Cloud Computing - Part Two
In part two of this two part blog post on cloud computing, we will cover:
1. Concerns related to cloud computing
2. Factors which can accelerate wide spread adoption of cloud computing
1. Concerns related to cloud computing
(a) Security: One of the biggest concerns related to cloud computing is
security. This is because sensitive data may no longer reside on
dedicated hardware, secured within the enterprise’s own data centers.
If the cloud is not secure enough enterprises will hesitate to migrate
their business related data to the cloud platform.
(b) Poor Service Level Agreements: Service Level Agreement (SLA) is an
integral part of the business relationship between a service provider
and a customer. An SLA is essentially a contract between a service
provider and a customer which clearly defines the business
relationship, assures the customer that the service will meet stated
requirements, and provides contingencies in case issues arise.
Due to poor or non-existent Service Level Agreements, cloud computing
confidence and adoptions is affected. Most Enterprise IT organizations
will not adopt cloud services on a large scale until service levels can
be clearly spelled out and backed up. For many IT organizations Service
Level Agreements are a requirement to use any vendor’s service since
the absence of an SLA puts the business at risk from an operational,
financial, or liability standpoint.
The main issues commonly found in cloud computing related Service Level Agreements are:
• Lack of guaranteed availability
• Lack of guaranteed performance
• Lack of guaranteed support and response time
(c)
Inadequate Risk Assessment: Risk Assessment and Management is often
considered the greatest concern in cloud computing. Risks associated
with cloud computing can be generally classified into:
(i) Legal, compliance and reputation risks
(ii) Operational risks
Legal, compliance and reputation risks can result from cloud computing
vendors leaking, losing, breaching, damaging or impeding access to
various types of sensitive or valuable information. When information is
leaked, damaged, or lost by a cloud computing vendor, the customer
organization may face legal or regulatory consequences for which there
is little recourse. Cloud customers are unlikely to repair the
reputation damage by transferring the responsibility to the cloud
vendor.
The majority of the operational risks for cloud computing services are
related to IT security, performance or availability. Small to medium
sized organizations could see a net gain operational security by using
a professional cloud computing service. However, larger enterprises may
see lower levels of security in the areas of strong encryption, access
control, monitoring and physical separation of resources.
(d) Vendor Lock-in: Vendor lock-in is a real and major concern in cloud computing. The factors that lead to vendor lock-in are:
(i) Lack of interoperability between cloud services
(ii) Inability to migrate to other cloud services
(iii) Vendor management limitations at the customer’s end
(e) Management Issues: There are two management issues often associated
with cloud computing – performance monitoring & troubleshooting and
data management. Many cloud computing service providers do not provide
adequate tools for performance monitoring. Many vendors also do not
have the ability to effectively trouble shoot when issues arise.
Similar to performance monitors some vendors do not provide tools for
meta-data manipulation or extraction of data.
2. Factors which can accelerate wide spread adoption of cloud computing
(a) Expenditure and ROI: As mentioned in part one of this post, cloud
computing enables customers to defer large capital expenditure. This
will probably be the biggest factor which will drive the wide spread
adoption of cloud computing. The current model is to buy as much
infrastructure as is needed to meet estimated peak capacity and in most
cases this results in under-utilized IT resources. Cloud computing
offers the ability to scale up and scale down as per demand and a
pay-as-you-go business model where the customer pays only for the
services actually used. In financial terms, this translates into less
capital expenditure and more operational expenditure. The advantage of
operational expenditure is that it can be fine tuned as per need,
thereby resulting in more efficient utilization of financial resources
and better return on investment (ROI).
(b) Wide spread Mobile Internet Access: It is fair to assume that in
another 5 to 6 years, significant progress will be made in the field of
Internet connectivity resulting in the ability to connect to the
Internet at all places where it is possible to connect to a mobile
telecommunication tower. Further, the spread of 4G wireless standards
will bring broadband Internet access to remote locations and will
introduce true broadband connectivity to automobiles, trains and even
commercial aircrafts. This will boost cloud computing acceptance as
internet access is a pre-requisite most for cloud computing models.
Another factor which will help acceptance of cloud computing is the
availability of smart phones and net-books which help mobile users
connect to the Internet.
(c) Offline Access for Online Applications: Google Mail or GMail is a
commonly cited example where an online application is available for
offline use when there is no Internet connectivity. This allows the
user to continue working while being disconnected from the online
application, hosted on a cloud computing platform. On restoration of
Internet connectivity changes made to the offline version are
synchronized with the online version of the application. For cloud
computing applications, this means that Internet connectivity is not
always required for users to work with the application.
(d) Separation of Data from Applications: In application development,
it is becoming increasingly common practice to separate data from
applications. For enabling users to connect with minimum of system
pre-requisites, application front ends are being delivered via web
pages which can be accessed from any browser. The backend is maintained
separately, powered by highly scalable databases. Factors like WAN
(Wide Area Network) speeds of over 100 Mbps, decreasing bandwidth costs
and WAN acceleration technologies will assist the separation of data
and applications.
This concludes part two of this two part blog post on “Cloud Computing”.
~ Sunish