Cloud computing is not a new technology but rather a new delivery model for information and services using existing technologies. It uses the internet infrastructure to allow communication between client side and server side services/applications (Weiss, 2007). Cloud service providers (CSP’s) offer cloud platforms for their customers to use and create their web services, much like internet service providers offer costumers high speed broadband to access the internet. CSPs and ISPs both offer services. The cloud provides a layer of abstraction between the computing resources and the low level architecture involved. The customers do not own the actual physical infrastructure but merely pay a subscription fee and the cloud service provider grants them access to the clouds resources and infrastructure. A key concept is that the customers can reduce expenditure on
Cloud Computing Security Sean Carlin, University of Ulster, UK Kevin Curran, University of Ulster, UK
ABSTRACT In this paper, the authors focus on Cloud Computing, which is a distributed architecture that centralizes server resources on quite a scalable platform so as to provide on demand’ computing resources and services The authors outline what cloud computing is, the various cloud deployment models and the main security risks and issues that are currently present within the cloud computing industry.
resources like software licenses, hardware and other services (e.g., email) as they can obtain all these things from one source, the cloud services provider. Recent studies have found that disciplined companies achieved on average an 18% reduction in their IT budget from cloud computing and a 16% reduction in data centre power costs (McFedries, 2008). This paper provides an overview of the key aspects of Cloud Computing.