Cloud Computing Security

CYB 405
1st Semester, 2022/2023 Session
Introduction
Cloud Computing
• Since the birth of industry and commerce, humans have needed increasingly better ways to
store data and access it whenever required. While valuable information was stored physically
on paper in the pre-computer era, today, data is predominantly stored in hard drives of
computers and servers. These hard drives and servers can store, process, and retrieve a
considerable amount of data quickly and conveniently.
• However, both hard drives and servers come with their limitations, and with the rate at
which today’s businesses and industries are growing, the need for storage that can store and
process increasingly more significant amounts of data has become a priority. This is
where Cloud Computing has come to the rescue
• Before the inception of Cloud Computing platforms, businesses predominantly relied on
servers, databases, hardware, software, and other peripherals to take their businesses
online. Companies had to buy these components to ensure that their website or applications
reached the users.
• Besides, businesses also needed a team of experts to manage the hardware and software,
and to monitor the infrastructure. While this approach was practical, it came with its unique
issues, like the high cost of setup, complex components, and limited storage space, to name
a few. Cloud Computing was created to address these problems.
Cloud Computing …
• Cloud Computing is a network of remote servers hosted on the internet for
storing and retrieving data. The cloud provides a number of IT services such as
servers, databases, software, virtual storage, and networking, among others
• Companies that offer all the services mentioned above are called cloud
providers. They provide you with the ability to store and retrieve data and run
applications, managing them through configuration portals.
• Two of the best cloud providers available today are:
• Amazon Web Services
• Microsoft Azure
Benefits of Cloud Computing
Cloud platforms offer some significant benefits today, which are driving businesses to
adopt Cloud Computing.
Those major benefits include:
• Speed
• IT resource or service from the cloud, it is available almost instantaneously,
and ready for production virtually at the same time
• This has helped many businesses’ services generate revenue much sooner
after they go live.
• Cost
• Planning and buying the right kind of hardware has always been a challenge in
the traditional legacy environment
• If you purchase hardware that does not fit your needs, then chances are you
might need to live with that purchase indefinitely
• However, this is not an issue with the cloud, since you do not need to buy any
hardware. Instead, you pay to use the host’s hardware, and once it does not
fit your needs, you can release it and can replace it with a better configuration
• This save a lot of money since you only pay for the time you use
Benefits of Cloud Computing …
• Scalability
• In a legacy environment, forecasting demands is a full-time job, but with cloud
services, you can easily set up an automated monitoring tool to do the job for you.
• That information will let you accurately upscale or downscale the rate of work you
do depend on the needs.
• Accessibility
• Cloud Computing allows you to access resources, data, services, and applications
from anywhere you want, as long as you are connected to the internet
• If you are not connected to the internet, some tools and techniques will allow you
to access the cloud whenever needed
• Better Security
• Ensuring that your data is stored in a secure, durable place is a priority for all
businesses
• The cloud provides highly secure storage for customers’ data, yet letting it be
accessed anytime and anyplace that it’s required
• Also, all data stored in the cloud is encrypted and secured so that it cannot be
tampered with
Types of Cloud Computing

• Cloud Computing is multiplying, resulting in it being classified into several different

categories
• However, out of various categories, there are six that stand out.
• These six categories are further divided into two parts:
• the category of cloud-based deployment and
• the category of cloud-based services
• Cloud Computing is divided into three categories based on deployment, including:
• Public cloud
• everything is stored and accessed through the internet
• This deployment system allows anyone with proper permissions to access
some of the applications and resources
• The most exciting part about the public cloud is that you own none of the
components present in it, be it the hardware, software, or application
• All the components here are managed by the provider
• Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are two prominent examples of
the public cloud.
Types of Cloud Computing …
• Private cloud
• A private cloud is used exclusively in organizations, which they can run
locally or choose to outsource it to other cloud services providers
• This infrastructure runs strictly on a private network, which means that
people present in the network can only access it
• VMware cloud and some of the AWS products are some of the examples of
a private cloud.

• Hybrid cloud
• It is probably the fascinating form of Cloud Computing that contains the
functionality of both public and private clouds
• Organizations using the hybrid cloud can choose to keep some of their data
locally and some on the cloud
• NASA is the best-known example of an organization that uses a hybrid cloud
• It uses a private cloud to store sensitive data and uses the public cloud to
save and share data that can be viewed by the public worldwide.
Types of Cloud Computing …

• The remaining three categories are divided based on the services they
offer, including:
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• This category consists of IT infrastructure that you can rent from a cloud
provider on a pay-as-you-go basis, including servers, networks, and others
• The best part about this service is that you have access to the services you
provisioned, and some grant you root-level access as well
• EC2, or the AWS Elastic Compute Cloud, is an excellent example of IaaS.
• Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• In this model, you are supplied with a pre-built platform from the cloud
providers, where you can deploy your codes and applications
• You only need to manage the codes and the applications, not the
infrastructure. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is an example of a PaaS cloud.
Types of Cloud Computing …
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Here, the cloud providers offer you the end product, which could be an
application or software that you can buy directly on a subscription
• As a part of this service, the client maintains control of the software
environment but does not maintain any equipment
• There are some products of AWS and Microsoft Azure that provide SaaS.
Difference Between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS
Who Uses Cloud Services…

• There are several well-known organizations across the world that have
already migrated to the cloud environment. Some of the examples include:
• Pinterest
• Uses the AWS cloud environment to manage multiple petabytes of data that
are generated by its users every day.
• Spotify
• Uses the AWS cloud environment to store its vast repository of songs.
• Netflix
• One of the largest video streaming services, it uses AWS to allow users to
stream shows from anywhere in the world.
• Expedia
• Uses AWS cloud services to accommodate a highly scalable infrastructure
Advantages of Mobile & Cloud Computing …

• Mobile Cloud Computing offers a bunch of advantages while using cloud

services. Following are listed some of the most important ones:
• Flexibility – one of key advantages while using MCC is that the cloud
information can be used anywhere, everywhere; all you need is a mobile
device of any kind, which is paired or configured with the organization cloud
platform.
• Real time available data – accessing the data in real time is no longer a
challenge while you are out of the office.
• No upfront payments – last, but not least – payments. Commonly, cloud
applications does not require payment without using it. It is mostly the case
pay-for-use, which helps in growing the adoption of the model.
Advantages of Mobile & Cloud Computing …
• Disadvantages of Mobile & Cloud Computing (MCC)
• Whenever there are advantages on any issue, it is sure there would be the
disadvantages as well. The following are some listed and most important
disadvantages of Mobile and Cloud Computing.
• Security – a major concern with Cloud Computing is the security and data
integration. When mobile is the subject, the attention must be two times
higher: unprotected information can be easily sniffed.
• Internet connection – considering the flexibility of MCC, allowing the users to
access the data from anywhere, requires Internet connection. Making sure
that, when accessing data, the user have access to strong and stable Internet
connection, often can cause headache, especially in non-metropolitan areas.
• Performance – considering smaller size and lower hardware performance, it is
understandable that the performance with MCC will be in a much lower level.
Cloud Computing Service Providers
• A few of the most popular cloud computing service providers include:
• Microsoft Azure
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Google Cloud
• Alibaba Cloud
• IBM Cloud
• Oracle
• Salesforce
• SAP
• Rackspace Cloud
• VMWare
Cloud Computing Service Providers…
Cloud Computing Architecture
• Cloud Computing Architecture is divided into two parts:
• front-end and
• back-end
• Front-end and back-end communicate via a network or internet
Front-End
• It provides applications and the interfaces that are required for the cloud-based
service.
• It consists of client’s side applications, which are web browsers such as Google
Chrome and Internet Explorer.
• Cloud infrastructure is the only component of the front-end.
Front-End
• Cloud infrastructure consists of hardware and software components
such as data storage, server, virtualization software, etc.
• It also provides a Graphical User Interface to the end-users to perform
respective tasks.
Back-End
• It is responsible for monitoring all the programs that run the application on the
front-end
• It has a large number of data storage systems and servers
• The back-end is an important and huge part of the whole cloud computing
architecture
The components of the back-end cloud architecture
• Application
• It can either be a software or a platform
• Depending upon the client requirement, the application provides the result to the
end-user (with resources) in the back end
• Service
• Service is an essential component in cloud architecture
• Its responsibility is to provide utility in the architecture
• In a Cloud, few widely used services among the end-users are storage, application
development environments and web services
• Storage
• It stores and maintains data like files, videos, documents, etc. over the internet
• Some of the popular examples of storage services are below:
• Amazon S3
• Oracle Cloud-Storage
• Microsoft Azure Storage
• Its capacity varies depending upon the service providers available in the market
The components of the back-end cloud architecture …
• Management
• Its task is to allot specific resources to a specific task, it simultaneously
performs various functions of the cloud environment
• It helps in the management of components like application, task, service,
security, data storage, and cloud infrastructure
• In simple terms, it establishes coordination among the cloud resources
• Security
• Security is an integral part of back-end cloud infrastructure
• It provides secure cloud resources, systems, files, and infrastructure to end-
users
• Also, it implements security management to the cloud server with virtual
firewalls which results in preventing data loss
Cloud Computing Architecture Components
• Some of the important components of Cloud Computing architecture
that we will be looking into are as follows:
• Hypervisor
• Management Software
• Deployment Software
• Network
• Cloud Server
• Cloud Storage
Cloud Computing Architecture Components
Hypervisor

• It is a virtual machine monitor which provides Virtual Operating Platforms to

every user
• It also manages guest operating systems in the cloud
• It runs a separate virtual machine on the back end which consists of software
and hardware
• Its main objective is to divide and allocate resources
 Management Software

• Its responsibility is to manage and monitor cloud operations with various strategies
to increase the performance of the cloud
• Some of the operations performed by the management software are:
• compliance auditing
• management of overseeing disaster
• contingency plans
 Deployment Software

• It consists of all the mandatory installations and configurations required to run a cloud
service
• Every deployment of cloud services are performed using a deployment software
The three different models which can be deployed
 Network

• It connects the front-end and back-end. Also, allows every user to access cloud
resources
• It helps users to connect and customize the route and protocol
• It is a virtual server which is hosted on the cloud computing platform
• It is highly flexible, secure, and cost-effective
 Cloud Storage

• Here, every bit of data is stored and accessed by a user from anywhere over the internet
• It is scalable at run-time and is automatically accessed
• Data can be modified and retrieved from cloud storage over the web