Digital Age: Cloud Computing, Storage, Privacy, and Security Analysis

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of cloud computing and its significance in the digital age. It begins by defining cloud computing and cloud storage, detailing their functionalities and benefits for both individuals and organizations. The essay then explores different types of cloud services, including IAAS, PAAS, and SAAS, explaining their unique characteristics and applications. A key focus is the distinction between privacy and security, emphasizing how these concepts relate to cloud environments and how secure and private clouds can be achieved. The essay discusses practical steps such as using encrypted cloud services and setting strong passwords to protect data. Through this analysis, the essay highlights the importance of digital skills in leveraging cloud technologies for efficient data management and secure information handling. It also references academic sources and online resources to support the arguments and provide further context.

Integrated Professional
Skills in the Digital Age

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Cloud computing, cloud storage and different types of clouds...................................................1
Difference between privacy and security and the way in which private and secured cloud could
be achieved...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Nowadays various new and innovative technologies are launching in the market which
helps individuals as well as organisations to execute business operations appropriately. In order
to use these techniques it is very important for individuals to have some digital and professional
skills (Collins and Halverson, 2018). One of the major examples of it is cloud computing which
is going to be discussed under this essay. Apart from this, cloud storage, types of cloud,
difference between privacy and security are also covered.
MAIN BODY
Cloud computing, cloud storage and different types of clouds
Cloud computing is a technological term which delivers hosted services with the help of
internet. Three different types of services are rendered by it which includes IAAS (Infrastructure
as a service), SAAS (Software as a service) and PAAS (Platform as a service). It was invested in
year 1960 by Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider in order to connect people and data from anywhere
at anytime. Its name is inspired by a cloud which is used to depict internet in diagrams and
flowcharts. Clouds could be private or public. Private clouds are considered as proprietary
network which supply hosted services to a fixed number of individuals. On the other hand,
public clouds sell network to any person on the internet.
Whether it is private or public, main goal of cloud computing is to deliver scalable access
to computing resources and IT services. All the computing services are rendered by it which
includes storage, software, servers, intelligence, analytics, databases etc. over the internet to offer
economies of scale and innovation. The on demand availability of computer system resources is
known as cloud computing. It is mainly used to describe information centres which are available
to different individuals who are using it over internet. It could be used by a single organisation,
many enterprises and combination of both of them. It totally relies on mutualism of internet in
order to attain economies of scale and coherence. With the help of this technique the data which
is stored on cloud of a network could be accessed by different systems (Benefits of cloud
computing, 2019). In most of the companies cloud computing is used to save data on remote
servers so that it can be accessed in future whenever it is required without logging in to the
system where it is saved. It provides users a series of functions which includes back up, data
retrieval, creating and testing applications, audio and video streaming, email and delivering
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software on demand. It was firstly pioneered by IBM (International Business Machine
Corporation) which includes utility, on demand computing and grid. There are various benefits
of it to business entities such as audit and compliance, flexibility and elasticity, cost effective,
continuous planning for business, integration and speed. With the help of cloud computing
organisations may reduce such challenges which have taken place due to storing data in the
computers because it is very difficult to manage hard ware. Now all these problems are resolved
because now there is no headache to save information on a particular system.
Cloud storage can be defined as a service model which is used by business entities and
individuals to manage, maintain and keep a back up of the information which is saved in their
computer systems. Users are required to pay the amount for this storage according to their
consumption on a fixed rate (Cloud storage, 2019). Data is stored with the help of it on a storage
servers which are built on virtualisation technique and could be accessed in future whenever it is
required. It provides various benefits to the users which are using it for the purpose of storing
data. These are greater and easy access, strong protection of information, disaster recovery,
reliability, repaid deployment and low cost for overall storage. With the help of it data can be
kept online rather than keeping in the hard drives of computers.
There are various types of clouds which could be used by current businesses in order to
make perform operation in more easy manner. These are IAAS, PAAS and SAAS (Types of
clouds, 2019). The first one which is IAAS is can be defined as lower level of cloud solution and
it refers as a fully outsourced service. It hosts the infrastructure components which are
traditionally present in on premises data centre. It includes servers, storage and networking
hardware. Different types of services are also rendered by IAAS providers in order to accompany
with the provided components. It provides greatest level of flexibility and scalability hence it is
very much suitable to current businesses. As business changes with time which also leaves
impact upon server capacity but IAAS is a technique which is flexible and could be adjusted
according to changes.
PAAS is another type of cloud computing which is same as IAAS but it has more
advanced functioning. Providers of PAAS also offer solution stack and computing platform as
services. It is mainly used by such organisations which are willing to develop, collaborate,
deploy and test cloud solutions for certain applications. In this situation, application is hosted by
third party which is PAAS provider (Donohue and Schomburg, 2014). It allows current
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businesses to develop custom applications with the help of existing platform using own cloud.
By using PAAS companies can produce custom application without any spending time and cost
to create their own platform. Currently Google App engine is one of the company which is using
it to develop web apps using platform of Google. If is is used by organisations then there is no
need to upgrade or update infrastructure software. Another reason for its suitability is that it
reduced risk as entities are not required to investment money in software or hardware (Keengwe,
2015).
SAAS is a cloud service which offer fully functioned applications which are based upon
web on demand of its clients. It is targeted at such companies which are using ERP, email, web
conferencing, time management etc. It is also suitable for current businesses as it helps to
manage all the activities appropriately because it removes concerns that are related to
infrastructure.
Difference between privacy and security and the way in which private and secured cloud could
be achieved
Privacy can be defined as the ability of an organisation to schedule information in such a
manner in which it can be expressed selectively. Security is the process of keeping data free from
threat or danger. In order to prevent information from unauthorised use, access, modification,
disclosure, recording and inspection, business entities secure with the help of authorised software
(Huda and Teh, 2018).
Privacy and security both are different terms because one of them refers to protect data
from unauthorised access which is security and other is the ability to protect private information
which is privacy. Business entities can attain security without privacy but it is not possible to
achieve it without security (Goldie, 2016).
Protection is being provided by security for all types of data and information and privacy
helps organisations to protect sensitive information which should be kept private in order to keep
business secure. Security mainly focuses on all types of information and assets which are
collected by business entity. On the other hand, privacy secure specific data which is very
important to be kept private.
Business entities are required to keep their cloud secured and private. For this purpose, it
is vital for them to avoid such type of information which is sensitive. While implementing cloud
it is essential for companies to read user agreement to get information regarding the way in
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which service storage of cloud works. In order to protect and secure cloud, companies have to set
secured password for it. Another step which could be taken by enterprises to achieve a secure
and private cloud is to use encrypted cloud service which can provide local encryption and
decryption of the files with backup (Huda, 2019).
CONCLUSION
From this essay, it has been concluded that various new technologies are launching in the
market in order to help companies to secure their data. Cloud computing is one of them in which
enterprises can save information online and access it from anywhere at anytime. There are three
different types of clouds which are suitable for current businesses. These are IAAS, PAAS and
SAAS. In order keep the cloud secure and private organisations can use different ways such as
reading user agreement, using encrypted clouds, setting strong password etc.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Collins, A. and Halverson, R., 2018. Rethinking education in the age of technology: The digital
revolution and schooling in America. Teachers College Press.
Donohue, C. and Schomburg, R., 2014. Teaching with technology: Preparing early childhood
educators for the digital age. In Technology and Digital Media in the Early Years (pp.
68-85). Routledge.
Goldie, J. G. S., 2016. Connectivism: A knowledge learning theory for the digital age?. Medical
teacher. 38(10). pp.1064-1069.
Huda, M. and Teh, K. S. M., 2018. Empowering professional and ethical competence on
reflective teaching practice in digital era. In Mentorship Strategies in Teacher
Education (pp. 136-152). IGI Global.
Huda, M., 2019. Empowering application strategy in the technology adoption: insights from
professional and ethical engagement. Journal of Science and Technology Policy
Management. 10(1). pp.172-192.
Keengwe, J. ed., 2015. Handbook of research on active learning and the flipped classroom
model in the digital age. IGI Global.
Online
Benefits of cloud computing. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/cloud-computing>
Cloud storage. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-cloud-storage-2438541>
Types of clouds. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.chargebee.com/blog/understanding-types-cloud-computing/>
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