Secure Cloud Storage and Data Auditing

This assignment delves into the realm of cloud computing, focusing on the critical aspects of securing stored data within public cloud environments. It presents a comprehensive overview of various research papers that discuss innovative methods for protecting user data, including data deduplication, oblivious cloud storage, consistency-based service level agreements, and secure auditing protocols. These techniques aim to provide users with peace of mind, knowing their sensitive information is safeguarded from unauthorized access or tampering. By examining these cutting-edge solutions, this assignment demonstrates the evolving nature of cloud security measures, ensuring that data remains confidential and protected in the digital realm.

Running head: IT INFRASTRUCTRE MANAGEMENT
Google Cloud Platform
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

1IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
1. Cloud Based Storage..........................................................................................................2
2. Utilization of Cloud Based Storage....................................................................................3
3. Different Types of Cloud Based Storage...........................................................................3
4. Experiences with Cloud Based Storage Companies..........................................................4
5. Cloud Based Storage in IT Infrastructure..........................................................................5
6. Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Based Storage...................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

2IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
Introduction
Cloud based storage is the storage of data where all types of digital data gets stored in
various logical pools. It is managed by any hosting company. The providers of cloud storage
are responsible to keep the availability and accessibility of data (Wang et al. 2013). The
physical environment of the data remains perfectly protected and secured by the cloud
storage. These services are accessed by any cloud computer service, API or various
applications, which use API.
The following report demonstrates a brief discussion on the popular cloud based
storage, namely, Google Cloud Platform. The report clearly depicts the definition, utilization
and the different types of cloud based storage. Moreover, the experiences and use of cloud
storage in IT infrastructure will be given here. The final part of the report outlines the various
advantages and disadvantages of Google Cloud Platform.
Discussion
1. Cloud Based Storage
Cloud based storage can be simply defined as the computing model that is utilized for
storing any type of confidential digital data. This data is properly stored within various
logical pools and entire environment is managed as well as secured by the hosting
organization (Yang and Jia 2013). The physical environment is absolutely safe and secured
by the cloud storage providers and the data is kept available. This type of storage is
completely based on infrastructure that is highly virtualized and on the resources, which are
scalable, multi tenancy, elastic as well as metered.

3IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
Google Cloud Platform is an important example of cloud based storage, which runs
on similar infrastructure that is utilized by Google. It gives several modular cloud computing
services like data storage, machine learning, data analytics, cloud computing and many more
(Google Cloud 2018). This particular cloud storage was developed by Google Inc. in the year
2011. It can also be termed as a specific type of web development. The several types of
products of this Google Cloud Platform are App Engine, BigQuery, Cloud AutoML,
Bigtable, Cloud Datastore, Compute Engine and many others.
2. Utilization of Cloud Based Storage
Any specific cloud based storage is utilized for various significant purposes. This type
of storage provides easy accessibility and utilizations of data without involving any type of
complexities. Cloud based storage has various clients and customers (Ren et al. 2015). Yes I
do use cloud based storage. I am a user of Google Drive. It is a product of Google Cloud
Platform. This particular product of Google Cloud was launched in the year 2012 and it helps
the users to store and share various files within the devices. This particular product offers
several applications for the operating systems of Windows or MacOS. I have got various
advantages from this Google Drive by encompassing the Google Docs, slides, and sheets. It
has allowed me to collaboratively edit all the spreadsheets, documents, presentations,
drawings and many more other things (Google Cloud 2018). I have created as well as edited
by the office suite and have saved in the Google Drive. The most interesting fact of this
Google Drive is that it offers around 15 gigabytes of overall free storage and around 30
terabytes of the optional paid plans. It is extremely safe and secured and there is almost zero
chance of data hacking.
3. Different Types of Cloud Based Storage
Cloud based storages are utilized for the purpose of storing all types of data and for
maintaining, managing and backing up them properly. There are several cloud based storages

4IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
available in the market (Goyal 2014). They are utilized by various organizations of
enterprises to reduce the overall complexity of their any type of data operation. Broadly, there
are three types of cloud storages available. They are the private cloud storage, public cloud
storage and the hybrid cloud storage.
The private cloud storage can be defined as the specific type of cloud that is solely
designed and used for any one enterprise or company for fulfilling their requirements. The
several kinds of cloud storage are present in two distinct formats. They are the on premise
format and the externally hosted format (Yang and Jia 2014). The most significant advantage
of this type of cloud storage is that the designing and the access to the information is strictly
restricted to the users of that company. The most significant and popular example of private
cloud storage is Google Drive storage.
The public cloud storage can be defined as the cloud service, which needs lower
administrative controls and thus could be accessed through the Internet. This type of cloud
storage allows the users of that particular organization and some users from outside (Stefanov
and Shi 2013). This access is given to those users who are required within the business. The
examples of public cloud storage are the Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services or
AWS.
The third type is the hybrid cloud storage. It is the amalgamation of public and private
clouds. The features of this can be customized according to the users’ requirements and thus
could be easily termed as the most flexible cloud storage amongst the three (Goyal 2014).
The data could be stored efficiently and effectively by saving both time and money. The
example of this hybrid cloud is the combination of Google Doc and Google Drive.

5IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
4. Experiences with Cloud Based Storage Companies
I do have experience with cloud based storage companies. I have utilized Google
Drive in my personal life. Google Drive is responsible for storing and sharing any type of file
or data. My experience with this particular cloud storage company has always been extremely
positive (Fernando, Loke and Rahayu 2013). This has helped me to share and store my
confidential files and data securely and safely. My data have never been lost or hacked by
this cloud storage. I have also utilized iCloud for storing and sharing data from my iPhone. It
is again one of the most secured cloud storages amongst all others.
5. Cloud Based Storage in IT Infrastructure
Google Cloud Platform has various significant advantages. One of such important
advantages is that it helps to build and maintain the IT infrastructure. It solely refers to the
fact that this particular cloud storage helps to composite the software, hardware, various
network resources and services of the IT infrastructure (Li et al. 2013). These resources are
extremely important for the management, existence and operation of the IT environment. The
cloud storage enables the organization for delivering various IT services and solutions to its
staffs or customers and is deployed within the facilities.
6. Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Based Storage
The cloud based storage of Google Cloud Platform had several significant advantages
and disadvantages. The most significant advantages of this particular cloud based storage are
as follows:
i) Usability: The first and the foremost advantage of Google Cloud Platform is its
usability (Stefanov and Shi 2013). This cloud storage enables all of its users to drag as well as
drop the files within their local storage and the cloud storage.

6IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
ii) Bandwidth: The second important advantage of Google Cloud Platform is its broad
bandwidth. Due to this broad bandwidth, the users can easily check their files and data
through only one click.
iii) Accessibility: The third significant advantage of this Google Cloud Platform is that
the data or the files could be accessed from anywhere through the connectivity of Internet
(Terry et al. 2013).
iv) Disaster Recovery: This is again one of the most important benefits of Google
Cloud Platform. The data once lost can be easily recovered without any type of complexities
and thus can be termed as the best answer to the disaster recovery.
v) Cost Effectiveness: The fifth important advantage of Google Cloud Platform is that
it is extremely cost effective in nature and thus can be easily afforded by all small and
medium sized enterprises.
In spite of having such vast advantages, Google Cloud Platform does have some of
the most dangerous disadvantages within it (Stanek et al. 2014). The most significant
disadvantages of this particular cloud storage are as follows:
i) Data Security: The most dangerous disadvantage of this Google Cloud Platform is
the security of their data. Often data is lost due to this lack of security. This creates a major
problem for the users and even Google Cloud Platform cannot revive them. Although this
cloud storage has a disaster recovery within it, when the data is lost, it becomes very difficult
to revive the data.
ii) Weak Architecture: The second significant disadvantage of the Google Cloud
Platform is its weak architecture (Stefanov and Shi 2013). The architecture is not strong

7IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
enough to take the pressure of bulk amount of data and thus if major amount of data is used
through it, often it faces various problems.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that cloud based storage is
a specific model of cloud computing where data is being stored on the remote servers and
being accessed through the Internet. It is solely controlled, operated as well as maintained by
the service provider of cloud storage on various storage servers, made on techniques of
virtualization. It is extremely safe and secured and helps the data to be kept securely on
cloud. There are various types of cloud based storages available in the market. Google Cloud
Platform is one of those important and popular cloud based storages. The above report has
highlighted the clear definition and uses of cloud based storages. Furthermore, it has
discussed about the several advantages and disadvantages of this particular cloud storage.
The experiences with cloud storage companies and the utilization of Google Cloud Platform
in IT infrastructure are also provided here.

8IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
References
Fernando, N., Loke, S.W. and Rahayu, W., 2013. Mobile cloud computing: A survey. Future
generation computer systems, 29(1), pp.84-106.
http://www.uniroma2.it/didattica/infomob/deposito/MobileCloudComputing-
Survey_FGCS2013.pdf
Google Cloud. (2018). Google Cloud Computing, Hosting Services & APIs | Google Cloud.
[online] [Accessed 25 Mar. 2018]. Available at: https://cloud.google.com/
Goyal, S., 2014. Public vs private vs hybrid vs community-cloud computing: A critical
review. International Journal of Computer Network and Information Security, 6(3), p.20.
http://www.mecs-press.net/ijcnis/ijcnis-v6-n3/IJCNIS-V6-N3-3.pdf
Li, Z., Wilson, C., Jiang, Z., Liu, Y., Zhao, B.Y., Jin, C., Zhang, Z.L. and Dai, Y., 2013,
December. Efficient batched synchronization in dropbox-like cloud storage services.
In ACM/IFIP/USENIX International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms and Open
Distributed Processing (pp. 307-327). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-642-45065-5_16.pdf
Ren, Y.J., Shen, J., Wang, J., Han, J. and Lee, S.Y., 2015. Mutual verifiable provable data
auditing in public cloud storage.
網際網路技術學刊, 16(2), pp.317-323.
http://uclab.khu.ac.kr/resources/publication/J_203.pdf
Stanek, J., Sorniotti, A., Androulaki, E. and Kencl, L., 2014, March. A secure data
deduplication scheme for cloud storage. In International Conference on Financial
Cryptography and Data Security (pp. 99-118). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

9IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/543b/fbd4f18d8ccfc6766109ded5c02b4d521bc9.pdf
Stefanov, E. and Shi, E., 2013, May. Oblivistore: High performance oblivious cloud storage.
In Security and Privacy (SP), 2013 IEEE Symposium on (pp. 253-267). IEEE.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=6547114
Terry, D.B., Prabhakaran, V., Kotla, R., Balakrishnan, M., Aguilera, M.K. and Abu-Libdeh,
H., 2013, November. Consistency-based service level agreements for cloud storage.
In Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (pp.
309-324). ACM.
http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/2530000/2522731/p309-terry.pdf?
ip=115.187.63.151&id=2522731&acc=OA&key=4D4702B0C3E38B35%2E4D4702B0C3E3
8B35%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35%2EC42B82B87617960C&__acm__=1522042354_1074e95
31ff16e29c1c2d2a1b0e0018f
Wang, C., Chow, S.S., Wang, Q., Ren, K. and Lou, W., 2013. Privacy-preserving public
auditing for secure cloud storage. IEEE transactions on computers, 62(2), pp.362-375.
http://www.chennaisunday.com/IEEE%202013%20Java%20Basepaper/Privacy-Preserving
%20Public%20Auditing%20for%20Secure%20Cloud%20Storage.pdf
Yang, K. and Jia, X., 2013. An efficient and secure dynamic auditing protocol for data
storage in cloud computing. IEEE transactions on parallel and distributed systems, 24(9),
pp.1717-1726.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/45036472/audit_algorithm_read_-
_Copy.pdf?
AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1522045511&Signature=Mg9

10IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
Tu5y6BUU80ysTi2CJkdL9FEc%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename
%3DAn_Efficient_and_Secure_Dynamic_Auditing.pdf
Yang, K. and Jia, X., 2014. DAC-MACS: Effective data access control for multi-authority
cloud storage systems. In Security for Cloud Storage Systems (pp. 59-83). Springer, New
York, NY.
https://ece.uwaterloo.ca/~kan.yang/security_bbcr/paper/J-2013-TIFS.pdf