Let's say
you're an executive at a large corporation. Your particular responsibilities
include making sure that all of your employees have the right hardware and
software they need to do their jobs. Buying computers for everyone isn't enough -- you also have to
purchase software or software
licenses to give employees the tools they require. Whenever you
have a new hire, you have to buy more software or make sure your current
software license allows another user. It's so stressful that you find it
difficult to go to sleep
on your huge pile of money every night.
Private Eyes Are Watching You
Cloud Computing Concerns
Soon, there
may be an alternative for executives like you. Instead of installing a suite of
software for each computer, you'd only have to load one application. That
application would allow workers to log into a Web-based service which hosts all
the programs the user would need for his or her job. Remote machines owned by
another company would run everything from e-mail
to word processing to complex data analysis programs. It's called cloud computing,
and it could change the entire computer industry.
In a cloud
computing system, there's a significant workload shift. Local computers no
longer have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to running applications.
The network of computers that make up the cloud handles them instead. Hardware
and software demands on the user's side decrease. The only thing the user's
computer needs to be able to run is the cloud computing system's interface software,
which can be as simple as a Web browser, and the cloud's network takes care of
the rest.
There's a
good chance you've already used some form of cloud computing. If you have an
e-mail account with a Web-based e-mail service like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or
Gmail, then you've had some experience with cloud computing. Instead of running
an e-mail program on your computer, you log in to a Web e-mail account remotely. The software and storage
for your account doesn't exist on your computer -- it's on the service's
computer cloud.
Private Eyes Are Watching You
There are a
few standard hacker tricks that could cause cloud computing companies
major headaches. One of those is called key
logging. A key logging program records keystrokes. If a hacker
manages successfully to load a key logging program on a victim's computer, he
or she can study the keystrokes to discover user names and passwords. Of
course, if the user's computer is just a streamlined terminal, it might be
impossible to install the program in the first place.
Cloud Computing Concerns
Perhaps the
biggest concerns about cloud computing are security and privacy. The idea
of handing over important data to another company worries some people.
Corporate executives might hesitate to take advantage of a cloud computing
system because they can't keep their company's information under lock
and key.
The counterargument
to this position is that the companies offering cloud computing services live
and die by their reputations. It benefits these companies to have reliable
security measures in place. Otherwise, the service would lose all its clients.
It's in their interest to employ the most advanced techniques to protect their
clients' data.
Privacy is
another matter. If a client can log in from any location to access data and
applications, it's possible the client's privacy could be compromised. Cloud
computing companies will need to find ways to protect client privacy. One way
is to use authentication
techniques such as user names and passwords. Another is to employ an authorization
format -- each user can access only the data and applications relevant to his
or her job.
Some
questions regarding cloud computing are more philosophical. Does the user or
company subscribing to the cloud computing service own the data? Does the cloud
computing system, which provides the actual storage space, own it? Is it
possible for a cloud computing company to deny a client access to that client's
data? Several companies, law firms and universities are debating these and
other questions about the nature of cloud computing.
How will
cloud computing affect other industries? There's a growing concern in the IT
industry about how cloud computing could impact the business of computer
maintenance and repair. If companies switch to using streamlined computer
systems, they'll have fewer IT needs. Some industry experts believe that the
need for IT jobs will migrate to the back end of the cloud computing system.
Another
area of research in the computer science community is autonomic computing.
An autonomic computing system is self-managing, which means the system monitors
itself and takes measures to prevent or repair problems. Currently, autonomic
computing is mostly theoretical. But, if autonomic computing becomes a reality,
it could eliminate the need for many IT maintenance jobs.
Stuff you
need to know:
• Cloud
computing systems generally have a front end, which is what the user sees, and
a back end, which does all the work.
• Cloud
computing shares some similarities with an older model of computing called
timesharing. A timesharing computer system connects multiple users to a single
computer processor through dumb terminals, which have a keyboard and monitor,
but leave the computing to the central machine.
• While
cloud computing promises to offload tasks like data storage and processing
power, the model raises questions about data accessibility and security. How
can you insure that you can get to your data and keep it safe if it's on
someone else's computer?
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