Running head: CLOUD COMPUTING

Cloud Computing: Is it our Future?

Stefanie L. Sodermark

Ashford University

INF103: Computer Literacy

Dr. Mark Revels

March 7, 2011
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Table of Contents

Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................2

Introduction......................................................................................................................................3

Body.................................................................................................................................................3

Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11

Table of FiguresY

Figure 1. Three categories of a client..............................................................................................4

Figure 2. Management and administration......................................................................................5

Figure 3: Resources your company can rent....................................................................................8

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Introduction

Cloud Computing: Is it our Future?

Cloud computing has been seen on television commercials, we have read about cloud

computing in books, and in magazines. Is cloud computing our future? It might be for some

people and not for others. As technology evolves and computers get smaller, the need for cloud

computing is inevitable. The consumer relishes the idea of carrying a small computer, like a

smart phone or tablet, in their hands and uses it just like their computer at home or at the office.

Body

According to Mark D. Bowles the definition of cloud computing is, “the cloud is a

metaphor describing the space that is used on the Internet, (typically, the Internet is considered a

cloud in the network) which stores data and application to use the information entered in the

cloud” Bowles (2010). The cloud icon represents information that makes the network work

(Velte, Velte, & Elsenpeter, 2009). The cloud lets you access applications that are located in a

different location other than your computer. The cloud is located at a data center that could be

right next door or across the country, or even both (Velte, Velte, & Elsenpeter, 2009).

There are three basic components of the cloud and each has their own role to play in the

cloud. The first one is clients, which is local area network (LAN) devices, desktop computers,

laptop computers, tablet computers, mobile phones, and personal digital assistants (PDA’s).

These are the big users of the cloud computing because they are mobile, with the exception of

the desktop computer; one would not want to carry that around with them. The second

component is the client; the client consists of three categories. The three categories are mobile,

thin, and thick. Mobile refers to PDA’s and smartphones. Thin refers to computers without hard
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drives, also known as dummy computers. Thick refers to regular desktop computer and laptop

computers and even tablets that can connect to the Internet as shown in figure 1.

Thin = computers
without
harddrives

Thick=desktop
Mobile = PDA's and lapatop
and Smart computers that
Phones connect to the
internet

Figure 1. Three
categories of a client.
Thin clients are becoming the user’s main choice. The reason is that thin computers do

not have hard drives, which makes them less expensive. If your thin computer is lost or stolen,

there is no hard drive for someone to retain your information. All of the information on a thin

computer is in the cloud. There is also lower hardware, IT costs, and there is less noise to a thin

computer Velte et al. (2009).

Remember the cloud is the Internet you also have to have an Internet Service Provider

(ISP). It does not matter which Internet browser you use. There are many to choose from, some

examples are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer, just to name a few.

Once you have chosen the provider you are going to work with it is time to pick what cloud

vendor is right for your needs (Velte et al., 2009). The biggest are Google, Yahoo,
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salesforce.com, and IBM; you are not limited to just these four companies (Velte et al., 2009).

There is an abundance of vendors to choose from; what you need to ask is what do you want the

vendor to do for you and how much do you want to invest in the cloud. One very important

factor to consider is security of the cloud (Velte et al., 2009).

When you are deciding what vendor you want, you need to know how you are going to

use the cloud. There are five cloud services; they are Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a

Service, Software as a Service, Hardware as a Service, and Database as a Service (shown in

figure 2) Hurwitz, Bloor, Kaufman, and Halper (2010). What does each service provide and

which one is right for you?

IaaS PaaS SaaS HaaS DaaS

Figure 2. Management and administration.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is supplying you with hardware such as servers,

networking technology, storage, and data center space. It may include the delivery of operating

systems and virtualization technology to help manage all of the resources. Hurwitz et al. (2010)

The IaaS customer is simply renting computer resources instead of buying and installing the

resources on their own data center. With IaaS you pay as you use the product. If you use the

product often, you will pay more, if you use it less you pay less. It is like a pay per view channel

on your television. The benefit of Iaas is that as you grow the cloud grows with you.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides everything a developer needs to build an

application. An advantage of PaaS is the cloud can make programs customized for your

company. Your company tells the cloud developers what you want and they make the program.
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The drawback is this could take a while, could be days or even months depending on how

complex your software might be. The PassS platform provides integrated set of software Hurwitz

et al. (2010). PaaS provides lifecycle management with capabilities to manage all software

development stages from the planning and design to building and deployment, to testing and

maintenance (Hurwitz et al., 2010). The major benefits of PaaS platform is the development and

deployment of the software. This is “based entirely in the cloud” (Hurwitz et al., 2010). With all

of the software being in the cloud you do not have to manage or maintain the software, this done

in the cloud. This aspect relives the companies IT department of dealing with that software.

There is a drawback of having the software in the PaaS cloud. If your company decides to move

to another cloud provider (vendor), the company that you chose before as a vendor might have a

lock-in feature into a particular environment and software (Hurwitz et al., 2010). If you decide

you do not like the service you have, you will most likely have to pay a very high price to move

to another provider (vendor) (Hurwitz et al., 2010). The company may not be able to take their

software with them. If they do, the company most likely has to change the program so they can

use it in another provider (vendor) (Hurwitz et al., 2010). If the company still likes the idea of a

PaaS cloud there is a platform that came from the fear of vendors locking the companies in. It is

a new variety of PaaS, it is Open Platform as a Service. This avoids the lock-in possibilities

(Hurwitz et al., 2010).

Now we will look at Software as a Service (SaaS) as a Platform. “One of the first

implementations of cloud services was Software as a Service (SaaS), business application that

are hosted by the provider (vendor) and delivered as a service.” (Hurwitz et al., 2010)

SaaS’s roots come from an early hosting operation form Application Service Providers

(ASPs). (Hurwitz et al., 2010) The Internet began to grow ASP vendors offered secure and
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privately hosted applications to the clients to use. The development of ASPs is to maintain

customer relationship management also known as (CRM). The most popular software is email,

which SaaS developed. The company Salesforce.com provides the most common categories of

SaaS. One advantage of using SaaS is the price of the software is on a per-use basis and involves

no upfront costs. (Hurwitz et al., 2010) If you do not use the programs, you do not pay for them.

If you have ten employees and five of them use the same program and the other five utilize a

different program that is in the cloud and still two other employees from both groups use the

software a few times. That is how your company’s invoice from the vendor will be. There is an

abundance of software to use with SaaS, which is already developed. Your company can try a

new program and then if they decide they like the program and it works for their business they

can keep using the software. However, if your company decides they do not like the program

they do not have to use it again. SaaS is more of a freedom platform. Use what you want and

when you want and if you do not like it do not use it. Another, advantage of SaaS is when

software that needs to an updated this is done automatically; the IT department does not have to

go to all the computers and upgrade them individually; the cloud takes care of that for you. Same

thing with new software the cloud makes the product available to whichever computer needs the

program. Your IT department does not have to worry about activation codes and purchasing

enough for all the users of the program.

“Hardware as a Service (HaaS) is the next form of service available in cloud computing.

Where SaaS and PaaS are providing application to customers, HaaS does not. It simply offers the

hardware so that your organization can put whatever they want onto it. HaaS is sometimes called

IaaS” (Velte, Velte, & Elsenpeter, 2009). Rather than purchasing severs, software, racks and

having to pay for a datacenter space, your organization rents these resources (Velte, Velte, &
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Elsenpeter, 2009). The resources that your company can rent are as follows:

Server
Space

Starge Network
space equipment

CPU clyles Memory

Figure : Resources your company can rent.

HaaS involves several pieces they are as follows: (Velte et al., 2009)

Service Agreements:
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This is an agreement between the provider and the client, guaranteeing a certain

Level of performance.

Computer hardware:

Components that are rented.

Network:

This includes hardware for firewalls, routers, and load balancing.

Internet connectivity:

This allows the clients to access the hardware from their own company.

Platform virtualization environment:

This allows the client to run the virtual machines.

Utility computing billing:

This is to allow billing of the customers based on how many resources they use.

There is one more “as a service” to talk about, and it is Database as a Service (DaaS).

“The idea behind DaaS is to avoid the complexity and cost of running your own database (Velte

et al., 2009).” DaaS offers ease of use, power, integration, and management Velte et al. (2009).

You can manage and create your own database if you wish (Velte et al., 2009). The vendor

works with you to customize a database that is right for your company. You do not have to worry

about selling, buying, or maintaining any hardware that is what the vendor does for your

company (Velte et al., 2009). The vendor can integrate your other services to provide more value

and power to your company.

Now that we know a small amount of information on the different types of clouds and

what is in them. There is one more element to be concerned with, and that is the need for

security. Security is the most important aspect of the cloud. Your company needs to decide what
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it wants to put in the cloud such that you can find a vendor that can handle your security. One

important aspect to remember is your information is in a cloud with everyone else’s information.

You do not want to put your employee’s social security numbers in the cloud or any other private

information regarding your employees. This type of information will be more secure in house

where your IT department can keep it safe utilizing firewalls. Yes, the cloud has firewalls also,

but with this technology being rather new; it is unknown for sure how well the firewalls work.

All the different cloud service providers have their own security that they use. Your vendor

protects your information. Make sure you know what security they have set up and if it is enough

for what you need. Put your vendor’s security to a test ask them these 17 questions and if they

answer, the way that you are comfortable with, this could be the vendor for your company. The

questions are as follows:

 What is the cloud provider’s security architecture and policy?

 Does the cloud provider use a third part to assess its own security risks?

 Does the cloud provider understand its responsibilities for governance issues

(such as cross-border data transfers)?

 How comprehensive is the service level agreement between you and the cloud

provider?

 Does the cloud provider understand your data preservation and protection needs?

 Where does your data physically live? Do you have the cloud provider’s

assurance that it will remain private?

 Does your cloud provider separate (partition) your data, applications, and/or

management tools from other users of its cloud services?

 Are there clear penalties for a data or system breach?

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 Does the cloud vendor provide data portability part of the service?

 Does the cloud provider have a security baseline that it promises to adhere to?

 Are you allowed to inspect the cloud facility?

 Does your cloud provider have well implemented patch management policies and

procedures?

 Does the cloud provider have application level firewalls along with other tools

that help keep your application and/or code safe?

 Can the cloud provider keep security information such as private keys private?

 Does the cloud provider provide encryption and key management?

 Does the cloud provider have a well-defined, well-executed identity and access

management architecture?

 Has single sign-on been implemented for the customer of a cloud provider?

(Hurwitz et al., 2010)

Even if your vendor has a good security program in place, it is your company’s

responsibility to protect and secure your information (Hurwitz et al., 2010). Many of the standard

agreements vendors offer do not protect your company they protect the vendor. Your company is

still responsible to maintain the company’s security. To reduce cloud security breaches you

should authenticate all people accessing the network. Users should only have access to the

applications and data that they have authorization to use. Authenticate all software running on

your computer including any changes to the software, start a formalize request of permission to

the date or applications. Log all unusual activity by monitoring the network, watch, and log your

employee’s activity in case something unexpected was to happen. If you find a need you can

encrypt the data, this would mean only certain employees could access the secure information.
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The IT department should regularly check the network for any applications that an employee

might have downloaded (Hurwitz et al., 2010). Security is the most important aspect to

computers and it is no different in the cloud. The cloud has not been around long enough or used

wide spread enough for someone to hack into it. Nevertheless, we know someone somewhere

will eventually try to hack into a cloud. This would be an enormous problem for the client and

the vendor.

Conclusion

After reviewing this paper, is cloud computing our future? It can, but not at this time.

Cloud computing is not for everyone. Big businesses are using cloud computing, because it is

cost effective for them and they can have their employees connect anywhere they are. They can

use their laptops, smartphones, tablets, and PDA’s of any kind. Smaller business, which do not

have an abundance of information or software to share, would be better to keep their data stored

right at their business. There will be a time for cloud computing, but right now, it is still too early

to have everyone in the cloud. The major factor is the security of the cloud. The cloud sounds

like a good idea; however, the cloud community is not secure enough for comfort. If you want to

start cloud computing, there is enough information in this paper to get you started. Maybe

someday are clouds will pass? Until then the laptop and the hard drive and storage devices will

keep on running.
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References

Bowles M D 2010 Introduction to Computer LiteracyBowles, M. D. (2010). Introduction to

Computer Literacy. Retrieved March 1, 2011, from

http://conent.ashford.edu/books/AUINF103.10.1

Hurwitz J Bloor R Kaufman M Halper F 2010 Cloud Computing for DummiesHurwitz, J., Bloor,

R., Kaufman, M., & Halper, F. (2010). Cloud Computing for Dummies (1 ed.). Hoboken,

NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Velte A T Velte T J Elsenpeter R 200909 Cloud Computing, A Practial ApproachVelte, A. T.,

Velte, T. J., & Elsenpeter, R. (2009, September). Cloud Computing, A Practial Approach.

Retrieved March 2, 2011, from http://site.ebray.com/lib/ashford/docDetail.action?

docID=10343391