MITS5002 Cloud Computing: Research Report on Benefits and Security

This report provides a comprehensive overview of cloud computing, exploring its benefits, limitations, and security implications. The introduction highlights the increasing importance of cloud computing in the IT industry, emphasizing its advantages while acknowledging the risks, particularly data security and cyber-attacks. The research methods section utilizes a qualitative approach, drawing data from online journals and articles to define cloud computing based on NIST's standards, and discusses its characteristics like on-demand services, broad network access, resource pooling, and rapid elasticity. The report delves into the three main service models: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. It also addresses data security threats, including phishing and DDoS attacks, and the vulnerability of public cloud models. The report further discusses the evolution of cloud computing from grid computing, its impact on business models, and challenges in developing standards and ensuring interoperability. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, reiterating the benefits and issues of cloud computing, and the importance of addressing security concerns. The report includes references to relevant academic papers.

Cloud Computing
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Research Methods............................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

Introduction
Cloud Computing has been recent technologies in the computing area. Cloud computing
has been gaining importance in the IT industry. The importance of cloud computing has been
discussed in the report. Various aspects of cloud computing in the industry has been selected in
the report. The use of cloud computing has been providing various types of benefits to users and
organization [1]. However, along these, cloud computing possess some limitations and
disadvantages in its service delivery options. The major problem and risk in the cloud computing
has been its data security. Data stored in the cloud database has been in risk of cyber-attacks.
There have been various reports of cyber-attacks over the cloud computing. This report has cited
several online research papers taken from Google Scholar for authenticity that discovers benefits
and limitations of the cloud computing. Proper review of academic papers related to cloud
computing have been dine in the report. This report has taken a qualitative approach in
identifying issues and benefits of cloud computing in the IT industry.
Research Methods
This paper has utilized qualitative method studying various aspects of cloud computing in
the IT industry. Data has been collected from online journals, articles and books related to cloud
computing. As per the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, the definition of
cloud has been mentioned as model to enable on-demand access to a shard pool o configurable
computing resources including servers, storage, networks and applications [2]. These services
can be managed by users and minimum efforts are required in doing so. According to NIST,
several characteristics of cloud computing have been gained as follows:

On-demand services: Cloud computing provides on-demand services that can be utilized
anytime and anyplace over the internet. Cloud service providers have been facilitating online
services including software, infrastructure and platforms [3].
Broad network access: Network access provided by the cloud service providers have been
broad that simply specifies to the usability of cloud services at wide network using
heterogeneous devices including laptops and mobile phones [4].
Resource pooling: Cloud Service providers have been sharing their resources to multiple
users at a time. This has been termed as multi-tenancy feature of cloud computing. Different
virtual machines have been provided to the users of cloud that helps in running different platform
at a time in a mobile or laptops.
Rapid elasticity: A cloud user has been able to acquire more services of cloud from their
cloud service providers. They are able to scale up or down their service at any time and place.
There are three main service models included in cloud computing:
Software as a service (SaaS): It is the service provided by cloud in which user can access
their services with the help of web-browser for accessing software. Various software are rented
to various cloud users o demand. They do not have to purchase it with hue price. They only have
to pay rental price by monthly, quarterly or yearly basis. Cloud professionals used to install and
setup all software at client’s end [5]. Therefore, cloud user do not have to take tension about its
installation and usability.
Platform as a Service (PaaS): This model provides platform for developing various
applications utilized by an organization or cloud user. PaaS has been providing high level of
abstraction which has been helping in focusing on developing their applications underlying the

infrastructure. Similarly to SaaS, users do not have to manage their installation and access
control over the platform provided by the cloud service provider.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This model has been focused on acquiring computer
resources including power, memory and storage infrastructure from an IaaS provider. IaaS has
been providing more flexibility to users than that of PaaS. It helps in allowing user for deploying
any software stack on the top of OS [6].
However, SaaS has been the core service provided by the cloud computing. Software has
been the most important part of the computing resources and mostly used by cloud users in the
market. The use of cloud computing has been providing various types of benefits to users and
organization. However, along these, cloud computing possess some limitations and
disadvantages in its service delivery options. The major problem and risk in the cloud computing
has been its data security. Data stored in the cloud database has been in risk of cyber-attacks.
There have been various reports of cyber-attacks over the cloud computing [7]. Data loss has
been common in cyber-attacks. Client’s data and information has been main target for attackers.
Various malwares and viruses have been attacking to the cloud server. Data and information
breaches have been common problem in the cloud computing. Some of the attacks include
phishing attack and DDoS attack. These attacks have been causing harm to the data stored in the
cloud database. Public cloud model has been most vulnerable model in the cloud computing.
Public cloud computing provides access to third party user for storing and accessing their data.
Therefore, it becomes vulnerable to users in the public cloud computing model.
Cloud computing has been the next computing paradigm that has been following
mainframes on PC networked computing. Cloud computing has been helping in reaching out to
several companies in the market [7]. There has been comparison done between cloud computing

and grid computing. The grid computing has been helping in managing different aspects of
demand in the market. Researchers have been believing that cloud computing has evolved from
grid computing. IT has been evolving in last 15 years since grid computing has been inventing
various technologies in the industry. The use of these two concepts have been helping in
providing several types of duties and functionalities in the IT market. The business model
followed by various organization has been depended on the cloud computing. The use of market
oriented cloud computing has been following up in the market. Business professionals have been
propounding various strategies to implementing cloud computing in the market. Cloud
computing has been delivering IT as a service in the service oriented architecture (SOA) [8].
Several papers have been describing PaaS as an artefact in combining infrastructure provisioning
with principles of SOA and SaaS. Software has been the most important part of the computing
resources and mostly used by cloud users in the market. The use of cloud computing has been
providing various types of benefits to users and organization. However, along these, cloud
computing possess some limitations and disadvantages in its service delivery options. Cloud
computing has been facing difficulties in developing standards and summarizing main goals of
achieving interoperability between IaaS providers in compatibility factor. Image compatibility
has been an issue in the virtualization of the implementation of KVM, VMWare and Xen
hypervisors [9]. The concept of virtualization has been an important factor in the cloud
computing. Cloud computing has been providing facilities in virtualizing things and items in the
cloud architecture. Cloud interfaces has been taking concrete shape that has been researched on
inter cloud resource and communication sharing focused on defining research questions. As
researched, there have been two tools for managing cloud computing infrastructures including

OpenNebula and Haizea. Open Nebula has been used for managing virtual infrastructure and
helps in providing unified view of virtual resources regardless to underlying vitality [10].
Conclusion
It can be concluded that this report has provided proper analysis about different aspects of
cloud computing in the IT sector. Various benefits and issues of the cloud computing has been
discussed in the report. This report has followed a qualitative method. Data has been collected
from several online journals, articles and books. Cloud computing provides on-demand services
that can be utilized anytime and anyplace over the internet. Cloud service providers have been
facilitating online services including software, infrastructure and platforms. The use of cloud
computing has been providing various types of benefits to users and organization. However,
along these, cloud computing possess some limitations and disadvantages in its service delivery
options. The major problem and risk in the cloud computing has been its data security. Data
stored in the cloud database has been in risk of cyber-attacks. There have been various reports of
cyber-attacks over the cloud computing.

References
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applications, 4(1), p.5.
[8] Jadeja, Y. and Modi, K., 2012, March. Cloud computing-concepts, architecture and
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Technologies (ICCEET) (pp. 877-880). IEEE.

[9] Rittinghouse, J.W. and Ransome, J.F., 2016. Cloud computing: implementation,
management, and security. CRC press.
[10] Xu, X., 2012. From cloud computing to cloud manufacturing. Robotics and
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