Cloud Computing and the Features
The technology of cloud computing is defined as the respective hypothesis of IT, which has the ability for accessing the configurable system resources as well as high level services (Arora, Parashar and Transforming 2013). These specific services are quickly provisioned with least managing effort on Internet. This specific technology majorly depends on sharing of resources for the achievement of the coherences as well as scales of economy. The respective cloud vendors enable the companies to focus on the most important business processes (Dinh et al. 2013). This particular technology is even responsible for the minimization of infrastructure costs related to information technology. The following briefing paper provides a brief description on the technology of cloud computing. The various challenges faced by the ICT professionals or the ethical and regulatory obligations of cloud computing will also be provided here.
Cloud computing is the significant utilization of the several services like the servers, software developing platforms, software as well as storage over the connectivity of Internet (Hashem et al. 2015). This is the easiest as well as the safest and cost effective method for transferring data from any location to the other. There are three distinct features of this cloud computing and these are as follows:
- Resource Pooling: The first and the most important feature of this particular technology of cloud computing is that it allows resource pooling. This certainly means that the resources could be easily pooled for the purpose of serving a larger number of clients within the technology (Fernando, Loke and Rahayu 2013).
- Elasticity: The second important and significant feature of the cloud computing technology is the resources could be expanded or decreased as per demands of the clients. Cloud computing is responsible for using the multi tenancy, in which the various resources could be dynamically allocated as well as de allocated as per the demands.
- Self Services: The third distinct feature of the cloud computing is that it is based on self services. The users are allowed to interact with their respective cloud for the purpose of performing various tasks such as building, deploying, scheduling as well as managing them properly (Li et al. 2013). The specific user would be having the ability for accessing the computing capabilities whenever they are required and without the interactions from the respective provider of cloud services.
- Cost Effectiveness: Another significant feature of the cloud computing technology is that it is cost effective and thus could be utilized by everyone. This particular technology does not comprise of any type of up front costs and thus the expenses are completely on the basis of usages of those resources (Garg, Versteeg and Buyya 2013). Hence, the user could track the usages and the reduction of costs is possible here.
The information and communication technology professionals or ICT professionals are responsible for managing the information as well as communication and network technology within any typical company (Xiao, Song and Chen 2013). The entire hardware, software and system related issues are well monitored and checked by these professionals and thus the planning, designing, testing and improvement of the information technology systems are well executed by them.
However, since they have the responsibility to manage all of these hardware and software of the organization, they even check for cloud and cloud computing migration. There are some of the major challenges of cloud computing that are faced by these ICT professionals (Jain and Paul 2013). The most noteworthy and popular challenges of the cloud computing technology that are faced by ICT professionals are given below:
- Reliability of Service Providers: The first and the foremost challenge that these professionals often go through is the reliability checking of the service providers of cloud. These service providers of cloud are the vendors that supply cloud computing or the cloud, on which any activity is executed (Botta et al. 2016). The capability as well as the capacity of the technical service providers is more vital for the ICT professionals. If they will not be reliable enough, there is a high chance the data would be lost.
- Implementation Costs: The second important challenge that these ICT professionals often face while using cloud computing is the excess or higher implementation costs. Although, the technology of cloud computing is cost effective in nature, the overall implementation costs of this particular technology is extremely high and hence the smaller organizations could not afford them easily (Herbst, Kounev and Reussner 2013). Cloud computing is thus considered as the best solution for the large as well as medium companies.
- Downtime: The next important challenge of cloud computing that the ICT professionals face in their organizations is the downtime. This is one of the major shortcomings of this technology. Not a single cloud platform is free from the possible downtime.
- Security: Security is the next significant issue that is faced by the ICT professionals while utilizing this technology of cloud computing (Wei et al. 2014). There is always a great chance that confidential data will be lost.
There are some of the most significant regulatory as well as ethical obligations of the cloud computing technology. The first and the foremost regulatory as well as ethical obligation of cloud computing is that the privacy of data should be maintained properly (Gupta, Seetharaman and Raj 2013). Data breaching in cloud computing mostly occurs due to insider threats and hence the employees or the ICT professionals of that particular organization should use or hack the data for their personal requirements. The second important or vital regulatory as well as ethical obligation of cloud computing technology is that the cloud service provider should be legal and he should not breach the data at any aspect. Since, he is the cloud vendor and has access of the confidential data; he should not breach that data to any other vendors. This would reduce the chances of data breaching to a higher level (Xiao, Song and Chen 2013). The third regulatory as well as ethical obligation of cloud is that only authenticated and authorized data should be utilized in this case and this would reduce the percentages of forged or fake data. All the above mentioned regulatory and ethical obligations should be strictly followed by the ICT professionals within the organization.
Challenges Faced by the ICT Professionals
The issues of cloud computing are extremely vulnerable and dangerous for the ICT professionals and these issues should be mitigated with proper techniques. The most popular and relevant techniques to mitigate the challenges faced by ICT professionals due to cloud computing are as follows:
- Encryption Technique: The first and the most relevant technique for mitigating the cloud computing security risks is the proper implementation of encryption technique (Herbst, Kounev and Reussner 2013). This particular technology is considered as one of the most popular technologies that keeps the confidential data hidden as a cipher text. The plain message or text is converted to a cipher text after using a proper lock to the data. This particular technology uses two specific algorithms for this purpose and hence a proper execution of this technique is required.
- Using Passwords: The second important technique for solving the security issues in cloud computing is the utilization of passwords. This is the basic and the most important method to solve the data breaching at any cost (Hashem et al. 2015). These passwords should also be changed periodically by the ICT professionals so that the hackers do not get any chance to hack the data.
- Using Virtual Private Networks or VPNs: The third significant method to reduce the various security issues in cloud computing is the utilization of virtual private networks or VPNs (Dinh et al. 2013). The virtual private networks are responsible for increasing the network security to a higher level and the proper management of network and systems are much easier with these
The ICT professionals would be highly benefitted with the above mentioned mitigation strategies for the challenges faced by them due to cloud computing.
Conclusion
Therefore, conclusion could be drawn that this cloud computing is one of the most noteworthy emerging technologies, which enables in consuming computing resource like the application, storages and virtual machines. The building or maintenance of the computer infrastructures are well executed with the help of cloud computing technology. The most significant features of this cloud computing technology are the self service provisioning, elasticity, workload resilience and more. Moreover, only those resources are to be paid, which are being used by the users. Cloud computing even provides the facility to migrate to any specific cloud platform eventually without incurring serious complexities and costs. Several security issues are also present within this technology, which makes it much difficult to handle for the users. The above briefing paper has clearly outlined the various challenges of cloud computing that are vulnerable for the ICT professionals. These ICT professionals even face the socio technical or ethical obligations related to cloud computing. All the above mentioned factors are well explained in this briefing paper.
References
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