Head in the clouds (part 1)
December 14, 2009 by Paul M.. Filed under Cloud computing.
The cloud computing movement is at the peak of Gartner’s Hype Cycle curve right now. This indicates two obvious things (and maybe much more besides): 1. Everyone has something to say about or to sell related to cloud computing, and 2. The phrase ‘cloud computing’ is about to descend steeply into the Trough of Disillusionment, at which time all the naysayers will be saying, “see? We told you this cloud nonsense was just hot air…”. (BTW, the meteorological kind are not hot – they are actually cold and moist).
There are several arguments driving resistance to adoption of cloud computing for corporate applications, but perhaps the most significant concern is the security and the privacy of off-hosted data. Ie., if the database holding sensitive and private customer data is on someone else’s premises, the risk that it could leak into the wrong hands is high(er than if we kept it on site).
I’m no security expert, but these concerns seem a little overblown to me. Security solutions for remote sites and connections have been around for a long time, so this problem is not intractable. And anecdotally, I understand the biggest risk to data privacy is staff misuse and social engineering – not the technology per se. Couldn’t an argument be made therefore, that cloud-hosted data can be set up to be more secure and private than its on-premises version…?
There are other business issues that are at least as important for a large organisation to consider as part of their IT applications and services deployment and management strategy. It is the answers to these issues that I predict will pull the cloud movement very rapidly out of the Trough of Disillusionment and up the Slope of Enlightenment. In particular, how do we determine which pieces of our entire IT portfolio are most appropriate to delegate to the cloud? Which cloud platforms (if any) are able to provide the necessary quality of service and performance we and our customers require, and how do we select between the options?
These are some of the questions that we’re taking now from IT managers and executives. And fortunately, we’re now well-qualified to start answering some of those questions. Associate Professor Anna Liu, from the School of Computer Science and Engineering, UNSW, recently joined our team as a part-contributed staff member. Her team and ours are working together on use-inspired research into the performance characteristics of cloud computing services. I’ve known Anna for about 10 years, since she was a research student with Ian Gorton (a former NICTAn himself) at CSIRO, before she became an Architect Advisor and Group Manager of Emerging Technologies at Microsoft Australia. Anna’s capabilities strongly complement those of the rest of our group, and we’re looking to do some good work together, with particular focus on industry engagement, and a very definite view ahead to that Slope of Enlightenment.
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Companies have outsourced resources, applications and whole business units for at least a decade or more, and as such the security concerns are no difference to those of Cloud Computing . The difference is probably more a question of (perceived) control, but the real question for both is more about who has access (both in terms of regulatory and privacy) and how the access control is enforced (both IT and policy matter) than a question of where the data is hosted. Data can be hosted in Australia, but potentially equally accessible by support staff from Australia, Brazil, Ireland, China, India or anywhere else in the World – no difference (assuming fast Internet connection). Regulatory access is probably the only aspect where location plays a (significant) role.
And I also think that there is an emotional aspect to all of this – we think we know what’s ‘local’ (e.g., Australian), whereas Cloud Computing is ‘global’ and therefore inherently less known = less trustworthy.
[...] was only about 6 weeks ago that I reported on Anna’s position as contributed staff from UNSW (although some months earlier than that when [...]