.
Advantages - Companies wishing to migrate their IT environment to a virtualized cloud. Nobody needs to start from scratch. To protect users from cyber attack on cloud and unauthorized access, it can have authentication and fraud detection systems build on a multi layer platform that also cope with phishing and other forms of information theft.
Disadvantages - The highest hurdle from security point of view, according to guidelines in the lack of trust between providers of cloud infrastructures and their potential customers.
Cloud Computing Evolution : The Revolution in World Business
With evolving Cloud Computing, the entire information economy would permanently change their technologies and their business and thus affecting the relationships between suppliers and customers. With respect to the outsourcing of IT services, cloud computing can be provided as needed in real time and flexible as a service via the internet or within a corporate network and billed according to usage. These outsourced IT services can be related to software platforms for the development and operation of applications and the basic infrastructure, or about the space. The use of cloud computing will benefit all professional users, small and start-up companies without large investments. Moreover outsourced IT companies can easily collaborate virtually with other companies in order to increase their product and service offerings and to combine them. SMEs benefit from the efficient and fast access to global competition. Large companies can absorb demand peaks quickly and cheaply. In such firms, the demand for computing power, is highly variable, currently the internal IT department is usually not designed for peak loads.
Various initiative for Cloud Computing
IBM with the largest Cloud computing Environment
The Cloud enables employees to access information scattered around the world. This should lead to better decisions at point of sale and help to anticipate business opportunities and be able to react quickly. The Cloud provides a framework for business analysis, regardless of where the company has the employee's location. IBM is not only the provider of BI solutions including SMB category, it has the world's largest cloud computing environment.IBM employees will receive the Cloud access to structured and unstructured data. Sales using real-time data to understand sales opportunities and anticipate how much revenue will be generated in their region. Product development teams to analyze sales information, industry trends and customer perspective and use them for product innovation. Engineers have finally consumed in production processes through real-time data to adjust processes and improve delivery times.
Future Outlook
IDC predicts growth of European Cloud services of €971m in 2008 to €6,005m in 2013. The extent and flexibility of cloud computing is numerous, operators can instantly activate additional filters, re-routing and issue new security patches more efficiently.
The market growth of cloud computing is impressive. Market researchers at Gartner, estimated the current global market rate for the year 2008 with over 46 billion U.S. dollars. By 2013 this figure should rise to over 150 billion U.S. dollars.
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