[June 28, 2011] Silver Lining And Darkness of Cloud Computing Services Tweet Nairobi, Jun 28, 2011 (The Nation/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- Cloud computing offers new ways of handling data storage and computing needs in enterprises. Firms and individuals have a choice of tapping in the advantages of the clouds as well as guarding against their deficiencies. Basically, there are three models of cloud computing. They are, SaaS, Paas and Iaas. In Software as a Service or SaaS, the end-users' applications run on a cloud infrastructure and are accessible through a web browser. Google's Gmail, Salesforce.com and WebEx are some examples of SaaS. The other model, PaaS, delivers computing platform and solution stack as a service accessible via Internet connectivity. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), is the delivery of computing hardware as a service. The service agreement for IaaS may include the virtualisation technologies necessary for managing the hardware resources. Examples are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 and Microsoft Azure. Cloud computing portends real benefits to enterprises though there are some short-comings. In the past few months, there has been some notable trouble in the clouds. The Amazon Web Service suffered an outage in April affecting several client websites and companies. In May, the Microsoft cloud service, BPOS was affected by recurring outages on three consecutive days. Google has so far experienced two separate incidents with the Gmail service. In late February this year, a bug in one of Google's updates negatively affected thousands of Gmail and Google application users. Recently, hackers harvested email passwords and private data from hordes of Gmail users including senior officials in the US Government. But the most disastrous outage has been at Sony PlayStation Network. Hackers hit the Sony PlayStation in April thus compromising the private information of some 77 million users. The company now expects a decline in profits and the hacker attack is estimated to reduce revenues by $270 million. Security is a critical issue to both companies and individuals. In cloud computing technology, the data and computing services are stored in the 'cloud' hence raising queries on data protection, access and general movement in the elastic cloud. For companies, the idea of having their information stored hundreds of miles away from their premises calls for clear assurance on security matters. Also, individuals are comfortable when their private information is stored safely without any breaches. Securing data in the clouds is a challenge that dogs this new computing technology. When an enterprise migrates to the clouds they lose a substantial part in control over the stored data. The computing services simply become a utility which is accessible via Internet connectivity. Industry experts advice companies to stay safe in the clouds and guard sensitivity of the data. There are three important aspects to consider as part of data control when one moves to the clouds. First, protecting enterprise information from illegal access requires encryption of data before its dispatched to the clod servers. Second, there is need for identity management and secure password access controls. Thirdly, companies can opt for intrusion detection tools so that an alert is raised in case of suspicious activities like hacking and unexpected access. Fundamentally, the issues of security require collaboration between the cloud providers and customers with each party adhering to satisfactory security measures. Silver lining The dark side notwithstanding, the clouds have a silver lining. The benefits of cloud computing accrue in terms of ICT cost-cutting, extra storage space stemming from the elasticity of the clouds and flexibility in IT operations. The promises of cloud computing are tantalising in modern computing world. Among the aspects that will propel the cloud computing technology is the need for extra storage services in companies and Internet based services. For now mobile technologies are tuning to the clouds for extra storage. Apple Company recently launched the iCloud hence signalling on the trends in the industry. The future of mobile cloud computing technology will involve transfer of most data storage and complex computing power from a mobile device into the clouds. For companies migrating to the clouds or already utilising cloud services, the realities in the cloud environment demand a clear perspective of benefits and limitations in line with ICT needs. While the cloud might be a panacea to needs of one company, in some cases they can render the organisation stark bare to cloud deficiencies. The writer is a Telecommunication Engineer. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]