Data and Cloud Storage

With the revolution of information technology, data or information becomes more and more valuable. This data requires secure and reliable place that is accessible to users as they need it, when they need it and where they need it. Cloud storage delivers this on demand services effectively, efficiently and cheaply. Apart from its name, cloud storage has little relationship with the cloud in the sky and is a data center that supported and maintained by hardware, software and human power that specializes in storing information or data. Cloud storage provides services to users based on need remotely to store their data, along backup and recovery services. In addition, Cloud storage free up users from planning and designing their store needs as well as the need for hardware, software and human power. With cloud storage, there is no need for planning and designing to upgrade or downgrade the space capacity of storage area as the amount of data changes. Because of its immensely high storage capacity, cloud storage accommodates all demand for data storage, and data stored in cloud storage is accessible from any place, at any time requiring only internet connection. This cost efficient, effective, reliable and user friendly service attracting users more and more and its future seems to be dependent only on the level of its security.

Current Use of Cloud Storage

The cheap, effective, efficient and convenient data storage services through cloud storage providers are catching the eyes of many users. Data owners are increasingly relying on cloud storage to store and maintain their data; Howard stresses this point, “one’s head is in the clouds or not, sooner or later his data will be” (Howard, 2014). Convenience, cost, and competition is the prime factors that force users to adapt a particular technology. The same is true with cloud storage services, and users flowing toward cloud storage on daily bases. Cloud storage has competitive advantage in cost saving in multiple fronts that enable it to deliver services at lower cost.

Individuals and entities are increasingly taking advantage of this cost effective service to stay ahead of the game and increase their bottom line; Helland underlines the point, “Very large data centers can offer computation, storage, and networking at a relatively cost-effective price. Power is an ever-increasing portion of data-center costs, and it can be obtained more effectively by placing the data center near inexpensive sources of electricity such as hydroelectric dams” (Helland, 2013).  Competition is the leading factor that determines the health of an enterprise. Those businesses that unable to cope with technology often fall behind which demonstrates the difference between Netflix and Blockbuster. Dropbox is one of the cloud storage providers that moving fast providing data storing services, “Dropbox made itself a household name by giving away cloud storage. The eight-year-old company, valued at $10 billion, had 300 million, registered users a year ago; now it's got 400 million” (Newcomer, 2015).

Security of Cloud Storage

Besides all this fruitful benefits, cloud storage comes with severe risks to data owners. First, this metadata is handled by human beings and a single human error can be disastrous that might wipe out all the valuable data. Second, this cheap, convenient, widely available virtual storage is also available for the bad individuals as well. Third, all the information of different data of individuals and business are comingled and the integrity of these data is questionable. Here is Peter G Neumann stressing this point, “the main issue is that expectations of trustworthiness may be unrealistic. Confidentiality, system integrity, data integrity, reliability, robustness, and resilience may be questionable” (Neumann, 2014).

While cloud storage saves businesses tremendous amount of money, a single breach of data stored in cloud storage may award them a high liability. This liability is the damage that the victims demand for their loss. The cost of data breach is not limited to the direct liabilities that paid to victims for data breach incidents. As these kinds of incidents played in news media twenty-four seven, customers simply avoid doing business with these businesses that experienced data breach that can be the most costly thing a business can face. Because of security concerns, many businesses are becoming reluctant in using cloud storage according to this finding, “Organization such as Healthcare and Payment Card Industry where confidentiality of information is a vital act, are not assertive to trust the security techniques and privacy policies offered by cloud service providers” (Brohi, Bamiah, Chuprat, & Manan, 2014).

Ethical and Social Implication

Cost is the main concern to individuals, businesses and other organizations before attempting to accomplish their goals and assess this matter very carefully. Cloud storage providers face a similar dilemma between maximizing their profit and investing more to enhance security to safeguard the data and fulfill their promise by security their clients’ data. Since cloud storage providers are businesses that exist primarily for profit, their interests do not often align with the interests of their customers. Here is Yongun addressing this point, “this new paradigm of data storage service also introduces new security challenges, because data owners and data servers have different identities and different business interests” (Yongjun Ren, 2014).

Enhanced security to safeguard data requires high investment. Businesses often struggle to balance between investing in security and lowering their cost of service and not always a clear cut which one attracts more customers and award higher returns to their investments. Therefore, security of data does not have priority over profit and a bulk of metadata stored in cloud storage remains unsecured and implicates big privacy issues. Besides the economic benefits and convenient services to data owners, security and privacy concerns are at the heart of those data owners; these authors underline this point as well, “While this outsourced storage and computing paradigm can potentially bring great economical savings for data owners and users, its benefits may not be fully realized due to wide concerns of data owners that their private data may be involuntarily exposed or handled by cloud provider” (Lou, Hou, Li, Yu, & Ren, 2013).

Future of Cloud Storage

Cloud storage provides data storage services on demand to users as they need, when they need, and where they need requiring only internet connection. Cloud storage delivers these services cheaply, effectively, efficiently and conveniently. These authors underscore this point, “Taking advantage of distributed storage technology and virtualization technology, cloud storage systems provide virtual machine clients customizable storage service” (Wan, et al., 2013). These futures are becoming more and more attractive to data owners. The amount of data will continue to increase and therefore the demand for storage for this data. The cheap and convenient services by cloud storage will continue to attract more and more users; here are the authors highlighting this point, “Cloud computing is envisioned as the next generation architecture of IT enterprises, providing convenient remote access to massively scalable data storage and application services” (Lou, Hou, Li, Yu, & Ren, 2013).

Besides that, security concern of data owners will continue to hunt cloud storage providers and keep away customers from this service and who knows which one will win. One logical guess is that cloud storage providers will step up with security that capable of securing the data and cloud storage continue to flourish. Here are Lou and his colleagues addressing this point, “We analyze their advantages and limitations, and outline the future challenges that need to be solved to make such secure searchable cloud data service a reality” (Lou, Hou, Li, Yu, & Ren, 2013). Therefore, enhanced security to safeguard data stored in cloud storage is imperative for its future.

Conclusion

Information technology brought data to its highest quality. The value of this data is highly dependent on its medium of exchange or storage. Owners of this data found cloud storage as convenient, effective, and economically efficient means of storing their data. These highly attractive futures of cloud storage along its unlimited storage capacity, and on demand access with no hardware or software requirement from users tend to continue to attract more and more users. Besides these fruitful futures, cloud storage lacks sound security that guarantees data owners the tranquility they need knowing the safety and integrity of their data is maintained. These impasses are making data owners nervous to use cloud storage to park their data. Here is Bessani highlighting this point, “The increasing popularity of cloud storage services has lead companies that handle critical data to think about using these services for their storage needs. Medical record databases, large biomedical datasets, historical information about power systems and financial data are some examples of critical data that could be moved to the cloud. However, the reliability and security of data stored in the cloud still remain major concerns” (BESSANI, 2014). Therefore, the future of cloud storage will depends on the level of security employed by cloud storage providers to maintain and protect the integrity of this highly sensitive and valuable data.

Bibliography

BESSANI, A. C. (2014, November). The increasing popularity of cloud storage services has lead companies that handle critical data to think about using these services for their storage needs. Medical record databases, large biomedical datasets, historical information about power systems a. ACM Transactions on Storage., 1-33.

Access is peer-reviewed published by ACM Transactions on Storage. In this article, Bessani described why data owners that handle sensitive information are reluctant to jump into cloud storage to park and maintain their sensitive data. They noted that security is the issue for those data owners that preventing them to use cloud storage for storing their data information.

Brohi, S. N., Bamiah, M. A., Chuprat, S., & Manan, J.-l. A. (2014). DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A PRIVACY PRESERVED OFF-PREMISES CLOUD STORAGE. Journal of Computer Science, 210-223. Retrieved July 07, 2015, from http://search.proquest.com.mutex.gmu.edu/docview/1520926924?accountid=14541

Access is peer-reviewed that published by Journal of Computer Science. In this article, Brohi and his colleagues illustrated that why some companies are not jumping into the cost effective way of storing their data. They noted that, specially, entities that handle sensitive information are not satisfied by security level that is supplied by cloud storage providers.

Helland, P. (2013, January). Condos and Clouds. Communications of the ACM, 56-59. doi:10.1145/2398356.2398374

Access is peer-reviewed published by Communication of the ACM. In this article, Helland pointed out the advantages that bid data centers have in cost saving that enable them to provide services at low cost. He detailed multiple ways these companies achieve their cost savings that afford them to say ahead of the game to cash in the convenience and cost effective services that provide to data owners.

Howard, F. (2014). Cloud cover. Midwest/Central edition, 14. Retrieved July 10, 2015, from http://search.proquest.com.mutex.gmu.edu/docview/1553730951?accountid=14541

Access is peer-reviewed that published by Midwest/ Central edition. In this article, Howard indirectly stressed the future of cloud storage. He said, data owners will find their data in cloud storage. He was emphasizing the convenience, low cost, efficiency, and on demand availability of the storage services will bring in data owners because they can't afford to refuse it.

Lou, W., Hou, Y., Li, M., Yu, s., & Ren, K. (2013, July). Privacy-Preserving Public Auditing for Secure Cloud Storage. IEEE Network.

Access is peer-reviewed published by IEEE Network. In this article, Lou and his colleagues stressed the imperative of security at cloud storage. They emphasized the economic benefits gained from cloud storage services. However, the underlined the importance of security that need to be enhanced in order to capitalize on this technological advancements.

Neumann, P. G. (2014). Inside Risks: Risks and Myths of Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage. Association for Computing Machinery. Communications of the ACM, 25. Retrieved July 06, 2015, from http://search.proquest.com.mutex.gmu.edu/docview/1614363649?

Access is peer-reviewed published by Communications of the ACM. In this article, Neumann highlighted the importance of security in cloud storage and what effects had the lack of security on data owners. He stressed that the main reason that many enterprises that handle sensitive information are still reluctant to use cloud storage as their place to store their data.

Newcomer, E. &. (2015, June). Dropbox struggles to think in dollars. Business Week, 38. Retrieved Jully 11, 2015, from http://search.proquest.com.mutex.gmu.edu/docview/1695165967?accountid=14541

Access is peer-reviewed and published by Business Week. In this article, Newcomer illustrated how cloud storage is expanding in such short time by noting Dropbox as an example that able to achieve over 400 million registered users in relatively short period of time. This implicates the potential of cloud storing if the industry able to strength its security to protect the data.

Wan, J., Zhang, L., Wang, Y., Jiang, c., Ren, Y., & Wang, J. (2013, December). a Lightweighted Block-level Cld Storage System. Cluster Computing, 625-638.

Access is peer-reviewed published by Cluster Computing. In this article, Wan and his colleagues emphasized the services that provided by cloud storage. Their point is that cloud storage provides convenient virtual services to store data that can be accessed on demand from any time from any place that allow data owners several services.

Yongjun Ren, J. S. (2014). Security Data Auditing based on Multifunction Digital Watermark for Multimedia File in Cloud Storage. International Journal of Multimedia & Ubiquitous Engineering, 231-240.

Access is peer-reviewed published by the International Journal of multimedia & Ubiquitous Engineering. In this article, Yongjun Ren described the reasons that the security at cloud storage is not up to the point where needed by the data owners. He detailed that data owners and cloud storage providers has different business interests and the priority of cloud storage providers is not security and therefore, the security at cloud storage is not strong enough to protect data stored there.