Analyzing Disaster Recovery in Cloud-Based Big Data Systems

The analysis focuses on various challenges within cloud computing including security vulnerabilities, service reliability, and disaster recovery processes. Security in cloud environments poses opportunities as well as significant challenges due to potential unauthorized access and data breaches. Disaster resilience is critical for maintaining continuity in IaaS clouds, requiring efficient network design and planning. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) play a vital role by establishing expectations around service availability and response times during downtimes. Additionally, educating IT personnel about phishing attacks is crucial as human error can lead to widespread network vulnerabilities.

Running Head: CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
Cloud Computing
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CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
Executive Summary
Webb stores is successful retailer and using its own data centers in-house. However,
company is facing many issues like application complexity, application downtime and other
complexities and considering the cloud system for managing their data storage and backup
needs. It has decided to retire one of its Data center in Auckland and move it to cloud while other
will be continue to work and thus adopting a hybrid cloud approach.
The purpose of this report is to assess the various risks associated with the Hybrid cloud
approach and the steps that Webb stores can take to minimize the impact of all these risks. It will
also analyze and discusses about backup plan, disaster recovery plan and how it is different in
Cloud environment as compared to on premise environment. Few important recommendations
are Webb stores must use encryption at their end before sending the data on to the cloud and thus
keeps an encrypted data on the cloud and this strategy will help in providing another layer of
security measure.

CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
Contents
1 Executive Summary.............................................................................................................................2
2 Webb’s have decided to migrate their MS SQL Server 2012 R2 database to an IaaS instance in the
cloud............................................................................................................................................................4
a. Describe the type of security that you would deploy to protect this mission critical database once it
is moved to an IaaS instance in a public cloud........................................................................................4
b. Describe the benefits and issues that would be the result of your deployment of these security
measures..................................................................................................................................................5
3 What are the risks associated with migrating this mission critical database to the cloud? You should
name and describe each risk that you identify that applies to:.....................................................................6
a. The database....................................................................................................................................6
b. The IaaS infrastructure....................................................................................................................6
c. The communications between Webb’s and their IaaS database in the cloud....................................7
4 Webb’s is considering the use of the Cloud for backup and possibly also for archival of records.......7
a. What are the risks and issues associated with backing up data to the cloud? You should name and
describe each risk that you identify that applies to:.................................................................................7
b. How does Webb’s use of a Cloud backup affect their DR plans? Describe how you see that their
backup and restore strategy will change as a result of this service...........................................................8
5 How should Webb’s protect access to these services that they are now moving to the Cloud?
Describe what you would recommend to Webb’s Board to protect access to:.............................................9
a. Their IaaS infrastructure,.................................................................................................................9

CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
b. Their Ms SQL Server 2012 R2 cloud instance,................................................................................9
c. Their Cloud network infrastructure..................................................................................................9
d. Their Cloud backup and restore infrastructure challenges, security issues as well as how these
issues can be solved...............................................................................................................................10
Bibliography..............................................................................................................................................11

CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
1 Webb’s have decided to migrate their MS SQL Server 2012 R2 database to an IaaS
instance in the cloud.
a. Describe the type of security that you would deploy to protect this mission critical
database once it is moved to an IaaS instance in a public cloud.
 It is very important that Webb stores should not fully rely on the encryption services
offered by the cloud vendors. As encryptions services consumer, huge resources, cloud
vendors offer minimal encryption services. Instead Webb stores should also use
encryption at their end before sending the data on the cloud. They also ensure that
encryption key is located in on premise locations only and not on cloud.
 Restricted access to employees: People should have restricted access based on their role
and should see only the data they need. Critical data should be read only so that no one
can change it.
 Using RSA Secure ID systems for generating real time passwords and extra layer of
prevention (Khanezaei, & Hanapi, 2014)
 Ensure that all the machines have latest anti-viruses and all the fixes whether they belong
to software, operating systems or any other should be installed as soon as possible. The
only way to ensure is that controlling the updates features centrally and do not give users
the choice of not installing updated (Hashizume, et al., 2013). Recent attack on NHS
hospitals of UK by malware WannaCry was happened because the company did not
update the latest fix by Microsoft which Microsoft released 2 month before this
ransomware attack.

CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
b. Describe the benefits and issues that would be the result of your deployment of these
security measures.
 Using encryption at Webb stores before sending data to the cloud is highly effective and
while transmitting also, data is encrypted. Also, this will provide another layer of data
protection and maintain confidentiality since even cloud vendors will do no have access
to your data.
 Restricting access will ensure that only the key people have access to important functions
like edit the data (Pearson, 2013)
 Secure ID systems that will generate real time password will add multi factor
authentication and even if one of the password of user is leaked, still the intruders will
not able to enter the system due to non-verification of RSA secure password.
 Ensuring updated version of every tool will ensure the protection because these tools and
operating systems found the vulnerabilities in their systems from time to time and release
fixes to remove these vulnerabilities (Rittinghouse, & Ransome, 2016)
2 What are the risks associated with migrating this mission critical database to the
cloud? You should name and describe each risk that you identify that applies to:
a. The database
Data loss risks applies to the database. In case of a provider going of a business or suffers from
technical problem at their end, there is a risk of losing the complete databased for the Webb
stores.

CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
Data removal risk: This data is mission critical and suppose Webb stores wants to remove any
data from their database, it will be removed from its database but how it will be permanently
removed from the cloud as cloud is maintaining multiple copies at multiple locations.
b. The IaaS infrastructure
Compliance risks: There are rules and polices of Cloud computing designed by the Australian
and New Zealand government and each IaaS Infrastructure must abide by those polices. There
are policies that prevent vendors from storing data outside the country but cloud vendors
maintain numerous copies of their Cloud and stored them in their data centers across different
parts of the world. There are various Audits like SAS 70 and many more and each cloud vendor
must furnish the details of conducting these audits and thus it is mandatory that cloud vendor
must abide by all such policies.
Vendor lock in risks: It is possible that IaaS vendor has suddenly increase the prices of their
services or there can also be any other conflict and thus, Webb stores want to move their data out
of the cloud on some other vendor cloud or on their premise, how it will be handled. Sometimes
vendors claim their proprietary data if data is created or analyzed by using their tool, how such
things will be handled is a big risk (ALi, Khan, & Vasilakos, 2015).
c. The communications between Webb’s and their IaaS database in the cloud
Data leakage risks: There is risk of intruders and attackers during data communication between
Webb’s and their IaaS database (Chang, 2015)
Identity Access management risk: There is risk of identity verification and if right authorized
person is accessing the data.

CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
3 Webb’s is considering the use of the Cloud for backup and possibly also for archival of
records.
a. What are the risks and issues associated with backing up data to the cloud? You
should name and describe each risk that you identify that applies to:
i. Backing up data to the Cloud
Too much time in restoring backup: Backing up the data is used so that in case anything goes
wrong, backup data can be used. Now, Webb must ensure the timely retrieval of their backup
data from the cloud. Restoring data from cloud using bandwidth will be very slow as compared
to the restoring the backup from the tapes (Nicolini, et al., 2015)
Backup Windows size: For backup, Data needs to be moved from machines to servers on a
continuous basis and thus it will be consuming the bandwidth making the overall network slow
(Yao, Lu, & Zhu, 2014)
ii. Storage of data in the Cloud
Data privacy risk: Webb stores having the confidential information related to payment details of
customers and many more and any compromise of the cloud security vendor can put the
company’s data on risk
iii. Retrieval of data from the cloud.
Identity Risk: Cloud vendors do not have strong mechanism in place to distinguish between the
authentic traffic and malicious traffic which is a very high risk for the Webb stores.

CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
Network risk: Cloud vendor will send the data after decryption to your systems and if the Webb
stores is not using encryption/decryption at their end, unencrypted data transmission over the
network can be very much vulnerable to attackers and intruders.
b. How does Webb’s use of a Cloud backup affect their DR plans? Describe how you
see that their backup and restore strategy will change as a result of this service.
Earlier backup was maintained on the tapes in-house and hence retrieval is pretty much fast
however in case of outsourcing backup services also to the cloud vendor, Disaster recovery plan
must be changed. In this case, DR plans will make use of bandwidth and thus Webb stores
should ensure that it is using high speed internet so that restoration can happen very quickly.
Webb stores also plan to conduct a pilot project regarding restoring the backup and can analyses
the time needed, costs and bandwidth requirements (Couto, et al., 2014).
4 How should Webb’s protect access to these services that they are now moving to the
Cloud? Describe what you would recommend to Webb’s Board to protect access to:
a. Their IaaS infrastructure,
Webb stores should give access to only authorized person based on their role. For example, a
person responsible for buying should see only the relevant details based on his role and not
everything that is stored on the cloud. Another way is to use services of specialized security and
Access management vendors like RSA Secure ID that generates a password on real time basis
and involves multi-factor authentication (Khalil, Khreishah, & Azeem, 2014). This will
drastically reduce any unauthorized access.

CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
b. Their Ms SQL Server 2012 R2 cloud instance,
Webb stores should use encryption at their end also and do not rely solely on the encryption and
security services of the cloud network. In this case, if the data of the cloud is compromised,
Webb stores data will still be encrypted. Web stores must ensure that it is storing the data
encryption key somewhere else and not on the cloud.
c. Their Cloud network infrastructure
The biggest challenge here is that cloud vendor does not have any firewalls that can
differentiate the data from the Webb stores and the data coming from malicious users. In such
cases, they should ensure that cloud vendor is using the virtual cloud firewall using virtual
security device that will be deployed within your tenant environment and separate customer
traffic from malicious traffic. Also, Webb stores should clearly bring this topic in contract with
the cloud vendors and also adds clause of penalty in case of any default.
d. Their Cloud backup and restore infrastructure challenges, security issues as well as
how these issues can be solved.
Backup and restoring is a time taking activity and involves a lot of challenges. It is
recommended that Webb stores should ask their vendor to conduct a Pilot project where they
will be showcasing their capability how fast they can restore the back up and also Webb stores
should setup the Service Level agreements (SLAs) that restoration must happen within this time
frame otherwise there will be a penalty. Also, there should be clauses like network should be up
and available more than 99% of the time and any downtime must be communicated 2 weeks in
advance (Almorsy, Grundy, & Muller, 2016).

CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
Webb stores also need to educate its IT users how to handle phishing emails because clicking on
malicious emails by any user on a network can pose a risk to entire network.

CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
References
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challenges. Information Sciences, 305, 357-383.
Almorsy, M., Grundy, J., & Müller, I. (2016). An analysis of the cloud computing security
problem. arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01107.
Chang, V. (2015). Towards a Big Data system disaster recovery in a Private Cloud. Ad Hoc
Networks, 35, 65-82.
Couto, R. D. S., Secci, S., Campista, M. E. M., & Costa, L. H. M. K. (2014). Network design
requirements for disaster resilience in IaaS clouds. IEEE Communications
Magazine, 52(10), 52-58.
Hashizume, K., Rosado, D. G., Fernández-Medina, E., & Fernandez, E. B. (2013). An analysis of
security issues for cloud computing. Journal of Internet Services and Applications, 4(1), 5.
Khalil, I., Khreishah, A., & Azeem, M. (2014). Consolidated Identity Management System for
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Gregory, R. D. I. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 9,122,711. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office.

CLOUD COMPUTONG STRAEGY AT WEBB’S STORES
Pearson, S. (2013). Privacy, security and trust in cloud computing. In Privacy and Security for
Cloud Computing (pp. 3-42). Springer London.
Rittinghouse, J. W., & Ransome, J. F. (2016). Cloud computing: implementation, management,
and security. CRC press.
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