Clouds of Things. Data protection and consumer law at the intersection of cloud computing and the Internet of Things in the United Kingdom

The article critically analyses the Internet of Things (IoT) and its intersection with cloud computing, the so-called Clouds of Things (CoT). ‘Things’ are understood as any physical entity capable of connectivity that has a direct interface to the physical world (i.e. a sensing and/or actuating capability). From another perspective (especially product liability), Things can be seen as an inextricable mixture of hardware, software, and services. Alongside a clarification of the essentials, the six factors of the CoT complexity are described and light is shed on the regulatory options (regulation, co-regulation, self-regulation, holistic approach, fragmentation). Focussing on the British legal systems, the article reports on the state of the art of CoT deployment in the United Kingdom and deals with some of the main technical and legal issues emerging from CoT. Particularly, the core will be data protection, privacy, and consumer law. Indeed, these themes are considered the most relevant by the regulators. By mastering the relevant legal issues and following the example of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Korea will be able to unleash its extraordinary potential as to the IoT, thus retaining its position as the smartest country in the world

A cyber-physical approach to combined HW-SW monitoring for improving energy efficiency in data centers

High-Performance Computing, Cloud computing and next-generation applications such e-Health or Smart Cities have dramatically increased the computational demand of Data Centers. The huge energy consumption, increasing levels of CO2 and the economic costs of these facilities represent a challenge for industry and researchers alike. Recent research trends propose the usage of holistic optimization techniques to jointly minimize Data Center computational and cooling costs from a multilevel perspective. This paper presents an analysis on the parameters needed to integrate the Data Center in a holistic optimization framework and leverages the usage of Cyber-Physical systems to gather workload, server and environmental data via software techniques and by deploying a non-intrusive Wireless Sensor Net- work (WSN). This solution tackles data sampling, retrieval and storage from a reconfigurable perspective, reducing the amount of data generated for optimization by a 68% without information loss, doubling the lifetime of the WSN nodes and allowing runtime energy minimization techniques in a real scenario

A Systematic Review of the Integration of Industry 4.0 with Quality-related Operational Excellence Methodologies

This study examines the common themes for integrating Industry 4.0 with quality-related Operational Excellence methodologies to provide a comprehensive overview of ‘what’ and ‘how’ to combine them in an initial integration process. In addition, the gaps in the present literature are aggregated, and a research plan for the future is proposed. The study is based on a systematic review of 37 papers published in academic journals between 2015 and 2021. Unlike previous reviews, this study concentrates on the ‘what’ and ‘how’ level of Total Quality Management, Lean Six Sigma, and Business Process Management as quality-related Operational Excellence methodologies integrated with Industry 4.0 to provide a practical perspective when executing their integration and implementation. Findings indicate a strong technical and data-driven integration focus across the three themes. Furthermore, modes of action as moderators of success were derived as initial variables to be included in quality-driven Industry 4.0 transitions. Identifying gaps in the present literature and defining a research agenda centred on operational principles opens up opportunities for future study with significant practical value

Towards a Consumer Cloud Computing Maturity Model - Proposition of Development Guidelines, Maturity Domains and Maturity Levels

In recent years, Cloud Computing (CC) has transformed from a new trend to IT management reality. Its potential promises to significantly change computing and benefit many organisations but at the same time uncertainty and the need for managerial guidance prevail. To benefit from the opportunities that CC promises, organisations need to adapt to the new circumstances that this phenomenon triggers and develop new capabilities. Maturity models have shown to be an excellent and easily applicable tool for the assessment and improvement of capabilities. However, there is no fully developed and universally accepted CC maturity model (CCMM) so far. Through the execution of a maturity model development process, this contribution is aiming at deriving development guidelines for the future development of a holistic consumer CCMM. Additionally, content and structure in the form of maturity domains and maturity levels are proposed throughout the development process, the combination of which represents the first steps towards a holistic consumer CCMM

Preparing for GDPR:helping EU SMEs to manage data breaches

Over the last decade, the number of small and medium (SME) businesses suffering data breaches has risen at an alarming rate. Knowing how to respond to inevitable data breaches is critically important. A number of guidelines exist to advise organisations on the steps necessary to ensure an effective incident response. These guidelines tend to be unsuitable for SMEs, who generally have limited resources to expend on security and incident responses. Qualitative interviews were conducted with SMEs to probe current data breach response practice and to gather best-practice advice from SMEs themselves. The interviews revealed no widespread de facto approach, with a variety of practices being reported. A number of prevalent unhelpful-practice themes emerged from the responses, which we propose specific mitigation techniques to address. We therefore propose a SME-specific incident response framework that is simple yet powerful enough to inform and guide SME responses to data breach incidents

Tackling an IS Educator’s Dilemma: A Holistic Model for “When” and “How” to Incorporate New Technology Courses into the IS/IT Curriculum

To prepare their students for the rapidly changing and increasingly competitive job market, universities must constantly modify their Information Systems (IS)/Information Technology (IT) program curricula to incorporate relevant and emerging technologies in addition to computing fundamentals. The “haunting” conundrum that faces IS/IT educators is assessing whether an emerging technology is a “game-changing” development or something more transient. In addition, university curriculum approval proposals may be a barrier to timely incorporation of a new course. To solve the dilemma, the authors have developed a holistic model to provide strategic guidance for IS/IT educators to make a valid decision in terms of “when” to introduce a new course on emerging technology and “how” to incorporate the new course into an existing IS/IT curriculum. In addition, the authors present several examples demonstrating how the proposed models to IS/IT curriculum modification and new technology course insertion was useful in their curriculum decisions

Next Generation Cloud Computing: New Trends and Research Directions

The landscape of cloud computing has significantly changed over the last decade. Not only have more providers and service offerings crowded the space, but also cloud infrastructure that was traditionally limited to single provider data centers is now evolving. In this paper, we firstly discuss the changing cloud infrastructure and consider the use of infrastructure from multiple providers and the benefit of decentralising computing away from data centers. These trends have resulted in the need for a variety of new computing architectures that will be offered by future cloud infrastructure. These architectures are anticipated to impact areas, such as connecting people and devices, data-intensive computing, the service space and self-learning systems. Finally, we lay out a roadmap of challenges that will need to be addressed for realising the potential of next generation cloud systems.Comment: Accepted to Future Generation Computer Systems, 07 September 201

Capability maturity model and metrics framework for cyber cloud security

© 2017 SCPE. Cyber space is affecting all areas of our life. Cloud computing is the cutting-edge technology of this cyber space and has established itself as one of the most important resources sharing technologies for future on-demand services and infrastructures that support Internet of Things (IOTs), big data platforms and software-defined systems/services. More than ever, security is vital for cloud environment. There exist several cloud security models and standards dealing with emerging cloud security threats. However, these models are mostly reactive rather than proactive and they do not provide adequate measures to assess the overall security status of a cloud system. Out of existing models, capability maturity models, which have been used by many organizations, offer a realistic approach to address these problems using management by security domains and security assessment on maturity levels. The aim of the paper is twofold: first, it provides a review of capability maturity models and security metrics; second, it proposes a cloud security capability maturity model (CSCMM) that extends existing cyber security models with a security metric framework

Cloud Nine? An Integrative Risk Management Framework for Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is heralded to be one of the most significant information technology developments in recent years. There is widespread agreement that the adoption of cloud resources and capabilities is poised for strong growth into the future. Nevertheless, there is paucity of research concerning the perceived risks that affect the adoption intentions of prospective organisational adopters. In attempts to contribute to the existing body of knowledge, this study draws on qualitative evidence to explore perceived cloud computing risks. It culminates with an integrative risk management framework for the adoption of cloud computing