Running Head: Cloud Computing

Assignment : Cloud Computing

Name: Sabbir Imam Jan
Course: Adv. Computer Architecture
Submitted to: Dr. Romi Lu
Strayer University

Date: May 14. 2015

Cloud Computing

I study different companies who have adopted cloud computing and it seems that cloud
computing is a solution for almost all organizations these days. Cloud is seen to be used
everywhere. There are various pros and cons of cloud computing which companies do
analyze before adoption and right now not all organizations are ready to afford the risks
of the cloud computing. I observe that in one way or the other all companies are using
cloud computing but Netflix and Wall Street are the core adopters of cloud computing in
their functionality. The companies, which are seen to be not adopting the cloud
computing are primarily the advertising agencies and similar companies who deal with
heavy files for which the transfer bandwidth across Internet may not be available. The
other reason for a company not adopting cloud computing is the security of data from
unauthorized threat attacks. A study has recently shown that NSA (National Security
Agency) has sneak-peaked in the data sent over Internet from Google and Yahoo users.
To be safe against such snooping attacks, the companies dealing with confidential
information like intelligence and other secure data cannot keep their data on cloud. As
another example of an organization for not adopting cloud computing is the financial
organizations like Wall Street where the transfer speed of the data matters a more than the
cost of storing the data. The scenario where the speed of the data matters a lot then there
is need for the systems to be physically close to each other. The latency in data transfer
reduces very significantly if the computer systems are located close to each other. So, for
these sort of operational concerns, cloud computing is not seen as a good option.
Netflix has partnered with Amazon Web Services to provide its online content to the users
by deploying thousands of its servers very quickly and store data in terabytes. The Netflix
data can be accessed from users across the world by using mobile devices.

Cloud Computing

Wall Street a financial organization did not believe in adopting cloud computing as a
viable option due to the priority on transfer speed of the data. But considering other
advantages of the cloud computing like reduction in cost of the infrastructure required
and the space to accommodate the same, Wall Street is seen moving towards cloud
computing in late 2013. But the same is targeted to stay within the organizations
firewalls. The cloud will still be used to exchange the historical market data and not the
current ongoing transactions. The cloud is still seen as the insecure way to transmit the
transactional data.
Hence there are certain characteristics that may discriminate the organizations in terms of
adoption of cloud or not. Some of the characteristics are as follows:
Reduction in cost of infrastructure for storage of data The companies like Netflix
who need to deal with huge amount of data in Terabytes and need storage of that much
amount of data seem to prefer cloud for storage so that the data can be easily accessed
and maintained by the cloud service provider.
Transfer time of data The companies who need speed of transfer of data like financial
services like Wall Street, cannot afford to store data on cloud because cloud are still based
on internet services. If in case Internet is down or somehow it is not working then the
whole purpose of the organization fails.
Security of data If the companies need security of data from any external attacks like
governmental snoops, hacking attacks or internal attacks, then the companies are tend to
store data on physical locations rather than clouds.
Advantages of cloud computing for Netflix

Cloud Computing

1. Reduction in cost: Cloud implementation for storing data helps Netflix in reduction of
expenses of the organization because otherwise the large amount of data will require huge
computer infrastructure.
2. Implementing functionality over cloud allows Netflix to maintain the code over same
location and accessed by various teams at the same place.
3. Netflix is holding tens of thousands of Amazons cloud services which gives it an
illusion of infinite availability of processor power and storage for increased computations
and data requirements.
4. The other advantage that Netflix gains from clouds is the data accessibility security i.e.
the data can be backed up and retrieved quickly is the data is found corrupted.
Disadvantages of cloud computing for Netflix
1. Sneak peak by competitors: Due to availability over internet, the competing
organizations may intercept with the Netflix data using latest technologies.
2. Since the whole business of Netflix is maintained by cloud over internet, then there is
risk of access to the data in case the internet is down or the cloud server cannot be
accessed.
3. Hackers may hack the cloud details and interfere with the organizations data stored
over clouds.

Cloud Computing

4. There can be other threats to the Netflixs data by the insiders of the organization.
There have been cases of insider threats in past where the records of 2 million Vodafone
customers were breached by the insider threat. It is very difficult to resolve the insider
threats because insider has access to steal the data that can go undetected.
Advantages of cloud computing for Wall Street
1. The prime advantage of cloud computing for a financial service organization like Wall
Street is not the cost of infrastructure but the ease of deployment and use of the historical
data to influence the present transactions.
2. The risk of data stolen or lost can be eliminated by incorporating cloud computing in
the functionalities because the USB drives and laptops will no longer be needed to store
the data.
3. Cloud computing offers high level of uptime and the backup servers provided by the
cloud provider reduces the risk of data loss which can be there in the organizations own
server which may be lost due to burglary or the fire.
Disadvantages of cloud computing for Wall Street
1. The risk of data leak increases due to transfer of control of data to the cloud provider.
To avoid these issues, the efficient cloud providers are needed rather than the less
effective providers, which may not be able to provide strong encryption and security.
2. Public Wi-Fi is not secure and hence the risk of breach of confidentiality increases
when people access the data on their mobile devices on move.

Cloud Computing

3. The cloud is provided by the third party and the whole dependency is on the provider,
which increases the risk of server downtime.
NSA and CIA cloud computing
National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency are the two organizations of
secret agency which deal with confidential data to be kept hidden from the general public
and may need to communicate this data only with few people. Being a key member of the
Intelligence community (as mentioned on the NSA website), NSA requires a high level of
confidentiality.
Due to their nature of work, NSA and CIA should not adopt the cloud computing services
as such because even the single threat to security and the security breach to the
information may lead to high risks to the public and people involved. CIAs main aim is
to produce the analysis the secret information collected from all sources to keep the
safety of the nation intact.( www.riskbasedsecurity.com)
These both the organizations are not a good candidate for the deployment of cloud
computing since there are various threats to data safety in cloud computing which these
organizations cannot afford to take.
NSA itself has proved the security threats of cloud computing by breaching the security
of cloud and snooping into the users data recently. NSA has tried to prove the privacy
concerns of the cloud by cracking the encryption of the user details and other user data.
Sometimes there is government and court orders and sometimes not. This shows that
cloud service providers need to be strong and need to ensure their security concerns to

Cloud Computing

assure the safety of the customers data before it can be adopted by the secret service
agencies like NSA and CIA.
Even if the security agencies consider implementing the cloud computing to access their
resources then as said by the CTO of CIA Gus Hunt, there will be two-cloud strategy to
achieve cloud computing. One cloud will be implement as IAAS (Infrastructure-as-aservice) and other will be SAAS (Software-as-a-service). IAAS will give organization a
way to allow users to access virtual or physical services and according to Gus Hunt, they
will not be required to tell anybody that which software needs to be run for which
service. The other cloud SAAS can keep other information related to CRM and emails.

Reference:

1. https://www.riskbasedsecurity.com/2014/12/a-breakdown-and-analysis-of-thedecember-2014-sony-hack/
2. http://www.networkworld.com/article/2168432/cloud-computing/why-netflix-isone-of-the-most-important-cloud-computing-companies.html
3. http://online.wsj.com/ad/article/cloudcomputing-changelives