Cloud Migration: Issues and Developments

Cloud computing is a dynamic paradigm that is influencing activities in virtually all facets of the IT world. It has become quite easy to deploy applications on the cloud. Storage is also available based on user’s needs and can be scaled up or down as required by the user. Computing resources have also been made available on virtual machines. Furthermore, applications are available to users supplied by cloud providers. The activities on the cloud has made migration to the cloud desirable to most organizations and enterprises. Adopting the cloud is expected to reduce cost and the need for investment in computing infrastructure. However, most organizations are still concerned about the likely challenges of migrating to the cloud. The goal of this paper is to provide an insight into cloud computing with respect to migration issues. The paper discusses cloud computing and the benefits of migration. It also examines the challenges of migration. Furthermore, present issues of migration as espoused by the industry are discussed. The survey observed that not much is being discussed in terms of current trends and procedures of migration

A Comprehensive Survey on Data Integrity Proving Schemes in Cloud Storage

Cloud computing requires broad security solutions based upon many aspects of a large and lightly integrated system. The cloud data storage service releases the users from the burden of huge local data storage and their preservation by out- sourcing mass data to the cloud. However, the fact that users no longer have physical possession of the possibly large size of outsourced data makes the data integrity protection in Cloud Computing a very challenging and potentially formidable task, especially for users with constrained computing resources and capabilities. One of the significant concerns that need to be spoken is to assure the customer of the integrity i.e. rightness of his data in the cloud. The data integrity verification is done by introducing third party auditor (TPA) who has privileges to check the integrity of dynamic data in cloud on behalf of cloud client. Cloud client can get notification from TPA when the data integrity is lost. These systems have sustenance data dynamics via the data operation such as data modification, insertion, deletion. Many work has been done but it lacks the support of either public auditability or active data processes To securely introduce an effective third party auditor (TPA), the following two fundamental requirements have to be met: (i) TPA should be able to efficiently audit the cloud data storage without demanding the local copy of data, and introduce no additional on-line burden to the cloud user; (ii) The third party auditing process should bring in no new vulnerabilities towards user data privacy. Here, a proposed scheme is discussed in which gives a proof of data integrity in the cloud which the customer can employ to check the correctness of his data in the cloud. This proof can be agreed upon by both the cloud and the customer and can be incorporated in the Service level agreement (SLA). This scheme ensures that the storage at the client side is minimal which will be beneficial for the organization. In this paper, we define a survey on Cloud computing and provide the architecture for creating C

Big Data and the Internet of Things

Advances in sensing and computing capabilities are making it possible to embed increasing computing power in small devices. This has enabled the sensing devices not just to passively capture data at very high resolution but also to take sophisticated actions in response. Combined with advances in communication, this is resulting in an ecosystem of highly interconnected devices referred to as the Internet of Things - IoT. In conjunction, the advances in machine learning have allowed building models on this ever increasing amounts of data. Consequently, devices all the way from heavy assets such as aircraft engines to wearables such as health monitors can all now not only generate massive amounts of data but can draw back on aggregate analytics to "improve" their performance over time. Big data analytics has been identified as a key enabler for the IoT. In this chapter, we discuss various avenues of the IoT where big data analytics either is already making a significant impact or is on the cusp of doing so. We also discuss social implications and areas of concern.Comment: 33 pages. draft of upcoming book chapter in Japkowicz and Stefanowski (eds.) Big Data Analysis: New algorithms for a new society, Springer Series on Studies in Big Data, to appea

The Semantic Automated Discovery and Integration (SADI) Web service Design-Pattern, API and Reference Implementation

Background. 
The complexity and inter-related nature of biological data poses a difficult challenge for data and tool integration. There has been a proliferation of interoperability standards and projects over the past decade, none of which has been widely adopted by the bioinformatics community. Recent attempts have focused on the use of semantics to assist integration, and Semantic Web technologies are being welcomed by this community.

Description. 
SADI – Semantic Automated Discovery and Integration – is a lightweight set of fully standards-compliant Semantic Web service design patterns that simplify the publication of services of the type commonly found in bioinformatics and other scientific domains. Using Semantic Web technologies at every level of the Web services “stack”, SADI services consume and produce instances of OWL Classes following a small number of very straightforward best-practices. In addition, we provide codebases that support these best-practices, and plug-in tools to popular developer and client software that dramatically simplify deployment of services by providers, and the discovery and utilization of those services by their consumers.

Conclusions.
SADI Services are fully compliant with, and utilize only foundational Web standards; are simple to create and maintain for service providers; and can be discovered and utilized in a very intuitive way by biologist end-users. In addition, the SADI design patterns significantly improve the ability of software to automatically discover appropriate services based on user-needs, and automatically chain these into complex analytical workflows. We show that, when resources are exposed through SADI, data compliant with a given ontological model can be automatically gathered, or generated, from these distributed, non-coordinating resources - a behavior we have not observed in any other Semantic system. Finally, we show that, using SADI, data dynamically generated from Web services can be explored in a manner very similar to data housed in static triple-stores, thus facilitating the intersection of Web services and Semantic Web technologies

Managing Associated Risks in Cloud Computer Applications

Cloud Computing, the long-held dream of computing as a utility, has the potential to transform a large part of the IT industry, making software even more attractive as a service and shaping the way IT hardware is designed and purchased. Developers with innovative ideas for new Internet services no longer require the large capital outlays in hardware to deploy their service or the human expense to operate it. This paper focuses on an overview of cloud computing as a technology and has chosen the party agent reports of an electoral process as a case study. The case study was used to develop an application which was tested and deployed on a local computer and subsequently deployed on the cloud infrastructure. Java programming language and Google App engine were the tools used to develop and deploy the application. The work demonstrates the benefits of deploying applications using the cloud service over on-premise deployment especially where real time data is needed like reporting incidents during elections. Keywords: Google App Engine, Java Programming Language, cloud infrastructur

Model-based Testing in Cloud Brokerage Scenarios

In future Cloud ecosystems, brokers will mediate between service providers and consumers, playing an increased role in quality assurance, checking services for functional compliance to agreed standards, among other aspects. To date, most Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) testing has been performed manually, requiring duplicated effort at the development, certification and deployment stages of the service lifecycle. This paper presents a strategy for achieving automated testing for certification and re-certification of SaaS applications, based on the adoption of simple state-based and functional specifications. High-level test suites are generated from specifications, by algorithms that provide the necessary and sufficient coverage. The high-level tests must be grounded for each implementation technology, whether SOAP, REST or rich-client. Two examples of grounding are presented, one into SOAP for a traditional web service and the other into Selenium for a SAP HANA rich-client application. The results demonstrate good test coverage. Further work is required to fully automate the grounding

Improving Security in Software-as-a-Service Solutions

The essence of cloud computing is about moving workloads from your local IT infrastructure to a data center that scales and provides resources at a moments notice. Using a pay-as-you-go model to rent virtual infrastructure is also known as a Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering. This helps consumers provision hardware on-demand without the need for physical infrastructure and the challenges and costs that come with it. When moving to the cloud, however, issues regarding the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the data and infrastructure arise, and new security challenges compared to traditional on-premises computing appear. It is important for the consumer to know exactly what is their responsibility when it comes to securing software running on IaaS platforms. Axis has one such software solution, henceforth referred to as the 'Axis-hosted cloud service'. There is a need for Axis to improve the client-cloud communication, and in this report, we detail a prototype solution for a new secure communication between client and cloud. Additionally, an evaluation of the prototype is presented. The evaluation is based on a model constructed by studying literature from state-of-the-art cloud service providers and organizations dedicated to defining best practices and critical areas of focus for cloud computing. This was collected and compiled in order to present a summary of the most important aspects to keep in mind when deploying software on an IaaS. It showed that the cloud service fulfills many industry best-practices, such as encrypting data in transit between client and cloud, using virtual private clouds to separate infrastructure credentials from unauthorized access, and following the guidelines from their infrastructure provider. It also showed areas where there was a need for improvement in order to reach a state-of-the-art level. The model proved to be a useful tool to ensure that security best practices are being met by an organization moving to the cloud, and specifically for Axis, the prototype communication solution can be used as a base for further development