Assimilation of the Cloud: Report on the Benefits and Challenges of Adopting Cloud Technology

While it is widely acknowledged that cloud computing has the potential to transform a large part of the IT industry, issues surrounding the adoption of cloud computing have received relatively little attention. What research has been conducted has tended to focus on technical issues and is based on a rather simplistic binary view of adoption – either the technology has been adopted or it has not. This study goes beyond a binary view of adoption and instead examines the more complex nature of cloud computing assimilation. It examines challenges to (i) acceptance - the extent to which an organisation’s members are committed to the adoption, (ii) routinisation - the extent to which the use of cloud becomes a normal activity, and (iii) infusion - the extent to which its use is extensive, integrated and emergent. Drawing on a field study of cloud assimilation across ten organisations, this study will contribute to the existing cloud technologies literature that does not address the complex and multi-faceted nature of adoption. Secondly, it will provide an insight into cloud computing adoption by focusing on the benefits and challenges associated with implementation in organisations

From security to assurance in the cloud: a survey

The cloud computing paradigm has become a mainstream solution for the deployment of business processes and applications. In the public cloud vision, infrastructure, platform, and software services are provisioned to tenants (i.e., customers and service providers) on a pay-as-you-go basis. Cloud tenants can use cloud resources at lower prices, and higher performance and flexibility, than traditional on-premises resources, without having to care about infrastructure management. Still, cloud tenants remain concerned with the cloud's level of service and the nonfunctional properties their applications can count on. In the last few years, the research community has been focusing on the nonfunctional aspects of the cloud paradigm, among which cloud security stands out. Several approaches to security have been described and summarized in general surveys on cloud security techniques. The survey in this article focuses on the interface between cloud security and cloud security assurance. First, we provide an overview of the state of the art on cloud security. Then, we introduce the notion of cloud security assurance and analyze its growing impact on cloud security approaches. Finally, we present some recommendations for the development of next-generation cloud security and assurance solutions