Tech Views

There has been so much published about cloud computing in the last couple of years it would seem difficult to find new things to say about it. However, the model is changing so rapidly there is indeed plenty to say about it, and there will be for years to come. As you will read in “Cloud Computing – How Easy Is It”, the environment is evolving so fast that even porting a single application to the cloud becomes a challenge of keeping up with the software releases.

Much of the current literature on cloud computing addresses security. This is certainly a valid concern, especially for anyone thinking about ‘releasing’ their private data ‘into the void’, which requires a great deal of confidence in what security measures are in place. Larry Clinton writes in “One Side Now” that a 2011 study found 62% of security experts had “little or no faith” in cloud security. Ominous. But behind this statistic may be the force that will motivate corporations and researchers to find answers. Kaus Phaltankar introduces Compliance as a Service (CaaS) in his article as a solution for both providers and customers.

Entirely new disciplines are being created as a result of the cloud. Joe Weinman’s article on “Cloudonomics” describes his newly created model for quantification of cloud services. For anyone who first might like an introduction to cloud computing, Arlene Minkiewicz does a wonderfully eloquent job in her poetically titled “Cloud Nine, Are We There Yet?”