Cloud computing opportunities and security issues in software deployment control

¶ … cloud computing will be discussed to show that the good outweighs the bad. Furthermore, it will be further discussed that the government is looking into using cloud computing because it will cut IT cost down and increase capabilities despite the fact people are concerned with security issues that this may bring to the public.

In completing a dissertation, it is very hard to go through the challenges that it requires. From the start and until this moment, I had gone through many challenging stages. The challenges that I faced were deciding the topic, reading various journals and articles, narrowing down focus within a large area, getting information on cloud computing, which all required time and effort. Despite the strong tasks that I faced, I finally made it and the 'final product' is about to be released. I feel extremely happy to have this chance to learn through the process since it is a valuable experience to do such a big project on my own. This is work certainly does not show only my contribution. It also shows other people involvement.

1. Abstract & #8230;. ii

2. Acknowledgement iii

3. Proposal 5

3.1 Summary of funding requirements

1.1 Objective 6

Within this proposal, cloud computing would offer control over the deployment and use of licensed software by giving opportunities within security issues. Research has shown that cloud computing may become the dominant enterprise and business-to-consumer computing paradigm within the next 10 years due to it offering the promise of efficient resource utilization and on-demand scalability with minimal capital investment and infrastructure-free computing, where users access their 'desktop' and data from any location, work, home, on the road, or from within other organizations. From there, cloud computing also offers the potential to out-source computing infrastructure to focus on core competencies with higher efficiencies. This would be good for any business that wants to be competitive. It also offers the ability to decrease the marginal cost of providing service with a shared infrastructure. No matter if cloud computing is used for business or personal reasons, it has higher efficiencies and lower cost, which is one reason why cloud computing is gaining so much traction during a recessionary period (Cloud Computing Security 2010). "The key conclusion of this paper is that the cloud's economies of scale and flexibility are both a friend and a foe from a security point-of-view. The massive concentrations of resources and data present a more attractive target to attackers, but cloud-based defenses can be more robust, scalable and cost-effective. This paper allows an informed assessment of the security risks and benefits of using cloud computing - providing security guidance for potential and existing users of cloud computing" (Cloud Computing 2009) Therefore, as cloud computing becomes popular and more demanded, it has the opportunity to bring more security to software.

Summary of funding requirements

This project is going to take $57,000 and time and we are asking you to consider allocating room to make it happen. Since cloud computing has gained dominance within the business industry, it has been investigating for funding within companies. Businesses have to find a way to become more innovate. Companies must research a program prior to implementation to ensure it will be successful, and to determine any potential failures. Companies realize a successful process at another company does not guarantee the program will work in every business model. Research is a diligent and systematic inquiry or investigation into a subject in order to discover or revise facts, theories or applications. Benchmarking is a way to compare how one company does business with another in the same industry. Benchmarking occurs when a company wishes to develop new plans and ideas and wishes to see how other like companies has been successful. Benchmarking requires many hours of research to determine the risks associated with implementing the processes and removes the stigma of "it has always been done this way" while allowing for a variation to problem solving. It uses a review of best practices and though costly, the benefits will outweigh the costs. By using benchmarking practices, companies can implement new and improved business practices and develop plans which would be using cloud computing. Therefore, when investigating cloud computing, the below information was found. "The survey found that 66% of 250 IT managers interviewed by telephone said they have dedicated budget funds for the cloud. In addition, 71% said they expect cloud computing budgets to grow over the next two years. One conclusion from the survey is that cloud computing is gaining critical mass: 82% of the respondents said they are "in some stage of trial, implementation or use of public clouds," and 83% said the same for use of private clouds (Babcock 2009).

By having cloud computing to be more dominant, one can view it as a positive change. The change to have cloud computing, it would make businesses and personal use to be more innovative. Stocks would not drop and fail to rise after the second quarter (see Appendix A). Businesses would find that cloud computing would bring up security after it maintains its dominance over a period of six months to a year, which is after gaining support from businesses. They will find to maintain and improve their technology more funds and resources will be needed. Also, the company will gain thousands of customers due to satisfaction and the innovative service improvement for existing technology.

As IT managers adopt cloud computing, they are looking to fill in the missing pieces behind the simplified services now available. Among other things, 90% said they want control over who can access their cloud resources. "Who has access? How is it controlled? Who can self-provision a server," said MacVittie. Another 89% named network security as a core cloud technology, as well as 88% citing server and storage virtualization as "essential technologies in the cloud," she said. The main driver toward cloud computing is the efficiency that stems from using public clouds instead of further building out the IT infrastructure internally, according to 77% of respondents. Public cloud computing reduces capital costs, according to 68% of those surveyed, and eases staffing issues, said 61% (Babcock 2009).

Therefore, the funding requirements of cloud computing would be:

efficient resource utilization and on-demand scalability with minimal capital investment and infrastructure-free computing.

cloud computing has to offer the potential to out-source computing infrastructure to focus on core competencies with higher efficiencies.

It also has to offer the ability to decrease the marginal cost of providing service with a shared infrastructure.

cloud computing is used for business or personal reasons, it has higher efficiencies and lower cost, which is one reason why cloud computing is gaining so much traction during a recessionary period (Cloud Computing Security 2010)

Overview of research experience

I find the research is very useful because it shows that cloud computing can offer control over the deployment and use of licensed software as it becomes more mainstream within the technology field. Take the following as an example, which shows even Microsoft and Google are taking a part in cloud computing.

Cloud computing continues to gain steam. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced a software, services, and a development platform called Live Mesh. The platform aims to give people centralized configuration and remote control of devices and data from Web-based and client software, and a Web desktop. It also aims to give developers the power to write Web applications with offline and synchronization capabilities and client apps that can be extended to the Web and other devices (Weier 2008).

Along with that, within one to three years, there will be a new policy that communication and compromise must be between workers and managers. Communication and compromise are the keys to strengthening the bond between the employees and management. Involving the employees will immediately address any ethical dilemmas that may arise and ensure successful strategy. Management needs to enhance the integrity and competence in trust level with employees and management.

To ensure high performance in the work place there needs to be high levels of adaptability, flexibility and involvement by both the employee and the management, enhancing the contribution of everyone. Creating a positive work environment is crucial to obtain and keep high performance employees. High performance employees are attracted and kept by a company's culture as well as high pay and benefits.

Employees have a need for job security and the right to have fair wages and benefits. Employees should be able to trust their employer to protect their rights. Companies like Microsoft and Google have demonstrated that they can be trusted due to proposing outsourcing their centers, which will not create massive layoff, or pay cuts for the ones that stay, however they want to increase their success.

Objective

The objective of this research is to investigate the implementation and running costs plus more generally the user benefits that cloud computing can offer.

Introduction to research topic

Businesses embraced loyalty as a tried and true tactic to deliver desired business results. Due to this proliferation of loyalty programs, customers have their antennae up. They're more alert than ever, and seek not those brands that offer only "a me to" approach to loyalty. Customers are demanding away from the norm, with ubiquity comes skepticism and constant comparisons which makes it difficult to impress consumers by offering more of the same. Cloud computing will allow companies to enhance their software. For example, Microsoft and Google have already got into the field of cloud computing but there are others like Amazon have just started to get a feel for it as seen below.

Large companies such as Microsoft and Google aren't the only ones getting attention from the surge in interest around cloud computing. RightScale, a startup that offers developer tools for setting up server clusters that run on Amazon Web Services, secured $4.5 million in first-round venture capital funding from Benchmark Capital on Thursday. While venture capital firms have been good to software-as-a-service startups in the past few years, the RightScale investment is one sign that VCs are beginning to recognize the "platform" technology providers for SaaS and other Web applications. "RightScale's platform has very quickly become the defacto standard in cloud computing management and provisioning," said Kevin Harvey, a Benchmark Capital partner, in a statement (Weier 2008).

When adopting cloud computing, the CEO needs to consider group thinking and conformity so that everyone can work together to ensure the security of the programming. Working on a team can be very rewarding and exciting, but also frustrating if some of the team member are not committed to the team. This would be due to some people cloud computing cannot work with licensed software. Therefore, it would be better if a high performance would be built for installing cloud computing within their company. With that, building a high performance team requires time, collaboration and most importantly communication. A team is described as a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Group thinking and conformity focuses on the interpersonal transaction between managers and employee. Leaders are seen as engaging in behaviors that maintain a quality interaction between themselves and followers. The company does not need to be lacking group thinking and conformity because no one is willing to work together when this occurs. In order to be an effective company while using cloud computing, they have to conform as one so that productivity can be increased to make high profits. This effective form of communication and teamwork will allow the company to adjust to cloud computing with no problems because the team will be organized and know the proper procedure of the technology. "For cloud computing to reach the full potential promised by the technology, it must offer solid information security. This paper explains, based on concrete scenarios, what cloud computing means for network and information security, data protection and privacy. We look at the security benefits of cloud computing and its risks. We cover the technical, policy and legal implications. Most importantly, we make concrete recommendations on how to address the risks and maximize the benefits" (Benefits, risks and recommendations for information security 2010). According to McShane and Von Glinow (2005), when coming together to solve an issue, shared values, assumptions and beliefs should be considered to be the correct way of thinking about and acting on problems and opportunities.

Research plan and methodology

Human subjects will be utilized for data collection. Data will be collected through questionnaires regarding perception of cloud computing and to see if it can be used for licensed software. The questionnaire will also address how effective cloud computing can be for different types of companies while seeing how many people trust it with their personal information Participants will be selected by knocking on the doors of technology businesses like Microsoft and Google in order to maintain a proper sample. All participants will be given a letter of consent before participation begins in the study. Time for completion of the questionnaire will be approximately five to ten minutes. The population for this study is both male and female of various races. It is this researcher's hope to be able to provide ample information regarding varying perceptions of cloud computing, which is in fact contingent upon gender and race as per the working hypothesis for the current study.

The sample size for the current study will be 200 people of the business and technology community; procedures will include but are not limited to distribution of fliers to obtain participants and visiting businesses. The population has been selected due to the varying races and the percentage of males and females in the technology business. The questionnaire will include gender, race and questions that determine the perception of cloud computing by those individuals.

Deliverables

Cloud computing is becoming more mainstream, however there are still security issues because as this technology becomes more secured, there will be more security risks. Through research, it will be shown that despite these risks cloud computing can work with licensed software as more businesses are willing to invest in it so that people will feel more secure with it. Through this research, it also will be shown despite the gaps that it has, it will sustain over the next ten years by working through licensed software. Therefore, as technology grows, cloud computing will embark on new ways to be secure for licensed software.

Benefits

Cloud computing will be able to build long-term customer relationships by using the concept that brands can build friendship with customers. Friendships are made up of trust, strength, and commitment of one another, which are ever lasting. "Brand thought leaders often use the language of love to describe the consumer-brand relationship; they compare the relationship to marriage, dating, an infatuation, and even a fling. Brands aspire to build a strong love with their customers. However, love can be very volatile and requires a great deal of commitment. Oftentimes, neither the brand nor the customers have this kind of commitment. Instead, brands can use friendship as the lens to grow and develop relationships with customers. Friendships are emotional, reciprocal, and come in many forms. As people choose many different types of friends, they also choose many different brands. People have one great love story, if they're lucky, but they will form several strong friendships" (Choudhary 2008). From there, this is how companies gain trust with its customers by being in tuned with what they want and need for their cloud computing needs, which continues the concept customer intimacy. In all reality, that is what all customers want from all companies they deal with because they feel like they understand them as people.

Literature Review

Choudhary, Nichiketa. 2008. People Buy Brands Like They Make Friends by Brandchannel Retrieved April 27, 2010 http://www.brandchannel.com/brand_speak.asp?bs_id=192.

I chose this article to analyze how customers react to new products and services. I also chose it to analyze how companies should maintain a level of intimacy with its customers. This is due to the fact that when embarking cloud computing, there will be some security issues that may come up with it because this particular programming still has gaps in the research, concerning security. Therefore, companies should remain a customer intimacy so that they will trust cloud computing from them will be safe.

Cloud computing will be able to build long-term customer relationships by using the concept that brands can build friendship with customers. Friendships are made up of trust, strength, and commitment of one another, which are ever lasting. Brand thought leaders use the language of love to describe the consumer-brand relationship by comparing the relationship to marriage, dating, an infatuation, and even a fling. Brands hope to build a strong love with their customers.

Weier, Mary. (2008). Cloud Computing Startup Gets $4.5M Venture Funding. Retrieved April 27, 2010,, from http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/web2.0/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207401919

I chose to analyze this article to further see how well cloud computing gaining in the technology industry, which shows it fits into this research because it can be worked with licensed software.

Cloud computing continues to gain popularity by Microsoft announcing a software, services, and a development platform called Live Mesh. The platform is projected to give people centralized configuration and remote control of devices. It also projected to give developers the power to write Web applications with offline.

Babcock, Charles. (2009). 2 In 3 IT Managers Have Cloud Funding Retrieved April 27, 2010,

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/hosted/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219401279

I chose this article to analyze a review of best practices and though costly of cloud computing, the benefits will outweigh the costs. This article will help this research because it will show the benefits of cloud computing will outweigh the security issues that may come up to ensure it can work with licensed software.

Companies can implement new and improved business practices and develop plans which would be using cloud computing. A survey was given and 66% of 250 IT managers interviewed by telephone said they have dedicated budget funds for the cloud. From there, 71% of the managers said they expect cloud computing budgets to grow over the next two years. Cloud computing is gaining critical mass.

2010. Cloud computing: benefits, risks and recommendations for information security. Viewed 30 April 2010. http://www.enisa.europa.eu/media/news-items/cloud-computing-speech

I chose this article to analyze how well cloud computing works and how safe it actually is despite the possible risks, which will make this research valid.

Cloud computing has become very popular despite its possible security issues that could expose personal information. It has come to believe as it grows more in demand, the more security issues will become abolished and with that, security can be upgraded for licensed software.

Brodkin, Jon. 2008. Gartner: Seven cloud-computing security risks. Viewed, 30, April 2010 http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/gartner-seven-cloud-computing-security-risks-853

I chose this article to analyze the risks of cloud computing because there are some very serious risks when considering licensed software. Even though it goes against this research, it has to be shown in order to balance the gaps out.

For cloud computing, there are a lot gaps due to the possible security issues in that people's personal information can get stolen because by accessing cloud computing technology, the information can be easily accessed.

Schineier, Bruce. 2009. Risks of cloud computing. Viewed, 30, April 2010 http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/07/risks_of_cloud.html

I chose this article to analyze the risks and what security effects have occurred after the terrorist attacks. This is good for the research in order to show the gaps within making cloud computing work with licensed software.

The internet has become a tool for domestic terror groups because it is easy to access and has lack of restrictions. The internet used to create psychological warfare and propaganda through information for the terrorist against their enemy. Furthermore, they use video on the internet to show off their murders in an attempt to demonstrate psychological warfare to bully their enemies. Therefore, the government has claimed that they should have a way to monitor their activity in order to stop them from using the internet as a tool for their terrorist activity.

Lemon, Katherine, Rust, Roland, Zeithaml, Valerine 2001 "What Drives Customer Equity." Marketing Management. Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 20-25

I chose this article to analyze the relationship between customer and business, which is very important to the research because in order for businesses to cloud computing, they must understand their customers.

The relationship created between the firm and the customers shows the business appreciates the customer's preferences and buying habits. This becomes as important to the customer as the provision of the product or service.

Chandrasekaran, A. (2004). GE ex-CEO Welch Blasts Opponents of Offshoring. Reuters News Services, May, 10. www.forbes.com/newswire/2004/5/10rtr1365449.html

I chose this article to analyze outsourcing and what it can do for a company when using cloud computing that confirms the research topic.

The benefits of outsourcing to India are numerous, including India having the largest population of educated English speaking labor pool in the world. The second aspect of GE's outsourcing that could benefit companies that are interesting cloud computing in swaying the public backlashof cloud computing is facing is the evidence and proven track record of GE's outsourcing program.

Kalman, T.. (2008). FRONTLINE-Clinical Encounters with Internet Pornography. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 36(4), 593-618. Retrieved April 30, 2010, from ProQuest Psychology Journals. (Document ID: 1625354821).

I chose this article to analyze people's behavior using the internet for personal reasons, which would include cloud computing technology. This is very important to analyze for the research so that it would be shown how well take to it through licensed software.

For in the chat room interactions like that denote the capacity or incapacity of a person to declare his or her identity; opinion is the most prevalent thing personally possessed by individuals. They may be diverse in about almost anything, but opinion and opinionating comprise the common ground they stand on.

Lin, C., Lin, S., & Wu, C.. (2009). THE EFFECTS OF PARENTAL MONITORING AND LEISURE BOREDOM ON ADOLESCENTS' INTERNET ADDICTION. Adolescence, 44(176), 993-1004. Retrieved April 30, 2010, from ProQuest Medical Library. (Document ID: 1954975741).

I chose this article to analyze the effects that that the internet has on people. Once again, this will help to show how well people will adapt to cloud computing through licensed software, which would make this research valid by showing people will be comfortable with it.

This technology gave shy and unconfident people the chance to participate and converse at their own pace. This allowed them not to be intimidated by how other people look at them in a social setting. People who did not complete their discussion due to the shortage of time had another chance by doing so on the discussion forums on the websites. Along with that, audio chat rooms are also a way of speaking and debating about various topics, which gives the experience of stimulated authentic communication.

Research Methodologies

Through the questionnaire, it was found most people are divided on using cloud computing for licensed software because of security reasons. However, most people found that low cost is very attractive and they felt that something like this that is gaining popularity, the more innovative will become. Therefore, the security issues will be limited over a period of time to the point to where it will not be obstacle in the future. According to the questionnaire, this is why more computer software businesses are starting to adopt cloud computing so that they can keep up with customer satisfaction. When using the questionnaire, it seems that cloud computing is and will continue to be very effective due to what it offers. It is clear from the questionnaire, cloud computing is an upcoming technology that can be trusted to through licensed software.

With cloud computing becoming more and more pervasive, IT's role is morphing towards one of governance rather than control. Internal departments are going out and accessing resources from the cloud rather than waiting on their internal IT departments to come around and get to their requests. IT must be more and more aware and ready to govern the use of outside IT resources such as software-as-a-service (SaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), which in some companies is a fire-able offense ( Cloud Computing: IT's role in governance 2010).

Research Gaps

Within every research project, there are gaps because there are holes in the research topic. For cloud computing, there are a lot gaps due to the possible security issues in that people's personal information can get stolen because by accessing cloud computing technology, the information can be easily accessed. "Data stored online has less privacy protection both in practice and under the law. A hacker recently guessed the password to the personal e-mail account of a Twitter employee, and was thus able to extract the employee's Google password. That in turn compromised a trove of Twitter's corporate documents stored too conveniently in the cloud. Before, the bad guys usually needed to get their hands on people's computers to see their secrets; in today's cloud all you need is a password" (Schneier 2009). From there, since facebook and twitter, a person's personal information can be seen by any hacker, which puts their life at risk. Furthermore, since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the government passed a law where they can access people's personal information (see Appendix C). People want their information secured. It has been detected that people do not realize who the cloud computing providers are. "Privileged user access. Sensitive data processed outside the enterprise brings with it an inherent level of risk, because outsourced services bypass the "physical, logical and personnel controls" IT shops exert over in-house programs. Get as much information as you can about the people who manage your data. "Ask providers to supply specific information on the hiring and oversight of privileged administrators, and the controls over their access," Gartner says.. Regulatory compliance. Customers are ultimately responsible for the security and integrity of their own data, even when it is held by a service provider. Traditional service providers are subjected to external audits and security certifications. Cloud computing providers who refuse to undergo this scrutiny are "signaling that customers can only use them for the most trivial functions," according to Gartner. Data location. When you use the cloud, you probably won't know exactly where your data is hosted. In fact, you might not even know what country it will be stored in. Ask providers if they will commit to storing and processing data in specific jurisdictions, and whether they will make a contractual commitment to obey local privacy requirements on behalf of their customers, Gartner advises" (Brodkin 2008). Therefore, these are some of the reasons why there are gaps in the research in the solid usage of cloud computing with licensed software.

Cloud computing has become very popular despite its possible security issues that could expose personal information. It has come to believe as it grows more in demand, the more security issues will become abolished and with that, security can be upgraded for licensed software. "Cloud computing is a new way of delivering computing resources, not a new technology. Computing services ranging from data storage and processing to software, such as email handling, are now available instantly, commitment-free and on-demand. Since we are in a time of belt-tightening, this new economic model for computing has found fertile ground and is seeing massive global investment. According to IDC's analysis, the worldwide forecast for cloud services in 2009 will be in the order of $17.4bn1. The estimation for 2013 amounts to $44.2bn, with the European market ranging from €971m in 2008 to €6,005m in 2013. The key conclusion of ENISA's 2009 paper on Cloud Computing: benefits, risks and recommendations for information security3 is that the cloud's economies of scale and flexibility are both a friend and a foe from a security point-of-view. The massive concentrations of resources and data present a more attractive target to attackers, but cloud-based defences can be more robust, scalable and cost-effective. ENISA's paper allows an informed assessment of the security risks and benefits of using cloud computing - providing security guidance for potential and existing users of cloud computing" (Cloud Computing). Therefore, cloud computing would offer control over the deployment and use of licensed software by giving opportunities within security issues. Along with those efforts, research has shown that cloud computing may become the dominant enterprise and business-to-consumer computing prototype within the next ten years.

Through research, it has been known cloud computing customers need to have assurance because the possible security issues. From there, legal issues may be resolved within the process of comparing cloud computing providers. With that, the following is recommended from the article, "Cloud computing: benefits, risks and recommendations for information security" so that security issues will be cut down. ENISA's report recommends priority areas of research to improve the security of cloud computing technologies. As stated, before, he following are the categories considered that needs to occur within cloud computing according to the article, "Cloud computing: benefits, risks and recommendations for information security."

BUILDING TRUST IN THE CLOUD

Effects of different forms of breach reporting on security

End-to-end data confidentiality in the cloud and beyond

Higher assurance clouds, virtual private clouds etc.

DATA PROTECTION IN LARGE SCALE CROSS-ORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEMS

Forensics and evidence gathering mechanisms.

Incident handling - monitoring and traceability

International differences in relevant regulations including data protection and privacy

LARGE SCALE COMPUTER SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

Resource isolation mechanisms - data, processing, memory, logs etc.

Interoperability between cloud providers

Resilience of cloud computing. How can cloud improve resilience?

The reason why there are security issues with cloud computing is because it is a technology that only requires internet access such as yahoo mail. Anyone could take personal information and use it for identity thief. However, the customer does not have to buy any additional hardware and software when cloud computing."A simple example of cloud computing is Yahoo email or Gmail etc. You don't need a software or a server to use them. All a consumer would need is just an internet connection and you can start sending emails. The server and email management software is all on the cloud ( internet) and is totally managed by the cloud service provider Yahoo, Google etc. The consumer gets to use the software alone and enjoy the benefits. The analogy is, 'If you only need milk, would you buy a cow ?' All the users or consumers need is to get the benefits of using the software or hardware of the computer like sending emails etc. Just to get this benefit (milk) why should a consumer buy a (cow) software / hardware ? Cloud computing is broken down into three segments: "applications," "platforms," and "infrastructure." Each segment serves a different purpose and offers different products for businesses and individuals around the world. In June 2009, a study conducted by VersionOne found that 41% of senior IT professionals actually don't know what cloud computing is and two-thirds of senior finance professionals are confused by the concept,[1] highlighting the young nature of the technology. In Sept 2009, an Aberdeen Group study found that disciplined companies achieved on average an 18% reduction in their IT budget from cloud computing and a 16% reduction in data center power costs " (Cloud Computing 2010) (see Appendix B). Therefore, it clearly shows that as cloud computing becomes dominate, security will be increased since it is in high demand and that within itself will increase in ten years.

The concept of customer equity within cloud computing is very important to companies that are considering using it such as Microsoft, Google, and government agencies. Without the relationship they have with their customers, they would be dead in sales and revenue. Customer equity is at the heart of the company. "In certain situations, relationship equity will be the most important influence on customer equity. First, relationship equity will be critical when the benefits the customer associates with the firm's loyalty program are significantly greater than the actual "cash value" of the benefits received. This "aspirational value" of a loyalty program presents a solid opportunity for firms to strengthen relationship equity by creating a strong incentive for the customer to return to the firm for future purchases. The success of the world's frequent flyer programs lies, to some extent, in the difference between the "true" value of a frequent flyer mile (about three cents) and the aspirational value -- the customer's perception of the value of a frequent flyer mile ("I'm that much closer to my free trip to Hawaii!")" Lemon, Rust, Zeithaml (2001 p. 20). All companies that are considering cloud computing feed off of loyalty because it has never failed them as being a great tactic to deliver desired business results with their customers. Due to this increase in technology and cloud computing, customers have their expectations at all time high because they are more aware of what they want and they seek what brands cater to them and them only.

Relationship equity will be vital when firms have the opportunity to create learning relationships with customers. Often, the relationship created between the firm and the customer, in which the firm comes to appreciate the customer's preferences and buying habits, can become as important to the customer as the provision of the product or service. Database technology has made such "learning" possible for any company or organization willing to invest the time and resources in collecting, tracking, and utilizing the information customers reveal. For example, Dell has created learning relationships with its key business customers through Dell's Premier Pages -- customized Web sites that allow customers to manage their firm's purchases of Dell computers. The benefit: It becomes more difficult for customers to receive the same personal attention from an alternative provider without "training" that new provide Lemon, Rust, Zeithaml (2001, p. 20).

Microsoft, Google, and government agencies understand being an individual does not necessarily mean that you are of white, black, red, brown, or yellow complexion because they knew their customers came from all over the world. The term individual has no racial indicators for virtually people trace their roots from distinct nationalities, races and ethnic groups and this impediment alone can cause complicated things if customers' security needs are not met. Therefore, it is recommended from the article, "Cloud computing: benefits, risks and recommendations for information security."

SECURITY AND THE BENEFITS OF SCALE: put simply, all kinds of security measures are cheaper when implemented on a larger scale. Therefore the same amount of investment in security buys better protection. This includes all kinds of defensive measures such as filtering, patch management, hardening of virtual machine instances and hypervisors, etc. Other benefits of scale include: multiple locations, edge networks (content delivered or processed closer to its destination), timeliness of response, to incidents, threat management.

SECURITY AS A MARKET DIFFERENTIATOR:security is a priority concern for many cloud customers; many of them will make buying choices on the basis of the reputation for confidentiality, integrity and resilience of, and the security services offered by, a provider. This is a strong driver for cloud providers to improve security practices.

STANDARDISED INTERFACES FOR MANAGED SECURITY SERVICES: large cloud providers can offer a standardised, open interface to managed security services providers. This creates a more open and readily available market for security services.

RAPID, SMART SCALING OF RESOURCES: the ability of the cloud provider to dynamically reallocate resources for filtering, traffic shaping, authentication, encryption, etc., to defensive measures (e.g., against DDoS attacks) has obvious advantages for resilience.

AUDIT AND EVIDENCE-GATHERING: cloud computing (when using virtualisation) can provide dedicated, pay-per-use forensic images of virtual machines which are accessible without taking infrastructure off-line, leading to less down-time for forensic analysis. It can also provide more cost-effective storage for logs allowing more comprehensive logging without compromising performance.

MORE TIMELY, EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT UPDATES AND DEFAULTS: default virtual machine images and software modules used by customers can be pre-hardened and updated with the latest patches and security settings according to fine-tuned processes; IaaS cloud service APIs also allow snapshots of virtual infrastructure to be taken regularly and compared with a baseline. Updates can be rolled out many times more rapidly across a homogenous platform than in traditional client-based systems that rely on the patching model. 5

BENEFITS OF RESOURCE CONCENTRATION: Although the concentration of resources undoubtedly has disadvantages for security [see Risks], it has the obvious advantage of cheaper physical perimiterisation and physical access control (per unit resource) and the easier and cheaper application of many security-related processes.

In order to look for security measures for cloud computing, companies like Microsoft, Google and government agencies can benchmark other companies such as GE. GE is a multifaceted company that has equities and business interests in everything from Software to Healthcare. Both of these components are key components to companies that plan to have cloud computing. Since GE first starting outsourcing in 1997 and they are considered by several sources to be pioneers in the mechanics of outsourcing. GE has been very successful in outsourcing which makes it a desirable company for other companies to benchmark. A lot of GE's outsourcing is related to call centers and customer support, which requires new software technology that is something that cloud computing can provide. There are two major components to GE's operations that can be directly related to companies that are interested in cloud computing. One being the benefit of outsourcing especially to other countries, the other being a guide on how to deal with the public backlash as cloud computing is facing.

When GE first implemented the outsourcing project according to EB strategy website, former CEO "Jack Welch mandated a 70:70:70 rule which stated that 70% of all GE's work would be outsourced, 70% of that work would be completed by offshore development companies. And of this 70% would be sent to India. Meaning 30% of all GE's outsourced work would be in India."(2004). The benefits of outsourcing to India are numerous, including India having the largest population of educated English speaking labor pool in the world.

The second aspect of GE's outsourcing that could benefit companies that are interesting cloud computing in swaying the public backlashof cloud computing is facing is the evidence and proven track record of GE's outsourcing program. According to Bruce Bartlett "there is no very little real evidence that outsourcing has caused significant job loss in America."(Bartlett, 2004). GE states that their outsourcing has helped keep GE competitive and growing and, in many cases, helped to create and preserve jobs in the United States. (EBstrategy, 2004). This aspect will be a very good point for Microsoft and Google to use in overcoming the Union obstacle. According to statements made by GE found on EBstrategy website states "our outsourcing has largely consisted of obtaining products from low cost countries, in order to remain competitive."(2004).

With GE being a major employer in the United States even though they have outsourced some of their work to other countries. If Microsoft and Google are able to follow the model that GE has set forth in outsourcing then the potential for cloud computing to turn their business operations around and bring the price of their stocks up would be greatly increased.

From there, when using cloud computing, the following risks may occur according to the article, "Cloud computing: benefits, risks and recommendations for information security."

LOSS OF GOVERNANCE: in using cloud infrastructures, the client necessarily cedes control to the Cloud Provider (CP) on a number of issues which may affect security. At the same time, SLAs may not offer a commitment to provide such services on the part of the cloud provider, thus leaving a gap in security defences.

LOCK-IN: there is currently little on offer in the way of tools, procedures or standard data formats or services interfaces that could guarantee data, application and service portability. This can make it difficult for the customer to migrate from one provider to another or migrate data and services back to an in-house IT environment. This introduces a dependency on a particular CP for service provision, especially if data portability, as the most fundamental aspect, is not enabled..

ISOLATION FAILURE: multi-tenancy and shared resources are defining characteristics of cloud computing. This risk category covers the failure of mechanisms separating storage, memory, routing and even reputation between different tenants (e.g., so-called guest-hopping attacks). However it should be considered that attacks on resource isolation mechanisms (e.g.,. against hypervisors) are still less numerous and much more difficult for an attacker to put in practice compared to attacks on traditional OSs.

COMPLIANCE RISKS: investment in achieving certification (e.g., industry standard or regulatory requirements) may be put at risk by migration to the cloud: If the CP cannot provide evidence of their own compliance with the relevant requirements if the CP does not permit audit by the cloud customer (CC).

PCI Security Standards Council [Online] https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/pci_dss.shtml

Management INTERFACE COMPROMISE: customer management interfaces of a public cloud provider are accessible through the Internet and mediate access to larger sets of resources (than traditional hosting providers) and therefore pose an increased risk, especially when combined with remote access and web browser vulnerabilities.

DATA PROTECTION: cloud computing poses several data protection risks for cloud customers and providers. In some cases, it may be difficult for the cloud customer (in its role as data controller) to 6 effectively check the data handling practices of the cloud provider and thus to be sure that the data is handled in a lawful way. This problem is exacerbated in cases of multiple transfers of data, e.g., between federated clouds. On the other hand, some cloud providers do provide information on their data handling practices. Some also offer certification summaries on their data processing and data security activities and the data controls they have in place, e.g., SAS70 certification.

INSECURE OR INCOMPLETE DATA DELETION: when a request to delete a cloud resource is made, as with most operating systems, this may not result in true wiping of the data. Adequate or timely data deletion may also be impossible (or undesirable from a customer perspective), either because extra copies of data are stored but are not available, or because the disk to be destroyed also stores data from other clients. In the case of multiple tenancies and the reuse of hardware resources, this represents a higher risk to the customer than with dedicated hardware.

MALICIOUS INSIDER: while usually less likely, the damage which may be caused by malicious insiders is often far greater. Cloud architectures necessitate certain roles which are extremely high-risk. Examples include cloud provider system administrators and managed security service providers.

NB: The risks of using cloud computing should be compared to the risks of staying with traditional solutions, such as desktop-based models. To facilitate this, in the main document we have included estimates of relative risks as compared with a typical traditional environment.

Overall, in the long run, there is a bigger benefit from cloud computing than there are risks from it. "While most companies in this sector offer Software as a Service, Microsoft prefers the term Software-plus-Services. This is based on the fact that increasingly, users want to access information on a range of devices, so that at different times they might view their applications through a browser, in standard PC software, on a mobile or even a console. To enable this, Microsoft sees Software plus Services in Windows as including a services component that can be used to store device settings, making it easier for users to access the same application from various devices, or to buy new devices without having to create new settings" (Ewbank 2009). From there, if Microsoft can see that cloud computing is more beneficial than a risk, the future is secured with it.

Appendix A

Strategic planning influences many aspects of Microsoft and Google. It will help them when using cloud computing, "There are a variety of perspectives, models and approaches used in strategic planning. The way that a strategic plan is developed depends on the nature of the organization's leadership, culture of the organization, complexity of the organization's environment, size of the organization, expertise of planners, etc. For example, there are a variety of strategic planning models, including goals-based, issues-based, organic, scenario (some would assert that scenario planning is more of a technique than model), etc. Goals-based planning is probably the most common and starts with focus on the organization's mission (and vision and/or values), goals to work toward the mission, strategies to achieve the goals, and action planning (who will do what and by when). Issues-based strategic planning often starts by examining issues facing the organization, strategies to address those issues and action plans. Organic strategic planning might start by articulating the organization's vision and values, and then action plans to achieve the vision while adhering to those values. Some planners prefer a particular approach to planning, eg, appreciative inquiry. Some plans are scoped to one year, many to three years, and some to five to ten years into the future. Some plans include only top-level information and no action plans. Some plans are five to eight pages long, while others can be considerably longer" (Strategic Planning (in nonprofit or for-profit organizations) 2010). With strategic planning, Microsoft and Google can plan what they will do and expect from cloud computing within one to three years or five to ten years. Along with that, both companies have felt as if cloud computing has been a losing battle because there has been security issues with cloud computing.

With that, businesses like Microsoft and Google are not the only ones who are interested in cloud computing. The government is also interested in cloud computing because it would reduce the IT cost and increase capabilities. However, people are worried that information will not be so secured.

Governments are also interested in the possibility of using cloud computing to reduce IT costs and increase capabilities. For example, the U.S. government GSA (General Services Administration) now offers a portal for cloud computing services5. Governments too, have serious hurdles to overcome - in terms of public perception of the secure processing of citizens' personal information in cloud computing infrastructures. On top of this, there are also legal and regulatory obstacles which prevent many eGovernment applications from moving to cloud services. Nevertheless, both governments and SMEs face the reality that many of their employees will be using cloud-based services whether or not this is part of their official policy. Finally, it is important to note that cloud computing can refer to several different service types, including Application/Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The risks and benefits associated with each model will differ and so will the key considerations in contracting for this type of service. The following sections attempt to make the distinction when the risks or benefits apply differently to different cloud models (Cloud Computing).

In order to be an effective company with using cloud computing, they have to conform as one so that productivity can be increased to make high profits.

1. Humanistic Values: Positive beliefs about the potential of employees (McGregor's Theory Y). (Organizational Behavior 2010).

2. Systems Orientation: All parts of the organization, to include structure, technology, and people, must work together (Organizational Behavior 2010).

3. Experiential Learning: The learners' experiences in the training environment should be the kind of human problems they encounter at work. The training should NOT be all theory and lecture (Organizational Behavior 2010).

4. Problem Solving: Problems are identified, data is gathered, corrective action is taken, progress is assessed, and adjustments in the problem solving process are made as needed. This process is known as Action Research (Organizational Behavior 2010).

5. Contingency Orientation: Actions are selected and adapted to fit the need (Organizational Behavior 2010).

6. Change Agent: Stimulate, facilitate, and coordinate change (Organizational Behavior 2010).

7. Levels of Interventions: Problems can occur at one or more level in the organization so the strategy will require one or more interventions (Organizational Behavior 2010).

Appendix B

It is apparent that Microsoft and Google are about customer intimacy because they feel customers come first, which cloud computing is grabbing customers attention. They know that their customers want something more than the normal merchandise. This is why they want to expand production in European and Asian countries in order to reach a broader audience. Therefore, they came up with a product strategy that will reach out to customers that are looking for products.