Database Reference
In-Depth Information
19.1.3 o rganization
The rest of this chapter will be organized as follows: In Section 19.2, we will pres-
ent background information about various cloud models and explain what is new in
cloud security and what characteristics of clouds make security more difficult than
traditional distributed systems. In Section 19.3, we will introduce the main research
questions and challenges in cloud security and elaborately discuss each of them in a
set of subsections. For each subsection covering a research question, we will exam-
ine the issue at stake, explore the challenges, discuss existing solution approaches,
and analyze the pros and cons of existing solutions. Next, in Section 19.4, we will
present a list of open research problems, which will provide the readers with a list
of potential research problems that remain unsolved. Finally, we will summarize the
chapter and conclude in Section 19.5.
19.2 BACKGROUND
To understand the security challenges in cloud computing and Big Data, we need to
look into the unique operational and architectural models of clouds and the proper-
ties of Big Data. In this section, we discuss the definition and various service models
used in cloud computing. We then present the properties of Big Data and finally dis-
cuss why securing a cloud poses new challenges in addition to traditional distributed
system security issues.
19.2.1 C louD C omPuting
Cloud computing is a relatively new business model for outsourced services. However,
the technology behind cloud computing is not entirely new. While virtualization,
data outsourcing, and remote computation have been developed over the last 40
years, cloud computing provides a streamlined way of provisioning and delivering
such services to customers. In this regard, cloud computing is best described as a
business paradigm or computing model than any specific technology.
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has defined
cloud computing as “a model which provides a convenient way of on-demand net-
work access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks,
servers, storage, applications, and services), that can be rapidly provisioned and
released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” [25]. The
Open Cloud Manifesto Consortium defines cloud computing as “the ability to con-
trol the computing power dynamically in a cost-efficient way and the ability of the
end user, organization, and IT staff to utilize the most of that power without having
to manage the underlying complexity of the technology” [26].
A key characteristic of cloud computing according to the above definitions is that,
a cloud is by nature a shared resource. Therefore, the same physical hardware can be
shared by multiple users.
Based on which services are provided and how the services are delivered to
customers, cloud computing can be divided into three categories: software as a
Search WWH ::




Custom Search