Cloud Computing and its Challenges

Cloud Computing and its Challenges

 

Keywords- Cloud computing, government, risks and challenges, CIO’s Challenges, Big data, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS.

Introduction

Governments around the world are striving to create a robust technology infrastructure with the minimum available budget, for the overall development of the respective countries. However complex procurement process and lack of technical expertise of individual departments for large scale procurement and application development initiatives has accelerated the need for development and use of a shared application platform.

 

Moreover, vast amount of data is being generated from health and education and also from various researches conducted all over the world. One of the greatest challenge of this  era is the effective storage and efficient usage of information in the form of data for decision making process. Cloud computing has the potential to transform the way, big data is managed resulting in improved cost-efficiency service and accelerated innovation with ability to scale applications on demand.

 

To harness the benefit of cloud, government of India has initiated a project named ‘GI cloud’, which comprise the formation and implementation of a cloud  computing environment at the national level, to act as a common repository of cloud based infrastructure resources and applications available on a sharable basis. 

Strategic Report on Adoption and Implementation of Cloud Computing.

Government of India has implemented a number of ICT initiatives under the National E-governance plan , including the creation of ICT infrastructure nationwide like State Wide Area Network (SWANs), State Data Centers (SDCs) and Common Service Centers (CSCs). National Initiatives like National Data centers (NDCs) NICNET,National Knowledge Network (NKN) and National Optic fibre Network (NoFN) has been rolled out and help in the reach in terms of connectivity both at the national level and state level.The infrastructure thus created can provide the basis for adoption of cloud computing for the Government thereby making optimum usage of existing infrastructure and reuse of applications, for the efficient and effective delivery of service.  

 

Apart from delivering e-services at a cheaper cost,, cloud platform also support other objectives like increased standardisation, interoperability and integration of the under-utilized resources. With cloud computing, e-governance initiatives can be accelerated, enhancing agility in customising and deploying ICT in an economic way by reusing the available resources.

 

According to the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, “cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction”. So it has five essential characteristics, three service models and four deployment models.

 

The five essential characteristics of cloud computing are:-

 

Convenient resource access:- A client can self-configure resources on-demand as needed with minimal interaction with the service provider.

 

Ubiquitous network access:-Resources are available over the network and can be accessed from anywhere and through any device.

 

Resources pooling:- The resources are pooled unlimitedly to multiple users by dynamically assigning and reassigning resources according to demand.

 

Elasticity:- Resources can be elastically provisioned to scale rapidly outward and inward according to demand with minimal management effort.

 

Metered service;- Provided service are metered on a pay-per-use basis according to the type of service.

The three service models of cloud are:-

 

• Infrastructure as a service (IaaS):- Here resources are available on demand thereby saving implementation cost and time of execution. This service include the following- 

• Computing resources as a service
• Storage as a service
• Network as a service
• Disaster recovery as a service
• Backup as a service
• Virtual Desktop solutions
• High availability services
• Infrastructure for application development and testing.

 

• Platform as a service (PaaS):- In this service, users does not have to invest for physical infrastructure. Here applications can be developed, changed or modified.  This include the following-

• Platform for application, portal development and testing
• Platform for application or portal hosting
• Database as a Service
• Collaboration platforms

                       

 

• Software as a service(SaaS):- Here software applications are ready to use, when a user subscribes to it.This include the following-

 

• Email as a service
• Products as a service
• Enterprise resource Planning (ERP) as a service
• Customer Relationship management (CRM) as  a service
• Business Intelligence (BI) and analytics as a service
• Identity and Access Management (IAM) as a service
• Security as a service
• Common Central services like payment gateway, mobile gateway, Public Key Infrastructure( PKI) etc as a service

 

The four deployment models for cloud computing are:-

 

Public cloud:- It provides cloud service in a virtualized  environment accessible via web applications or web services through internet. The cloud services and cloud resources are accessed from very large resource pools that are shared by all end users (dash & Pani, 2016,pg 849).

 

Private cloud:- A private cloud provides a distinct and secure cloud based environment in which only distinct users within an organization can access (Dash & Pani, 2016, pg 849). 

 

Community cloud:- A community cloud provides a distinct and secure environment, where organization with similar requirement share a common cloud infrastructure (Dash & Pani, 2016, pg 850).

 

Hybrid cloud:- A hybrid cloud provides an integrated environment accessible to both private and public cloud functionalities. So that organizations can maximise their efficiencies by employing public cloud services along with private cloud ensuring that all their platforms are virtualized (Dash & Pani, 2016 pg 850).

 

Government can deploy one or a combination of different models.

 

Benefits of cloud computing

 

Optimum utilisation of available infrastructure:- Governments need to invest in core infrastructure build-up with the limited budget. Cloud computing can be initially build on the existing infrastructure thereby enabling optimum utilization of available infrastructure and reduce cost and effort in e-governance initiatives.

 

Rapid deployment and reusability:- Applications developed by one department can be deployed and reused by other departments with the required customisations, so that departments can concentrate on their objectives including policy, programmes and process improvement or even new application development. Application that are already deployed and providing services need to be moved to the cloud and integrated with the applications in cloud. Since cloud is based on Service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles, it can provide excellent solutions for integration and applications can be easily migrated into cloud.

 

Manageability and maintainability:- The cloud computing provide a single directory of services providing integrated visibility and control, thereby helping individual departments to relieve with the requirement of complex procurement process and maintenance of ICT infrastructure.

 

Scalability:- E-governance applications may generate enormous amount of data over the years. So database should be scalable.  Application and infrastructure on the cloud platform can take advantage of the virtualized nature of cloud to scale when required. Cloud architecture can scale horizontally or vertically according to user's requirement(Dash & Pani, 2016).

 

Efficient service delivery and agility:- The challenge faced by governments is the efficient delivery of service economically without compromising the intended outcome. Cloud computing provide the framework for delivery in a faster way than the conventional mode thereby leading to an agile e-government service delivery.

 

Security:- Security framework provided for the entire cloud lead to less environment complexity and less potential vulnerability.

 

Cost reduction:- The pay-per-use model of pricing in cloud ensures ICT resources and applications are made available without investment in infrastructure and maintenance by individual department.

 

Reduced effort in deploying, managing and updating technology:- Procurement of software and deploying it for the first time is easy for individual departments in cloud technology. Further, efforts in managing  and updating technology is also easy in cloud computing environment.

 

Increased user mobility:- Cloud will facilitate user mobility and collaboration through shared data and application with facility to use anytime and anywhere.

 

Standardisation:- The challenges faced by government in e-government reforms are to maintain security, privacy reliability, confidence and trust in service delivery. Cloud computing provides the standard and framework for services and helps to comply with standard practices.

 

Disaster recovery:- Natural disasters like flood, cyclone etc, always disrupt services and also lead to data losing. Cloud computing offers tools and technologies that make disaster recovery simple and easy. Cloud also helps to increase the number of resources dynamically to maintain the quality of service intact even during heavy work load.

 

Better Business intelligence infrastructure:- Regular monitoring and evaluation of utilization of resources like data centre usage, peak loads, consumption levels, power usage etc, is needed for the successful implementation and maintainability of ICT enabled public sector reforms. Cloud offers better business intelligence infrastructure compared to conventional ones

 

Risks and issues in adopting Cloud computing

 

Cloud computing need to be matured in terms of technology as well as business readiness and adoption by the market. Issues like standards for security, interoperability, licensing, governance and contracting in cloud need to be considered before adopting cloud. 

 

Cloud standard:- existing standards pertaining to implementation storage and migration need to be interpreted to understand their applicability for the cloud environment. Adoption of Government of India's policy on open standards, on  interoperability and data portability is needed to reduce the risk of vendor lock-in and inadequate data portability.

 

Security and privacy:- Globally security consideration is one of the factor inhibiting the adoption of cloud computing. It is therefore important to address the challenges and risks connected with cloud adoption. Adoption to cloud should not contribute to increased risk of compromise of confidential information, intellectual property and inappropriate access to confidential and personal information. Significant barriers to adoption of cloud computing is data security, which includes issues like compliance, privacy, trust and legal matters. Before adopting to cloud environment, security concern need to be resolved and make it trustworthy, to win the confidence of users.  Data security is a major issue in cloud computing, as data are scattered in different machines and storage devices. Data security includes safety mechanisms, cloud server monitoring or tracing, data confidentiality and avoiding malicious illegal operations and service hijacking. Issues in security are connected with data privacy, data integrity, data protection, data availability, data location and service transmission. Challenges to security in cloud computing are threat, data loss, service disruption by malicious attacks and multi tenancy issues. A well-equipped and dedicated security division to focus on the standards and guidelines and security concerns is an essential component in adoption process. Authentication, key sharing, Data concealment, access control strategies and encryption can ensure data  confidentiality. Further distributive storage of data in pieces after encryption, in multiple clouds can also achieve data security.

 

Application design:- For a fully operational cloud environment, existing applications need to be integrated with cloud based applications. Customisation of existing applications may not be simple.  Cloud based application design approaches are different from traditional design approaches. So existing applications must be customised in line with cloud design principles. New applications’ designing need to be done to suit to cloud environment. Governments need to provide guidelines for designs to ensure adaptability to cloud.

 

Licensing:- Existing software licensing models may not be compatible with cloud deployment. A comprehensive, flexible framework need to be developed on the usage of various licensing models and also to accommodate the updating technologies.

 

Uncertainty of jurisdiction of data:- The dynamic nature of cloud may result in uncertainty regarding where the data actually resides. Sometimes the data will be in transit, that is both within and away from the provider resulting in multiple jurisdictional claims. This also create concern about data ownership, accessibility, privacy and security. A regulatory and legal frame work is needed to resolve issues pertaining to jurisdiction. 

 

Vendor lock-in:-Due to the proprietary nature, migrating data and  application in the cloud is difficult. When there is need for systems to interoperate across clouds and in-house environment, or if a cloud provider withdraws from service, it can create problems. To manage these types of problems, proper standard and contract provisions need to be made before adoption.

 

Portability:- Application developed in one platform may not be suitable for another platform. So there is need for uniformity in applications for the suitability in cloud environment.

 

Change in budget allocation and procurement practices:- Due to different pricing models like pay-per-use, some part of ICT capital budgeting need to be changed into operating expenses (OPEX), as against (CAPEX). Apart from ICT budgeting, procurement practices also need to be changed, by new procurement guidelines, funding and sustainability models.

 

Monitoring and evaluation:- When changing to cloud environment, service levels need to be guaranteed to ensure that service delivery is not affected. Service Level Agreement (SLAs) are to be made for each provided services. Existing contractual agreements and SLAs may be evaluated and customised to meet the government requirements. Failure to adhere to minimum service levels need to be penalised and proper clause regarding this, must be incorporated in the contractual agreement. There must be a monitoring and evaluation committees for monitoring and evaluating the processes ,security, and budgeting and any deviation from predetermined things must be properly reported in timely manner for proper action. 

 

Change management:- Cloud computing is a new model of service delivery, rather than a technology. Adopting cloud in the state require vigorous change management initiatives. First it need to be communicated at all levels. To adopt to the changed technology, skilled human resources is an important factor. Roles of IT personnel need to be redefined for the adoption of new innovation. A well planned capacity building process is essential to ensure that project do not suffer due to skilled resources. Procurement teams, nodal agencies, and staff should be given proper training to upgrade their skills in line with the new requirement and awareness, about the benefits and challenges in this initiative must be conveyed to all concerned persons. 

 

Major implementation challenges 

Limitation of funds is the main problem faced by governments in implementing reforms. CIOs main challenge is to meet the needs of the organization with the reduced budget. Governments have to spend more money on other social development programmes like eradication of poverty, health, education projects etc  than on technology oriented projects,. Critiques always blame governments for giving importance to technology than eradicating poverty. So CIO’s must ensure the optimum usage of funds to bring the innovations in government and reap maximum benefits from it.

 

A major challenge for IT innovations in the government sector is the lack of technical literacy of the people and the staff. Moreover, unawareness and language barrier also create challenges in implementing technical innovations in government. Proper IT awareness programmes and skill development programmes can minimise this challenge to a greater extent.  Further, frequent power failure, poor connectivity and increased cost for internet, also pose challenges for any innovations in the developing countries. Government must take steps to  minimise power failures and provide internet at a subsidised rate to people.

 

Implementation of e-governance projects require a lot of restructuring and rightsizing of administrative process and departments, which can create resistance from employees, and is a major challenge for any innovations. The success of any IT innovations depend on the degree to which innovations has been institutionalised and the potential of the organizations to accommodate the change within the operating structures and systems. 

Conclusion

Cloud computing is changing the way IT is utilized and managed, resulting in improved cost-efficient e-government services by making use of the existing infrastructure and reuse of applications. However security concerns is one of the inhibiting factors in the adoption. Usage of cloud must not contribute to increased risks of compromise of confidential information and intellectual property and unauthorised access to personal information. So before adopting to cloud environment, security concern need to be resolved and make it trustworthy, to win the confidence of users. A comprehensive security framework with the objective to minimise the potential vulnerabilities from adoption of cloud is needed. A well-equipped and dedicated security division to focus on the standards and guidelines and security concerns is therefore an essential component in adoption process.

 

The success of any IT innovations depend on the degree to which innovations has been institutionalised and the potential of the organizations to accommodate the change within the operating structures and systems. So a  major responsibility of SIO/CIO in adopting cloud in governments is the intensive change management initiatives. A well planned capacity building process is essential to ensure the availability of skilled resources. Procurement teams, nodal agencies, and staff should be given proper training to upgrade their skills in line with the new requirement. Strategic report about the benefits and challenges in this initiative must be conveyed to all concerned persons. 

 

Limitation of funds is the main problem faced by government in implementing reforms. CIOs main challenge is to meet the needs of the organizations with the reduced budget. So CIO’s must ensure the optimum usage of funds to bring the innovations in government and reap maximum benefits from it.