Introduction:
In 1977, the first computer was sold to a
private person - the commodore PET. Back then, only few people considered that
millions of lives and processes would fundamentally change. Most people were
rather confused by the emerging electronic technology. Eventually, most people
took the initiative to understand and work with the computer. Only few that do
not know either do not have access to this technology or are unable to learn
it. Lives changed, operations efficiency increased, and communication was
redefined.
Today, only thirty-five years later, it is
expected that the computing industry will undergo a major paradigm shift. The
technology, which is considered to be responsible for this change is
called ‘cloud computing’. Just as in the 1970’s there is a great amount of
people today who are not aware of this new technology. Since it is new and
complex, its advantages and disadvantages that it will bring to society are
highly unknown - this may become a problem. Hence, this paper will reveal what
cloud computing is, how it works, and what effects it will have on society.
Technology
is one of the most innovative industries in the world. Innovations in this
sector truly do have the power to change our lives. Creations such as;
Facebook, cell phones, and the portable music player have definitely changed
the world we live in. However as soon as one product comes along and
revolutionises the market within a very short amount of time it is becoming
outdated.
In
the 90’s it was seen as very cool to have a cell phone, in the 2000’s and iPod
was the must have product. However having this product now does not matter, you
need to have the most up to date version of these products to be seen as up to
date. It is amazing that not 10 years after these completely revolutionary
products were released the original market changing products are now completely
outdated.
History of Cloud Computing:
Even
twenty years before the first computers were sold to the public, Herbert Grosch
predicted, that instead of using a computer in every one's home, it would
be a lot more beneficial to use massive central data centers instead (Ryan,
Merchant, & Falvey, 2011). The idea of cloud computing is not new. But
today, through the emergence of the Internet, it becomes available and
attainable. In 2006, Amazon released the Amazon Web Service which was a key
development in cloud computing. Only four years ago, in an article published by
Gartner, the potential for cloud computing “to shape the relationship among
consumers of IT services, those who use IT services and those who sell them”
has been clarified. Today, the largest IT corporations on the planet fight for
the dominant position in cloud computing. Google is offering purely web based
office features already, whilst Apple is integrating the same services across
its hardware devices since one year. The paradigm shift triggered by cloud
computing is a currently ongoing process, and not to be underrated in its
importance. It is hard to say whether we are currently at the peak, or just at
the beginning of the process but in 30 years from now we will know - just as in
the 70s when the first Commodore was sold. We will most certainly look back on
today’s time, and see how important the 21st century was.
What
is cloud computing and what does it mean today?
Cloud
computing refers to the provision and management of applications, information,
and data, delivered as a service, where the hardware and software is called a
cloud (Armbrust et al., 2010). There are three main types of cloud computing,
namely infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and
software as a service (SaaS). The first form is the most basic model of cloud
computing and providers offer computers, storage, firewalls, networks, etc. In
the PaaS, providers offer the computing platform, usually including a database,
web server, and development tools. In SaaS, cloud providers install, operate,
and manage the application software in the cloud. The users then access the
cloud from so called cloud clients. In essence, cloud computing provides a way
of accessing computing services independent of your location or the hardware
you use. Users no longer have to store information and data on their computers
or mobile devices because that information can be easily accessed via the
Internet. Further, this means that users no longer have to download and install
software on their computers, freeing up internal memory and simultaneously
reducing energy consumption and costs (www.independent.co.uk, 2010).
Most
of us already use cloud computing in one way or another like on a personal or
business oriented basis. A good example is Google mail: Google mail provides
its users with access to their e-mails all over the world, no matter whether
they have their own computers or laptops with them. Since a cloud is accessible
from anywhere and the e-mail service is stored in the cloud, it is completely
independent from a user’s physical location. This basically makes local storage
place redundant. Storing files, such as photos, videos, or documents on your
computer, imposes restrictions and makes it impossible to access them except
from your own computer. Storing them in a cloud, however, gives you the freedom
to access them from anywhere. this is the shift that technology has made in
this cloud computing era. From accessing emails from around the world to
everything on your hard drive. One downside of this kind of storing is that
user put their lifes “out there”, somewhere in the Internet and the security of
your data might be a concern. Security and ethical issues will be discussed in
more detail in a later section.
Cloud
computing also brings along some advantages to companies and businesses that
use it. For example, it enables working in virtual offices and facilitates
collaboration between employees in different countries. Using Google docs for
example, employees can work on the same piece of work simultaneously and
directly see any changes that are made. Since nowadays more and more companies
are organizing projects on a global scale, cloud computing is a vital tool to
simplify communication and team work among employees in globally dispersed
locations (Siebdrat, Hoegl, and Ernst, 2009).
Since
companies can buy cloud computing capacity when they need it and how much they
need, it is a very convenient and can reduce costs for companies as they do not
need physical devices anymore (www.technobuffalo.com, 2012).
A Technological Paradigm Shift - Cloud
Computing:
When
IBM and Apple started selling their first computers to the public, the major
focus was to bring as much computing power to the individual as possible. Every
household and company had its own hard-drives and processors. The pioneers of
cloud computing predict, that this will soon be over. No more hard drives and
processors at the individual level? How should that be possible? Billions of
dollars have been earned in the past and continue on into the future.
Cloud
computing seeks to centralize all processing and file storage tasks to a huge
central server farm. In a century in which the Internet is almost considered a
commodity, at least in the more developed nations, computing power and storage
space do not have to be with the individual anymore. After all, most computers
in peoples homes are on idle mode most of the time. Most of the computing power
is absolutely unnecessary. Hence, from a technological standpoint, the paradigm
shift is predicted to take all the processing speed and storage capabilities
away from the individual. Instead, it will be integrated into a gigantic server
farm. The only device that the user will need in the end, is a screen which
provides fast access to the Internet. It can be imagined in the following way:
Instead of storing your groceries and valuables into your own storage room at
home, you simply put it into a massive storage house which a company provides
to you. This is where the philosophical dilemma begins.
A
Philosophical Paradigm Shift:
How
sure can you be, that the company to whom you gave your valuables to treats
them confidentially and with integrity. After all, if the company that stores
your data could do a scan on what you store in their space. They could easily
figure out what your purchasing patterns are, when and where basically. It
could then sell those information to the little store around the corner who
would then know how to approach you in order to sell his goods. With the rise
of cloud computing, our personal hard drives and even physical filing cabinets
are set to be a thing of the past. We hear a lot about the disadvantages of
these storage methods, however, if you keep all your personal files in a
cabinet in your house you know exactly who has access to your documents without
exception. As soon as these files go online, you can never be 100% sure who is
looking. Hackers are not the only worry at who could be viewing your files
without permission, as the company in which you are trusting to store your
files could theoretically have access to them. There have been recent conflicts
with companies such as Google on their privacy policy over allegedly scanning
people’s e-mails. Scanning consumers e-mail can prove a very useful tool. It
was found in 2007 that 40% of Americans sent an e-mail to a company
telling them what they thought of their product. (Fleishman-Hillard, A. 2007)
By way of scanning these e-mails, this allows companies to target consumers
with advertisements based on their preferences and opinions on certain
products. With concerns over some of the biggest names in computing’s
privacy policies, this casts a shadow of doubt over the whole industry. This is
especially seen when the companies do not go a huge way to reassure their
consumer as seen in this quote;
“Nothing you do ever goes away, and nothing you do ever escapes
notice. There isn’t any privacy, get over it” (Vincent Cerf, 2008)
However,
with the new younger generation who have much more trust in the Internet cloud
computing is still set to take over as our means of storage.
On
the other hand we live in an aging population with more and more people over 50
logging on and even spawning the term “silver surfer”. The older generation are
much more wary of having their details online or putting any information
about themselves on sites such as Facebook so thinking they will be willing to
give up their physical storage space and store their entire online identity in
a “cloud” after a lifetime of using physical storage spaces is unlikely it will
see mass adoption.
Implementation
of Cloud Computing in Businesses
Amazon
is one of the most well known users and integrators of cloud computing. Amazon
has created and used web services, a half-dozen services including the Elastic
Compute Cloud, for computing capacity, and the Simple Storage Service, for
on-demand storage capacity. Google another well known innovator for cloud
computing programs and services. Their biggest innovation includes Google
Apps, which offers a set of online office productivity tools including e-mail,
calendaring, word processing and a simple Website creation tool; Postini.
Google Apps was the company's attempt to branch out beyond the consumer search
market and become a player in the enterprise. Google unveiled the enterprise
version of Apps in February 2007 in a competitive strike against rival Microsoft
(Brodink, 2009). Microsoft, a smaller player in the cloud computing game, has
created a operating system and developer services called Azure. Software
companies such as Epicor, S3Edge and Micro Focus are among the early customers
using Azure in creating cloud apps. These are just a few examples of real
life implementation of business using cloud computing. Understanding
these features can help developers to quickly adopt the appropriate
technologies and develop their clouds effectively. (Antonopoulos and Gillam,
2010)
Is
Cloud Computing Secure?
Many
businesses, organisations, and educational systems started relying on cloud
computing for storing, backing up, and sharing data amongst employees. but we
must ask ourselves, is cloud computing secure and reliable enough?
Due
to the growing importance of this phenomenon, different solutions have been
enforced in order to protect all the data of different customers gathered and
stored.
In
comparison to traditional computing, which usually backs up data during the
night, cloud computing saves at the end of each transaction. In this way if a
hardware device malfunctions or in general if something fails in the system, it
is possible to restore all files with the latest updating.
For
clients who doubt the security of the data transfer between the cloud and the
computer which accesses it, an encryption is applied to the data before
submitting it. This is done in order to protect the files from the many
different servers that can try to access the data. Finally, everybody can run
its own back-up. These are safety measures to help ensure cloud computing stays
safe and belongs to the initial user.
Because
of the huge risk of losing data or being hacked, providers take the security
issue with much more concern. As time goes on, even more stringent measures
will be taken in order to protect this system - eventually public policy will
have to deal with online security matters.
Companies
providing cloud security have even stated that it is safer than most enterprises.
However every kind of security that we have been told is unbreakable has been
broken; Gmail was hacked not long ago, Wikileaks managing to leak documents
from the US government, and PlayStation network was also hacked and shut down
in the last year. For every genius security program created, there will always
be equally very intelligent hackers working to tear down these security walls.
And especially when the prize of breaking into a cloud computing server will
have such a sizeable reward. This is a scary thought as cloud computing will
hold basically our whole online identity which to hackers is extremely
valuable. Whole identities could be stolen as a matter of fact.
Cloud
computing is one of the technological waves of the future. But what about legal
offices and law firms? Legal ethics consideration must be done even for lawyers
using this digital database. Is it secure for all clients’ data, to store all
their information in it? How can the individual customer be sure that their own
data will never be taken and used for other purposes and by other people then
their own lawyer? This is the security issue that the ABA Commission on Ethics
20/20 is arising from the use of this technology. Instead of presenting a list
of restrictions to all the lawyers regarding the confidentiality related
obligations while using this system, Bar associations, so far, have opted to
offer more guidance on what to look for in a cloud computing provider.
http://www.infoq.com/articles/state-of-cloud-applications
The
Future of Cloud Computing
It
is believed today that the hype for cloud computing has driven its popularity,
but what is the actually driver behind it that will be able to continue for
years? One factor that is driving the demand for cloud computing is the
explosive growth of data in recent years. According to projections by Century
Link, by 2015, the world will see a four-fold increase in the amount of data
being created and replicated. Once this happens there needs to be a way to
store this data safely and allows multiple users to access and use. As time
passes, and technology progresses as well, cloud computing will become better,
faster, and smarter. There is plenty of room for cloud computing in the
computer infrastructure. This is ongoing building idea which is new that there
is bound to be failure in which the next years will be testing years to work
out all the bugs. Once a greater population uses this technology bugs will
become more apparent and should be able to be fixed. In order to create
security and trust when using the cloud, there must be regulations set up to
enforce such rules in which single sign-on, and identity-based security will be
used (Cantu, 2011). Many companies have found that when switching to cloud
computing there has been reduction in IT services and reduction in capital
costs. But the most important factor in using this technology is efficiency.
According to Forbes, it is estimated that, “by 2020, U.S. organizations that
move to the cloud could save $12.3 billion in energy costs and the equivalent
of 200 million barrels of oil.” With oil prices on the rise this could be a
real cost saver for companies. Industry analyst Krishnan Subramanian says in
coming years that there will be a convergence of mobile, cloud and social
media. These are the three most important medias we have in the 21st
century and they could all potentially converge into one multifaceted complex
package.
Cloud
computing is the new generation in technology and data housing. In the next few
years it will be become more user friendly in which all consumers can use and
enjoy.
Cloud Computing and Business Model Innovation
It
is widely known that the cloud computing is, and will be, disruptive in the
technological world. Yet today few companies realise the great importance of
this system for the business model innovation of their enterprises. Managers
can be distinguished in three different categories depending on their proneness
through the topic and their willingness to change. They are optimizers,
innovators and disrupters. In the following part we will hence analyze how
different manager personalities may use cloud computing to innovate their
business model:
Optimizers are
those who would exploit the new system offered by cloud computing to enhance
and slightly modify the value chain, their customers, and their value
proposition. They prevent the high risk linked to a failure due to a different
structure from the one they are used to: they would rather realise lower market
share and revenues than work in an uncertain environment. With this approach it
is possible to increase the flexibility and the efficiency of the company
offering the customer different experiences linked to the trial of the product,
or projecting broader sets of products or additional services, share the
resources and give them more opportunities.
Innovators on the
contrary are ready to change their structure through the use of the cloud
system. This is done by modifying the revenues system and even changing their
role in the industry and entering in similar business too. This combines
elements of the value chain to gain competitive advantage. This will lead to a
greater ability to attract customers because of the highly innovative solution
and to create a deeper integration between client and company.
Finally,
disruptors are the one that creates new needs, so new business, new
market and consequently new approach. Usually doing so, they will rise a need
in people’s mind and their company is the only one able to provide the
necessary product to satisfy them. The result is that they will not only be the
first mover, but they will capture the unique competitive advantages due to
that and so very high revenues.
These
three different characters are distinguished by different behaviours.
Talking
about the customer value proposition and the value chain, those three
characters will have different positioning.
The
optimizers would enhance the proposition, the service currently offered, and
improve the value chains increasing efficiency and improving the ability to
collaborate and to partner; the innovators would extend their products and
channels offer, while they would transform the value chain by not only
increasing but even modifying their capabilities, in order to enter in a new
industry or to change their positioning in the present business; the disruptors
would invent an entirely new proposition and consequently would create
expressly a value chain for the industry.
Competition
to Cloud Computing
It
is the same story with data storage; the storage units get smaller and the
storage gets bigger; we went from a cassette tape to CD-ROMs to Hard Drives and
extremely small USB sticks. Today the USB sticks and Hard Drives available can
carry large amounts of data and are extremely portable as hard drives can fit
easily into your bag or a USB sticks can be the same size as a French fry so
there is no real problem with these methods of storage. However Giovanni Dosi
argues that in the technology industry exists “Technology push” and “Demand
pull” factors (Giovanni Dosi, 1982) meaning that even though there is no
problem with the products that are on the market consumers always want new
gadgets and tech companies are continually trying to innovate so as the cloud
is the newest innovation; cables and hard drives which we have spent years
relying on to store and transfer our data will be marketed as inefficient at
doing the job they have done so well in the last decade or so and pushed
entirely out of the market. There will come a time when you will be unable to
buy these products and cloud storage will essentially be the only option.
Conclusion:
Without
a doubt, cloud computing will change the way in which humans interact with
technology. As with every big change, much uncertainty will follow. We are
currently in a time when the majority of individuals are only now discovering
cloud computing and its potential power and influence. However, it is
forecasted that in just a few years time cloud computing will be a
technological norm and the need for expensive hardware will most likely
decrease whilst the need for internet capacity will increase. In such tough
economic times all businesses are looking for anyway in which to cut their
overheads, getting rid of this costly hardware could very well be one of them
aiding in the mass uptake of cloud computing .
Computing
power will be more centralized and so will data storage. The ethical problems
that centralized data storage may bring, are at hand and will certainly play a
major part of the industries future but may also affect political decision
making and public policy. There are many risks but also great benefits to be
expected.
What
we now know is that in a very close future many systems will be based on it:
from companies to groups of individuals with some feature in common. Unless it
can be proved that cloud computing is definitely not a secure approach to store
information, it is likely to become a database of worldwide importance.
The
idea and concept of cloud computing will in fact take time for people to
understand and use this technology. The younger generation will have more
motivation to use cloud computing as will generations to follow.However the
older generation will most likely be slower in the uptake of cloud computing
due to their greater caution of storing information online.
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