Introduction
No matter how complex is your network infrastructure, you can always create a network diagram of your organization; if you spend some time mapping computers and network devices. Usually such diagrams list, all computers, switches, routers, firewalls and all network devices; they also include information on your LAN and Demilitarized Zones (DMZ) if exist. The complexity of the diagram depends on the organization size, and usually mapping is done from client computers to the organization firewall.
What's outside the firewall is normally referred to as the Cloud. In networking diagrams, the cloud notation is used to represent very large networks that cannot be mapped due to their size and complexity; the Internet.
Cloud Computing
Nowadays, Wireless Network (WiFi) and mobile technologies enable web users to easily connect to the World Wide Web (WWW) from anywhere and from various electronic devices. The idea of having the Internet in the palms of your hands evolved, today various services exist that enables users to upload their data on a pay-per-use or storage space basis.
Such Services amongst others provide the following:
- Web hosting capabilities – users can upload and publish their own web site.
- Mail facilities – users can send and receive emails from any Internet Browser. Emails are not downloaded on the client machine, all emails are stored online.
- File storage – users can upload documents, images and other file types online.
- Virtual environments – developers and software testers can create virtual machines for testing purposes.
- Processing and computational capabilities – applications are hosted online, all processing is done on the hosting server. Using thin clients, users connect and access the hosted applications.
The idea of uploading your data online, may lead to security concerns; organizations can loose intellectual property if the hosted servers are compromised. Loosing your data may lead to loss of confidence, loss of business and bankruptcy. The key question is, how can I trust a foreign entity to take care of my precious data?
There is no straight forward answer to this and unfortunately, organizations must investigate and research to find a trustworthy provider. The peace-of-mind is that data security is one of the key objectives of hosting providers, keep in mind that if data is leaked, these providers will loose credibility and confidence leading to immediate bankruptcy.
Why not?
Some of the most common questions users ask regarding cloud computing are:
- Now we have cloud, where is my data stored?
- Can the provider view my data?
- Can provider view and forward my emails?
- Is my web site safe?
- Can someone delete or copy my data?
- Do they have a backup of my data?
- If something happens to the servers, my data is lost?
These questions are all valid, reason being that nowadays most users are aware that their data is priceless. These questions are the key features that an organization must investigate when searching for a trustworthy provider.
From the organization side, for some degree of security some suggest to: encrypt data prior to upload and decrypt on download. And to split your data in two and upload on two separate service providers, if one service is compromised 50% of your business is at risk; still is too much.
Nest stop...the cloud
Some of the benefits of cloud computing:
- Your data is stored in replicated data centers. Data centers are protected against physical threats and if disaster strikes, data is replicated in other geographical sites.
- Users can add processing power and storage space instantly with no hardware cost. Upgrading your service is not free, but when comparing hosting online with hosting locally, hosting online is cheaper.
- Hosted Servers are virtual, hardware maintenance is minimized.
- Access servers, machines and data from anywhere.
- Enables usage of thin clients when using hosted processing power.
- Using online storage for backups, is the most recommended countermeasure when dealing with disaster recovery plans.
Providers
Suitable for organizations | ||
|---|---|---|
Name | Link | Services |
Amazon | http://www.amazon.com/ | Provides computing capacity and simple storage. |
AT&T | http://www.att.com/ | Pay-as-you-go access to virtual machines and storage. |
Google | Office tools (email, calendar, word processing), simple web hosting and the Google App Engine. | |
GOGRID | Web-based storage and Virtual servers; including Apache, PHP, MsSQL and MySQL. | |
Microsoft | Azure, a windows as a service platform and Web Hosting applications. | |
NETSUITE | CRM, E-commerce and ERP tools. | |
Rackspace | Web hosting, file storage and cloud servers. | |
Salesforce | CRM tools, building web applications and web hosting. | |
Information collected from Network World | ||
Suitable for home users | ||
|---|---|---|
Name | Link | Description |
Gmail | Provides email, document uploads, calendars and social networking for free. | |
SkyDrive | Provides document and image uploads for free. | |
Dropbox | Enables you to synchronize data amongst various computers and mobile devices. A copy of your data is stored online. Both free and premium accounts are available. | |
Windows Live Mesh | Enables you to synchronize data amongst multiple devices. Uses SkyDrive as data repository. | |
Conclusion
Uploading your data on remote servers protects against physical threats and ensures business continuity; when disaster strikes you can easily access and restore your data. The cloud provides flexibility; data can be accessed and managed from an Internet Browser.
The cloud is not only suitable for organizations, using various providers, home users can benefit from this technique.
The key element in Cloud Computing is Trust; users must research and investigate to find a trustworthy provider.
Happy uploading...
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