Ist 305 Cloud Computing Paper

Henry Lippert

IST 305

Feb. 24th, 2013

Cloud computing is becoming more and more popular amongst businesses of all sizes and shows no signs of slowing. A survey sponsored by CompTIA, an IT industry trade association for nonprofit, shows eight in ten companies are using some form of cloud computing currently, with more than half surveyed planning to increase their investments in cloud technology in the coming year. (Smith, 2012) Before, only big corporations could afford the technology for cloud computing, but the highly sophisticated tools necessary for cloud computing are becoming increasingly more available and affordable to businesses of all sizes. This affordability allows business to cut their operating costs drastically by switching to

Previously, the resources needed for computing, hardware and software, were distributed physically. The Cloud allows these resources to be transferred via the internet. This is incredibly convenient for individuals and businesses alike, however; in order to do this users’ data and computations are entrusted to remote services. The cloud is broken up into three different types, public, private, and hybrid. When cloud computing first arrived on the scene the focus was on public, but when security concerns in the public cloud arose IT professionals began to switch to private cloud computing. Presently, the hybrid is the most sought after distribution for cloud computing. The hybrid cloud is exactly what it sounds like, the composition of at least one public cloud and one private cloud. Each type has both benefits and weaknesses when compared to the others. This paper will discuss those strengths and weaknesses and how they relate to an individual’s

I personally think businesses are too focused on the short-term rather than the long-term. I believe the smartest investment lies in the public cloud model. The lack of security is a major factor, but I believe that as time goes on more measures will be put in place to make these networks fully secure. The security failings of large companies’ cloud systems we sometimes see on the news, most notably Amazon and Zappos, are rare and isolated incidents. “Just because airplane crashes make international news doesn’t make air travel inherently less safe than its alternatives.” (Van Winkle, 2013) The same applies to this situation with public cloud security. I believe that it is because of how quickly cloud technology developed and was implemented into everyday usage that there are security flaws. Time will iron out these wrinkles, regulations will be passed to guarantee customer data safety, and the industry will continue to expand rapidly. Governments have become aware of this technology and realize there is a need to pass legislation in order to protect the information of their constituents. I strongly believe governments’ will mandate cloud providers to adhere to national standards for cloud service security such as mandatory AES encryption for protecting customer