The "Cloud Computing"
Date : October 02, 2008
Introduction
Although the "Cloud Computing" technology appeared some years ago, it brings more and more attention, as demonstrated by our last media watch bulletins that reference more and more articles on this topic. Some people foresee it as the next revolution in information system area. Therefore we thought interesting to present this technology in an article of this bulletin. Moreover this architecture raises some questions in terms of security.
What is "Cloud Computing" ?
"Cloud Computing" refers to the use of Internet resources to set up computer services. In this model, companies deport the resources (computation capacity and data storage) and use the ones provided by servers disseminated on Internet. A service that adopts the "Cloud Computing" model is:
- available from anywhere. The "Cloud Computing" is therefore closely linked to Internet.
- makes totally abstraction of the technical infrastructure required to perform this service. Basically the user of this service does not know exactly where the servers constituting this infrastructure are located. To represent it, the user will usually draw a "Cloud".
The consequence for security is of course the information leak that this kind of model may create: how to ensure the confidentiality of the data sent to the "Cloud Computing" servers?
"Cloud Computing" is often associated with "Software as a Service" (SaaS). The SaaS is an approach that emphasizes the service sold and makes abstraction of the software necessary to provide this service (the SaaS sells a service and not a piece of software). A SaaS solution will usually rely on a "Cloud Computing" architecture.
"Cloud Computing" has first of all been held by companies such as Google, Salesforce.com or Amazon (with applications like Google Docs, Google App Engine, Google Calendar, Gmail, Picasa, YouTube or Adobe Photoshop Express). Since then, other editors have begun to develop this kind of solution, and in particular Microsoft with his "Software + Services" offer, or SAP with "Business By Design".
At the end of July 2008, Intel, HP and Yahoo have announced
their partnership in the area of "Cloud Computing" research. Their
research will be based on the use of six excellence centers: the three editor
centers, as well as three academic sites (the
Very recently, VMWare has announced during the "VMworld" event that they will become the "cloud provider for virtualisation". The editor presented on this occasion his new operating system dedicated to datacenters, called VDC-OS (Virtual DataCenter Operating System), as well as the "vCloud" initiative allowing clients to increase the capacity of their applications on demand.
"Cloud Computing" and antivirus editors
According to antivirus editors, "Cloud Computing" represents a very interesting solution for the issue of signature databases. These databases have indeed reached a huge volume and become more and more difficult to manage. Due to this fact, several antivirus editors have chosen to use networks of servers to host the signature databases and to perform antivirus analysis.
This is the case of Trend Micro with its "Smart Protection Network" solution, and McAfee with "Artemis".
This article shows it: the panel of services that can possibly rely on this technology is very large. According to a report published by the Gartner society, the impact of "Cloud Computing" on computer service providers can only increase. According to the maturity of the various actors, the future will tell if the biggest part goes to emerging companies, the most gifted to provide consumer services (like Amazon), or to traditional editors, more experimented in the development of such services (like Microsoft).
Regarding the security issues raised by this model, they do not seem really taken into account yet …
For more information:
Cert-IST media watch bulletins (in French):
Document written by David Chappell ("A short introduction to cloud platforms – August 2008"):
http://www.davidchappell.com/CloudPlatforms--Chappell.pdf
Gartner report dated June, 26th, 2008:
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=707508
VMWare officiel page regarding VDC-OS:
