CIT 492 Emerging Technology Report Cloud Computing As an Emerging Technology

Instructor: Anthony Rhodes

Associate Dean and Associate Professor in the College of IT, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Students: Aref AlHammadi

Student, College of Business Science, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Ahmed Al-Abdouli
Student, College of Business and Information Technology, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Khaled Mohammed
Student, College of Business and Information Technology, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE Keywords:Cloud Computing, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and virtualization, Cloud

Security, Cloud Management.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary ........................................................................................................... 3 Introduction: ........................................................................................................................ 5 Literature Review: ............................................................................................................. 5
The Benefit of Cloud Computing ............................................................................................. 6 Critique of Cloud Computing: .................................................................................................. 7

Report: ................................................................................................................................... 9
WHAT IS CLOUD COMPUTING? .................................................................................................... 9 Cloud Computing characteristics, Services and Deployment model? ....................... 9 Five essential characteristics: ............................................................................................................9 Three Main Services model:............................................................................................................. 10 Four Deployment Models: ................................................................................................................ 11 Business analysis of Cloud Computing: ............................................................................. 11 Benefits of Using Cloud Computing .................................................................................... 12 Cloud Computing for Which Organizations? ................................................................... 13 Cloud computing threats ........................................................................................................ 13

The Recommended Company to use Cloud Computing in Abu Dhabi. ......... 14 Conclusion: ........................................................................................................................ 14 References ......................................................................................................................... 16

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Executive Summary
Along with rapid depletion of data center spaces and the increasing cost of energy, managing operations, and infrastructure security, finding alternative solutions to organizations will be necessary. The rapid increase in IT services demand can exhausts an organization financially. To meet the customer needs in terms of cost and environmental efficiency, infrastructure capacity, and managing the operations and security, cloud computing should be the next step for Information technology in organizations. Toward this end, there are certain questions should be answered: Should organizations migrate to a cloud environment? Why? What is the main concern about cloud computing?

Literature related to cloud computing and its effect on organizations, migrating into cloud environment is recommended because it will help organizations to offset the costs of setting up and operating IT infrastructure, energy, and data center spaces. The cloud will help companies to obtain a competition advantage by increase focusing on core business instead of provides quality IT services. On the other hand, cloud service providers will ensure operating, and maintaining the cloud. The reasons that force many companies to avoid using this valuable technology are related to security and migration cost. However using private

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cloud will solve that problem where the organizations will be able to manage, operate, and secure their services in separate network. Migrating to cloud needs to define the organizations needs whether providing complete virtual infrastructure, or platform, or providing specific software. Moreover the organizations should define the deployment model whether in private cloud, or public cloud, or community cloud, or hybrid cloud. After all migrating to this emerging technology will benefit the organization and leads to potential growth. Therefore, its important to understand how this emerging technology can be incorporates into the business model and operations of modern enterprises.

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Introduction:
Cloud computing is an emerging technology for the provision of Information Technology services for organizations without need to have the physical resources. This technology emerged as a result of the virtualization revolution. Cloud Computing is designed to deliver all services required over the network and behind firewall. Cloud computing became popular when Google and IBM promote it in universities (Gross G. , 2007). Cloud computing consist of three major services which are infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS), and Software as a service (SaaS). An organization can define the type of services required and how should be deployed whether on a private, public, community, or hybrid cloud. Many studies show how cloud computing can lead organizations to achieve potential growth beside its flexibility, scalability, and how easily this can be measured. However, stated frequently security concerns allow pundits to ask whether organizations can depend on cloud computing? And how much can be secured? Many areas should be covered to determine the cloud computing capabilities and weaknesses and how feasible that organization migrates to cloud computing or whether its better to retain the physical environment.

Literature Review:
Much literature has been published about cloud computing. The literature discusses cloud computing from many angles such as Cloud computing
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advantages and disadvantages, business analysis, design and architecture, management, security, threats and so on.

The Benefit of Cloud Computing

Chief Executive Officers in many organizations are showing much in cloud computing because of its benefits for on the organization from their point of view. According to (Ghalimi,2010)Cloud computing brings benefits across three categories: economic, architectural, and strategic. First, it helps reduce IT costs and shift budgets from capital expenditure (CAPEX) to operation expenditure (OPEX). For instance, instead of buying infrastructure resources to run CRM application, the head of department can buy 10 user accounts for on demand CRM application. Second, it improves the experience of end-users by simplifying service provision. For instance, preparing applications and user accounts may take few days. However, with cloud computing end-users like sales manager can provision application user accounts within few clicks and this will available immediately. Third, it helps companies focus on their core competencies (Ghalimi, 2010). According to Oracle, one of the most successful IT companies, the benefits of cloud for both public and private clouds include high efficiency, high availability, elastic scalability, and fast deployment. In addition, some benefits are unique to public cloud computing such as low upfront cost, economies of scale, simpler to manage, and operating expensive. Moreover, other benefits are unique to private cloud computing such as provision of better
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security control, compliance and quality of service, easier integration, and lower total cost (ORACLE, 2010). Many research and IT firms are expecting a bright splendid future for Cloud Computing as IBM CEO Sam Palmisano said that he expected the company to generate $7 billion in cloud computing revenues by 2015. He made this announcement as he was speaking at IBMs annual investor meeting (Kelly, 2010). According to UBS analysts Brian Pitz and Brian Fitzgerald, In 2010 the revenue of Amazon Web Services (AWS) the cloud computing division of the web retail company expected to exceed $500 million, in 2011 750$ million, and in 2014 they can capture 2.5$ billion (Hickey, 2010). After searching through many articles and reviewing the Optimistic opinions, cloudcomputing look likes a great opportunity for the organization in term of various perspectives.

Critique of Cloud Computing:

Although cloud computing has many benefits, many articles argued that there are a series issues should be taken seriously. Securing clouds was the main topic of this debate. According to Andrew McAfee Its true that transmissions can be intercepted; firewalls can be breached; viruses, worms, and other forms of malware can invade. Perhaps the most unsettling, the people responsible for digital infrastructure can steal secrets or get sloppy and let thieves in (McAfee, 2011). Cloud computing showed some security weakness like the case of Dropbox since users and passwords were stolen from number of users including
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Dropbox employee who has the list of all email accounts (Gross D. , 2012). Also Epsilon the Email marketing company announced that they had unauthorized access to their system and exposed all email accounts to anonymous hackers which cause of sending spam emails to users emails specially those working in banking and financial institutions (Rashid, 2011). Although it has revolutionized the computing world, it is prone to manifold security threats varying from network level threats to application level threats (Bhadauria, 2012). Other minor issues have been discussed such as the high cost of cloud services and the preference of using NAS (Network Attachment Storage) for primary data backup rather then using cloud backup (King, 2012). At the end of the literature review many articles showed that cloud computing revenue will be increase in the next decade. In addition to that most of the articles shows how this technology will achieve potential benefits across economic, architectural, and strategic areas. However; the other side of article discussed the security issues of the cloud computing, the cost of moving to cloud solution, and data protection concerns. The following are the questions that the audience should be answering it after reading this report: What is the definition of cloud computing? Why is cloud computing considered as an emergence technology? What is the benefit of using cloud computing? Which type of organizations could use cloud computing? What are the cloud computing threats?
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Report:
WHAT IS CLOUD COMPUTING? Based on National Institute of Standards and Technology in USA (NIST), Cloud Computing is a technology for enabling on-demand networking and universal access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (Servers, Storage, Services, Network, and Application) (Mell & Grance, 2011). To simplify that means using the services that companies need without concern for the physical recourses which will minimize the management effort or service providers interaction.

Cloud Computing characteristics, Services and Deployment model?

National Institute of Standards and Technology definition of Cloud computing describes five essential characteristics, three main service models, and four deployment models (Mell & Grance, 2011).

Five essential characteristics:

1. On-demand self services: Users are able to provision, manage, and monitor computing resource without human interference or administration.

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2. Broad Network Access: Computing services delivered over standard network and devices. 3. Rapid Elasticity: IT resources are able to scale in and out quickly based on customers demands.

4. Resource Pooling: IT resources are shared among many

applications and tenants in a non-dedicated manner. 5. Measured Services: The utilization of the IT resource are measured and tracked for each application in order to deliver quality services.

Three Main Services model:

1. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): Servers, storage, network devices are delivered as a service since the customers choose the number of instances they need either windows or Unix, and the software for instance database servers, Email servers, Application servers. In Iaas The infrastructure hardware is usually virtualized. 2. Platform as a Service (PaaS): This type of services allow a developer to start develop, configure, test, and deploy their application without concern about the cost and complexity of the servers (Jack, 2008). 3. Software as a Service (SaaS): Application delivered as a service to the customer or end-users. There are a lot of applications working
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based on SaaS such as ERP, CRM, and so on where topically it will let the organization perform their business functionality without pay licenses for application or investing on hardware. (Webopedia, 2011)

Four Deployment Models:

1. Private Cloud: This Model used only by single organization and its managing, operating, and controlling in separate Data center. The advantage of going to private cloud is the security and quality of services provided. (ORACLE, 2010) 2. Public Cloud: Public Model used for multi organizations based on sharing the IT resources 3. Community Cloud: Used for groups of related organizations, which prefer to use common cloud or network such as army, manufactures, logistics and shipment companies. 4. Hybrid Cloud: for the organizations that require using both private and public cloud for different circumstance (Mell & Grance, 2011).

Business analysis of Cloud Computing:

The concept of reducing infrastructure costs and utilize it to reaping profit attracts most CEOs across the world. Many studies projected that cloud computing's revenues will increase significantly in future. According to a Gartner prediction, Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) will grow 47.8% through 2015. Furthermore, Amazon, SunGard, and Verizon Business are the most external
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service provider named for (IaaS) (Columbus, 2012). However, Software as a Service has been more attractive to the small and mid-size business (SMB) (NEC, 2012). Further, IDC reported that 85% of the new software firms would start their business using SaaS services which will increase SaaS revenue from 13.1$ billion in 2009 to 40.5 billion in 2014. (IDC, 2010). Cloud computing seems to be a significant player in next decade in the IT market and justifying it as an important emergence technology. On the other hand, the role that it can plays to save the environment by reducing energy and carbon emissions, so its related to green computing as well.

Benefits of Using Cloud Computing

Cloud is about how you do computing, not where you do computing, Paul Maritz, CEO of VMware said (Courtney, 2012). This quote summarized the benefit of Cloud computing on the small, medium, and large enterprises. The benefit of cloud computing is summed up by cost efficiency, scalability, accessibility, centralized management, and quality. Cloud computing allows firms to reduce spend on the infrastructure hardware and data Centre facilities. Second, the speed and easy scale of cloud computing is one advantage of it whereas the expansion of the services required huge investment, new architecture designs and licenses. Managing and operating IT services is not an easy for organizations that are not willing to pay high wages for specialized engineers or technicians. Therefore, cloud computing is providing an option to manage, operate, maintain, and secure the services provided.
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Cloud Computing for Which Organizations?

Cloud computing is suitable to use in any organizations because its flexible and can be customized on demand. Small and medium sized enterprises (SME) can use SaaS to run required applications such as ERP, and CRM in public cloud without any kind of setup. Software companies can utilize PaaS to develop and deploy in-home applications by requesting specific platform such as Windows, Unix and specific databases Oracle, or SQL and it will be available without need to allocate hardware and software from the vendors. IaaS could be used for new organizations without capital to invest hardware and organizations that growing rapidly and required scaling hardware continuously. (www.rackspace.com, 2011). However, using cloud computing services for highly secure organizations such as National Security, Military, and Banks should be revised again, and carefully considered.

Cloud computing threats

Although cloud computing has many advantages that can lead organizations achieving potential growth, it has one main disadvantage which should be revised and solved in order to keep this technology live. The main disadvantage and the point of criticism is the security of the cloud. Security of information and users privacy is one of the main concerns for any organization. As it has been mentioned before, Cloud services have been hacked several times (Gross D. , 2012) (Rashid, 2011). According to the Cloud Security Alliance (2010), top cloud-computing threats are, abuse of Cloud Computing, insecure Interfaces and APIs, Malicious Insiders, Shared Technology Issues, Data Loss or
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Leakage, Account or Service Hijacking, Unknown risk profile. (Cloud Security Alliance , 2010)

The Recommended Company to use Cloud Computing in Abu Dhabi.

The visionary leadership of the emirate of Abu Dhabi is seeking to develop the region in different sectors and to accomplish the strategic objectives Abu Dhabi funded a media and entertainment hub under the name of Twofour54. Twofour54 is a government-backed organization that providing media infrastructure for Arabic Media and entertainment hub. Twofour54 as a media company required huge investment on Information technology because media companies in general highly depended on Technology. Twofour54 can uses the technology of cloud computing to reduce the cost of the huge storage required in media production and twofour54 can expand their data storage as possiable as they need without concern about the hardware and data backup, also using storage over the cloud should be on private cloud to minimize the security breach and to maintain effective control on the cloud.

Conclusion:
Finally, Cloud computing could help organizations achieving its goals mainly by reducing significantly the cost of hardware and IT operations. On the other hand, cloud computing is criticized because of its security breaches. Cloud computing could be used by any type of organizations such as SME, or large Enterprises and any type of business for instance it can be used in industrial, financial, and commercial businesses. The steps of migration should start with defined organizational needs and which service model should be used SaaS, or
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PaaS,or IaaS. In addition, organizations should define how to deploy those services, either to deploy it using private or public or community or hybrid cloud. However, migrating to private cloud is preferred because its allowing organizations to the secure internally and to avoid data leaking or abuse of the cloud.

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References
www.rackspace.com. (2011). UNDERSTANDING The Cloud Computing Stack SaaS, Paas, IaaS. Retrieved from www.rackspace.com: http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/sites/default/files/whitepa per_pdf/Understanding-the-Cloud-Computing-Stack.pdf Webopedia. (2011). What is SaaS (software as a service)? A Technology Definition. Retrieved 2012, from Webopedia: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SaaS.html visiongain.com. (2012). The mobile cloud computing market will generate 45 billion dollars in revenuesby 2016 says the latest visiongain report. Retrieved from visiongain: http://www.visiongain.com/Press_Release/130/The-mobile-cloudcomputing-market-will-generate-45-billion-dollars-in-revenues-by-2016says-the-latest-visiongain-report Bhadauria. (2012). A Survey on Security Issues in Cloud Computing. Mombay.

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Cloud Security Alliance . (2010). Top Threats to Cloud Computing V1.0 . Retrieved from Cloud Security Alliance: https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/topthreats/csathreats.v1.0.pdf

Courtney. (2012). 5 Quotes Explaining Cloud Computing. Retrieved from cloud provider usa: http://www.cloudproviderusa.com/5-quotesexplaining-cloud-computing/

Columbus, L. (2012). Roundup of Cloud Computing Forecasts and Market Estimates, 2012. Retrieved from Software Strategies Blog: http://softwarestrategiesblog.com/2012/01/17/roundup-of-cloudcomputing-forecasts-and-market-estimates-2012/

Ghalimi, I. (2010). Benefits of Cloud Computing. Gross, D. (2012). Dropbox investigating possible security breach. Retrieved November 01, 2012, from CNN Tech: http://articles.cnn.com/2012-07-18/tech/tech_web_dropbox-spamsecurity_1_dropbox-cloud-storage-security-breach

Gross, G. (2007). Google, IBM promote 'cloud' computing at universities. Retrieved from http://www.computerworld.com: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9041438/Google_IBM_promot e_cloud_computing_at_universities

IDC. (2010). Wireless News. Retrieved from IDC: SaaS Revenue to Grow Five Times Faster Than Traditional Packaged Software Through
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2014: http://search.proquest.com/docview/733038081?accountid=15192 Hickey, A. R. (2010). Amazon Cloud Revenue Could Exceed $500 Million In 2010: Report. Retrieved from crn.com: http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/226500204/amazon-cloudrevenue-could-exceed-500-million-in-2010-report.htm Jack, S. (2008). Google angles for business users with 'platform as a service'. Retrieved from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/apr/17/google.software Kelly, S. (2010). IBM: Cloud Computing to Contribute $7 Billion in Revenue By 2015. Retrieved from ciozone.com: http://www.ciozone.com/index.php/Cloud-Computing/IBM-CloudComputing-to-Contribute-$7-Billion-in-Revenue-By-2015.html King, R. (2012). High costs of cloud adoption still major barrier, report says Summary. Retrieved from ZDNET: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/high-costs-of-cloud-adoption-still-majorbarrier-report-says/72549 NEC. (2012). NEC. Retrieved from NEC: http://www.nec.com/en/global/solutions/nsp/saas/saas_4.html McAfee, A. (2011). What Every CEO Needs to Know About The Cloud . Harvard Business Publishing. Boston: Harvard Business Publishing.
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Mell, P., & Grance, T. (2011). The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing . National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Computer Security Division. Gaithersburg: NIST.

ORACLE. (2010). Retrieved NOV 01, 2012, from www.oracle.com: http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/cloud/oracle-cloud-computingwp-076373.pdf

Rashid, F. Y. (2011). Epsilon Data Breach Hits Banks, Retail Giants. Retrieved November 01, 2012, from eweek.com: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Epsilon-Data-Breach-Hits-BanksRetail-Giants-154971/

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