Cloud Computing Technology, Research Paper Example

Introduction

Cloud computing is considered to be a value driven technology, as it saves cost along with advanced Virtualization of business functions that is globally accessible. Organizations consider it a cost effective tool, as the requirement of maintaining a complex technology infrastructure along with resources is not essential. Likewise, risk factors are also being considered, as the risk, mentioned in the underpinning contract is now owned by a third party i.e. cloud computing vendors. Martin Sandler, who is a director of HP systems security Lab says, “People often think of virtualization as adding to security problems, but it is fundamentally the answer to a lot of those problems,” (Anthes, 2010).In a nutshell, cloud computing delivers major advantages along with negative consequences as well. For instance, information of an organization needs to be protected and is the ultimate responsibility of the board of director for which they are also liable.

We have selected a small medium enterprise called as ‘Wizni Incorporated’ this is transformed from a traditional IT service to a cloud service provider.  The Information technology architecture of the company incorporates three components i.e. business analytics expertise, along with the provision of a quality cloud hosting provider. Likewise, the core competency of Wizni Inc. is business analytics. Moreover, the company is delivering business analytics bundled with powerful systems enabling their clients to make efficient decision making. Wizni Incorporated provides state of the art analytics solutions for empowering organizations to utilize business intelligence required for making efficient decision making. The company provides Business intelligence deployments that facilitate ease of discovery, patterns hidden in IT systems, applications and unstructured data. The business analytics products are DIFEE™ (data-inference and federation engine) and Score IT (Big-data mining, business analytics, mobile applications, cloud computing solutions). DIFEE is used for virtualization and Score IT is used for data mining, model scoring and life cycle management. Furthermore, IBM Cognos Express is also a first integrated business intelligence tool that is precisely developed and acquired by the company to meet customer requirements. The tool is bundled with critical reporting, scorecard, analysis, budgeting, forecasting dashboard and customization features and capabilities for the small medium enterprises at an affordable cost without large associated investments. Moreover, the tool incorporates a pre-configured solution that is very easy for installation and use for the end users. The transition of this new powerful cloud solution is approved by the board on the basis of gaining competitive edge among small medium enterprises within the region. Previously, there was no growth in clientele and after implementing the cloud based solution, clientele sky rocketed and stakeholders were satisfied at the same time ready to invest in the technological solution.

On the other hand, cloud computing also reflects significant risks, principal risks of cloud computing is associated with federal agencies and regulations. Any vulnerability found in the software, platform or infrastructure of the vendors will expose serious exposures, as information may be related to more than one organization. Moreover, employees working internally on the cloud computing premises of ‘Business Cloud’ may also expose a serious threat if no proper background employee checks were performed during recruitment procedures. Furthermore, if any governmental agencies for instance, military or other sensitive body is also using the same cloud from the same vendor is also most likely to be compromised, if any breach of any one of these fundamental concepts Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability is successful. In addition, the incident response function may not be efficient and effective if any incident occurs and affect the customer or employee. For instance, if a security incident affects the customer, the incident response function of the organization will trigger in a timely manner to isolate and investigate the root cause via root cause analysis. In a cloud computing scenario, it may be a different case and result in ambiguity, as from where the investigation should begin. If an incident is triggered from the vendor’s site, evidence is required to act accordingly and may consume more time that is always a critical success factor. Therefore, compliance of cloud computing vendors and implementing security controls as per the governmental information security requirements is the major concern of organizations associated with services on clouds. Moreover, organizations have also concerns on assessment of security controls and independent audit and limitations of the vendor because data of many organizations are located at the vendor site that may increase risk of the CIA (Wilshusen 2011). Therefore, an agreement is in process for establishing an independent organization that may conduct security audits and assessment. In this way, organizations can select vendors who are approved by these independent organizations maintaining the required security controls and standards.

Cloud computing continues to benefit business by lowering down the cost associated with hardware, software and human resource. However, some of the debatable issues including personal privacy, lack of security control and sharing data are still seeking a solution. Likewise, providing superior benefits for ease of development, minimized costs, high scalability along with next generation architecture are facilitating Information technology to evaluate cost benefit analysis while doing risk assessment (Cloud computing and open source face-off, n.d). At the same time, open source has played a vital role in cloud computing and facilitated to enable low cost input that can also be considered as free of cost and rich features for cloud service providers. Moreover, buzz in the industry concludes that the cloud computing service will utilize the open source to gain power and control to establish next generation proprietary platform-as-a service that is similar to Web 2.0 (Cloud computing and open source face-off, n.d).

For achieving optimal benefits from Information technology, IT must be aligned with business objectives via strategic alignment, value delivery, risk management, resource management and performance management. The reason for selecting Wizni Incorporated is the acquisition of most up to date technology i.e. cloud computing supporting business analytics. By focusing on agile solution methods, that company will facilitate organizations to gain insights and competitive advantage that is a key objective for any organization. Moreover, the most positive factor of the company is the focus on key business objectives.

In contrast to cloud computing, a more advanced and extended form of technology is Next Generation Business Analytics that facilitates organizations to analyze massive data available in large data sets collected by automated information systems and applications. Likewise, next generation solution supplement existing system and provide fast, flexible and low cost technologies that put more data directly in to the hands of end users with tools that allow deeper exploration and understanding of company customer and product performance. Moreover, these next generation technologies cover the below mentioned three aspects that were not covered by previous technologies:

• Detailed operational data on one location for thorough in-depth analysis
• IT development efforts are required and related lead times to produce and maintain standards and ad hoc reports
• No provision of ‘easy to use’ tools for end users

A comparison of cloud computing with virtualization technology has a major difference. The virtual environment requires a facility with adequate temperature controlled environment. Moreover, servers with multiple processor cores are also required to execute more than one instances of an operating system virtually but physically on a single machine. Moreover, Storage area network is also essential for effective data communication within these virtual loaded images. Security is also a primary concern, as a breach in any one of the virtual clusters may result in a downtime of several systems. Furthermore, a full time employee or a vendor contract is required for configuring, developing and maintaining the infrastructure operational. Whereas, cloud computing technology minimize several risk factors, as Marketing headlines from the vendor side always highlights a promise of provisioning private cloud. However, the requirement of private cloud derives more, as business and cultural relationships are changed for facilitating them for evolution of public and private cloud computing. Moreover, business relationships with trading partners are also affected by cloud computing technological evolution, as they are expected to frequent change.

References

Anthes, G. (2010). Security in the cloud Communications of the ACM, 53(11), 16. doi: 10.1145/1839676.1839683

Big-data mining, business analytics, mobile applications, cloud computing solutions Retrieved 11/28/2012, 2012, from http://www.wizni.com/intelligenceanalyticsoverview.html

Cloud computing and open source face-off, n.d | ZDNet Retrieved 11/24/2012, 2012, from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hinchcliffe/cloud-computing-and-open-source-face-off/543

Wilshusen, G. C. (2011). Information Security: Additional guidance needed to address cloud computing concerns. GAO Reports, , 1.