Dhawi Binshalhoub

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New Development in Information Technology A Research Project on Cloud Computing

Dhawi Binshalhoub IT103 009 10/3/2013

Dhawi Binshalhoub Introduction

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Since the introduction of iCloud in the infamous speech given by Steve Jobs, the idea of cloud computing has become popular. According to Apples website, iCloud is a virtual storage that lets users of Apples devices access music, photos, documents, and more from any devices and anywhere. The users can buy music, take photos, write a reminder, set a calendar event and make documents on one device, and then the same content automatically appears on the all devices (http://www.apple.com/icloud/). In specifics, there are two components to iCloud: a virtual storage and cloud computing. These two components are not new by themselves but when they are combined together, the product is revolutionary. The iCloud changes the way people transfer information from computer to mobile device. It empowers the mobile devices to become an extension of the computer. Cloud computing is an exciting new technology that disrupts the way people doing business. Background Cloud computing is still relatively new; therefore, its definition is not standardized. Some sources called it utility computing, others called it grid computing. A source defines cloud computing as a style of computing where scalable and elastic IT capabilities are provided as a service to multiple customers using Internet technologies (Future bright for cloud computing, 2009, Jun 10). A list of possible components of cloud computing includes computing resources packaged as a commodity and made available over the internet, the ability for end users to rapidly provision the resources they need and a pricing model that charges consumers only for those cloud resources they actually use (Shroff, G. 2010). Cloud computing is expected to transform the enterprise computing practice. Although, virtualization of systems is getting more and more common, there is not any research of the benefits and costs of using cloud computing.

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The reason behind this lack of materials is that cloud computing for businesses is still in the early stage of development. Potential benefits Some of the benefits of cloud computing are freedom of location, less time and resources consuming, (Future bright for cloud computing, 2009, Jun 10). These points are valid for business enterprises because their goals is to increase efficiency quickly, cut costs properly and let the business contract maintaining the system to vendors. Cloud computing broke the physical infrastructure of IT systems (Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2010). The removal of physical assets cuts the total costs of ownership of the information system. Cloud computing also puts an emphasis on the end-user, in opinion, in terms of control of the system. End-users do not have to be in the same building or even the same country to be able to access data and manipulate information. The cloud enabled a new framework for developing business system. Data sending and receiving is faster because all intermediaries between sender and receiver are physical equipments which were eliminated on the cloud system. Legal Writing new legislations takes time and resources and implementing laws is lagging greatly behind the development of information technology. There is a lack of laws pertaining cloud data storage, personal information protection on virtual system and at the same time still honor the freedom of access to information. Finding the balance between privacy and access has always been the main debate for information technology laws. Legislations would dictate the limit of access and the right to privacy. The information of individuals and organizations are subjected to privacy. Getting information out of clouds without the owner permission would be considered an intrusion of privacy. This is an intrusion tort, which can be described as psychic trespass

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(Davis & Splichal). An example would be the act of reporters taking pictures of celebrities with hidden cameras. The point here is that due to the lack of clear cloud computing laws, the information on these clouds would be at risks. End-users could have their information stole without their acknowledgement. Ethical issues Using cloud computing has certain ethical issues. When faced with the decision to use virtual system, the firm would have two choices that would lead to consequences. One is to trust the vendor with the cloud data management but the vendor may use the data for some other purposes for example insider trading. The other choice is to develop and implement the cloud computing in house, but this will eliminate the freedom to do other business activities, not to mention recurring costs of IT systems. In order to avoid ethical issues from the vendors, the business should set ethical standards and require vendors to comply or take full responsibilities. Another ethical issue would be some companies could obtain social networking information such as public photos or profiles of individuals. Employers could use such information to determine the hiring process. There is a lack of laws on information made public by the users and who can have access to such information. Due to these photos or profiles are made public by default by the system, the users are exposed to privacy invasion. It is an ethical decision for employers to choose whether to use the information obtained on cloud. Security concerns Challenges to the security of cloud based system are worth considering. First, by having virtual systems, the business loses control of the physical system which is a critical asset to operating the business. Processes (Rittinghouse & Ransome). Business may not know if the cloud is public or shared with other clouds, as opposed to the traditional system where information is sent and

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received through some sort of feeds or interfaces. The data on the cloud is out there for capture as long as the seeker has the right tools. This is not safe for business information is very sensitive. Another challenge is a lack of standard for developing cloud. The idea of cloud is very vague and each vendor would develop clouds differently. The clouds are also unique to suit the business requirements. Therefore, there are definitely some incompatibility issues from one vendor to another. As a result, business needs to stick with one vendor, but putting all eggs in one basket is risky. The vendor can do whatever they want with the data of the business. It is difficult to find and maintain a good vendor for all cloud based system needs because of changing requirements. Social problems Since cloud computing is relatively new to the business world, there are not many sources found on the social problems associated with applications run with cloud database. At the moment, cloud computing represents a virtual database that allows users to access and make changes to the same information at any time on any devices. In my opinion, social problems do not come from cloud computing because it is a quite sophisticated and virtual element. It will take a lot more integrations and applications of cloud database into the social network to be able to affect social norms and values. The set of social problems that comes with social network could be amplified if cloud computing lends help to social sites such as FB. On of such problems is privacy. A source indicated that the challenge in data privacy [for cloud computing] is to share data while protecting personally identifiable information (Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2010). In a society where privacy is damaged there a lot of social unrests that affect the way people behave on the internet. A society in a virtual world - in the cloud based future - needs certain privacy to function normally. For example, if an employer can see employees information on their clouds

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then they can use all details for the hiring process. As a result, an employee can be rejected or fired because of the lack of privacy of cloud storage. There would be a social backlash against technology in the end because the easier to access, the harder to protect data. Further required research Over the last few years cloud computing has been evolving very fast, as similar to the ephemeral life of technology. There must be more research on improving the security of cloud based system. There is also should be more research on how to develop clouds in a universal language. There should be research on criteria of good and reliable clouds. In the future, cloud computing can become the next big thing with the help of mobile application booming. Conclusion Cloud computing has grown more and more popular over the years. With the rapid development of mobile devices and mobile apps, the need for cloud storage is increasing exponentially. There are many benefits to implement cloud system for businesses such as costs saving. However, business should precede with precaution because of the privacy risk and data loss risks. There are still more developments that need to be done before cloud computing can become universal. New legislations should establish a basic set of rules for cloud systems now that they are becoming crucial. The legislations would also provide some reduction of bad ethical practices.

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Annotated Bibliography Book: Baun, Christian. Kunze, Marcel. Nimis, Jens and Tai, Stefan. Cloud Computing. Web-based Dynamic IT Services. New York, NY. Springer. This is book has the basic background, definition and some technical steps of virtualization of IT systems. This is a very good book for someone who wants to learn cloud computing. In this book, there is also a list of examples of web-based systems for major corporations such as Amazon. The entire book is not a hard read in roughly eighty pages. Mostly, I find the first two chapters to be very useful. The clear explanations and examples really helped me understand what cloud computing is. Book: Davis, Charles & Splichal, Sigman. 2000. Access Denied. Ames, Iowa. Iowa State University Press. This book is a collection of online information and data protection. One particular point in the book is valuable. Chapter five pointed out that privacy and access are two inversely related variables. This chapter also provides some legal guidances associated to the privacy on the internet. There are some case laws which explain intrusion of privacy as a tort. This is an important point to be considered regarding the legal aspect of cloud computing. I find this book very dense to read but it is not too length. I was able to extract the information on intrusion tort and applied to cloud computing. Book: Rittinghouse, John and Ransome, James. Cloud Computing - Implementation, Management and Security. This is a great book for my paper because it has most of the information on cloud computing management among the sources I obtained. It is also a relatively new book on cloud computing.

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The topics are very refreshing to read compared to the more technical sources. The book is easy to understand and interpret. I enjoy learning about cloud computing from this book. Book: Shroff, Gautam. 2010. Enterprise Cloud Computing- Technology, Architecture, Applications. New York, NY. Cambridge University Press in New York. This book provides very good definitions and background of cloud computing. It also shows virtualization of the business IT systems and technical components of cloud databases. Especially in chapter six, the author talks about the economics of cloud computing. I spent quite some time reading the first and sixth chapters to capture what the definition and benefits of cloud computing. This book is a good book for an IT professional who wants to learn almost every technical details about enterprise cloud computing. Magazine: Future bright for cloud computing. 2009, Jun 10. Network World Middle East, Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/211019506?accountid=27975. Last accessed 10/2/2013 This magazine article details the future of cloud computing is promising, so small and midsize businesses should buy cloud computing. This article argued cloud computing makes doing business easier because it is more efficient, gives businesses more freedom to do business anywhere any time, and it saves time. I read this article first to find the basic definition of cloud computing and found out that small and midsize businesses clouds implementation is the future of this new technology. This article is simple and not a research paper so the assumptions are not proven and it is pure speculations of the author. However, this is still a good idea for further research on cloud computing. Journal: Sujit Dey. Mobile cloud applications: opportunities, challenges and directions. 2013. In Proceedings of the first international workshop on Mobile cloud computing &

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networking (MobileCloud '13). ACM Digital Library, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1-2. DOI=10.1145/2492348.2492351 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2492348.2492351. Last accessed 10/2/2013. This is a good journal about the background, development and security concerns of mobile cloud applications. It serves as my reading to understand most popular implementations of cloud computing. Reading this journal prompted me to use iCloud as an example of cloud computing. The article was an easy read. I found this article on ACM Digital Library, which has many sources of research on information technology. Website: iCloud. www.apple.com/icloud. Apple Inc. Last accessed 10/2/2013 This site is where I captured the definitions and functions of iCloud. I used iCloud as an example to introduce cloud computing as a new technology. This is a quick reference. Using iCloud, I was able to understand and demonstrate how end-users can interact with the data in the cloud and with the systems.