Discussion On Cloud Services And The SLA

Introduction less than 50 words and analysis 300 words
Attached the requirement file along with PDF book.
Chapter 3 and section 4.3 (98-102) page look
Risks and Challenges. Whole discussion should co related to this section.
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We are going to explore the Web regarding cloud service level agreements (SLA).
Topic- cloud services and the SLA
A. Find an article on the Web that is no more than 4 years old that describes a poor experience with cloud services and SLAs.
B. Remember the article must contain two (2) elements to be considered in this assignment, e.g. cloud services and the SLA.  You must use your own words. Do not copy and paste any part of the article into the discussion.
C. Once you have found an appropriate article, tell the story IN YOUR OWN WORDS and correlate the pertinent elements to Erl, 2013, Chapter 3, Section 3.4.  Be selective in the article you choose to explain to the class.
D. Finally, summarize and provide your own recommendation on how to mitigate the problem(s) you described.
Here are the topics in Erl, 2013 that you must correlate your article towards.
· Reduced Operational Governance Control
· Limited Portability Between Cloud Providers
· Multi-Regional Compliance and Legal Issues
*Be sure to read Erl, 2013, Chapter 3, Section 3.4 before your Web search to avoid making a critical mistake in your discussion.
Keep your story as short as possible.  Do not exceed 450 words.  Provide a valid link (URL) to your article so that we may find and read it.
Chapter 3
Section 3.4 (Page no 98- 102)
3.4. Risks and Challenges
Several of the most critical cloud computing challenges pertaining mostly
to cloud consumers that use IT resources located in public clouds are
presented and examined.
Increased Security Vulnerabilities
The moving of business data to the cloud means that the responsibility
over data security becomes shared with the cloud provider. The remote
usage of IT resources requires an expansion of trust boundaries by the
cloud consumer to include the external cloud. It can be difficult to
establish a security architecture that spans such a trust boundary
without introducing vulnerabilities, unless cloud consumers and cloud
providers happen to support the same or compatible security
frameworks—which is unlikely with public clouds.
Another consequence of overlapping trust boundaries relates to the
cloud provider’s privileged access to cloud consumer data. The extent to
which the data is secure is now limited to the security controls and
policies applied by both the cloud consumer and cloud provider.
Furthermore, there can be overlapping trust boundaries from different
cloud consumers due to the fact that cloud-based IT resources are
commonly shared.
The overlapping of trust boundaries and the increased exposure of data
can provide malicious cloud consumers (human and automated) with
greater opportunities to attack IT resources and steal or damage business
data. Figure 3.9 illustrates a scenario whereby two organizations
accessing the same cloud service are required to extend their respective
trust boundaries to the cloud, resulting in overlapping trust boundaries.
It can be challenging for the cloud provider to offer security mechanisms
that accommodate the security requirements of both cloud service
consumers.
Figure 3.9. The shaded area with diagonal lines indicates the overlap of two organizations’
trust boundaries.
Overlapping trust boundaries is a security threat that is discussed in
more detail in Chapter 6.
Reduced Operational Governance Control
Cloud consumers are usually allotted a level of governance control that is
lower than that over on-premise IT resources. This can introduce risks
associated with how the cloud provider operates its cloud, as well as the
external connections that are required for communication between the
cloud and the cloud consumer.
Consider the following examples:
• An unreliable cloud provider may not maintain the guarantees it makes
in the SLAs that were published for its cloud services. This can
jeopardize the quality of the cloud consumer solutions that rely on these
cloud services.
• Longer geographic distances between the cloud consumer and cloud
provider can require additional network hops that introduce fluctuating
latency and potential bandwidth constraints.
The latter scenario is illustrated in Figure 3.10.
Figure 3.10. An unreliable network connection compromises the quality of
communication between cloud consumer and cloud provider environments.
Legal contracts, when combined with SLAs, technology inspections, and
monitoring, can mitigate governance risks and issues. A cloud
governance system is established through SLAs, given the “as-a-service”
nature of cloud computing. A cloud consumer must keep track of the
actual service level being offered and the other warranties that are made
by the cloud provider.
Note that different cloud delivery models offer varying degrees of
operational control granted to cloud consumers, as further explained
in Chapter 4.
Limited Portability Between Cloud Providers
Due to a lack of established industry standards within the cloud
computing industry, public clouds are commonly proprietary to various
extents. For cloud consumers that have custom-built solutions with
dependencies on these proprietary environments, it can be challenging
to move from one cloud provider to another.
Portability is a measure used to determine the impact of moving cloud
consumer IT resources and data between clouds (Figure 3.11).
Figure 3.11. A cloud consumer’s application has a decreased level of portability when
assessing a potential migration from Cloud A to Cloud B, because the cloud provider of
Cloud B does not support the same security technologies as Cloud A.
Multi-Regional Compliance and Legal Issues
Third-party cloud providers will frequently establish data centers in
affordable or convenient geographical locations. Cloud consumers will
often not be aware of the physical location of their IT resources and data
when hosted by public clouds. For some organizations, this can pose
serious legal concerns pertaining to industry or government regulations
that specify data privacy and storage policies. For example, some UK
laws require personal data belonging to UK citizens to be kept within the
United Kingdom.
Another potential legal issue pertains to the accessibility and disclosure
of data. Countries have laws that require some types of data to be
disclosed to certain government agencies or to the subject of the data.
For example, a European cloud consumer’s data that is located in the
U.S. can be more easily accessed by government agencies (due to the U.S.
Patriot Act) when compared to data located in many European Union
countries.
Most regulatory frameworks recognize that cloud consumer
organizations are ultimately responsible for the security, integrity, and
storage of their own data, even when it is held by an external cloud
provider.
Summary of Key Points
• Cloud environments can introduce distinct security challenges, some of which
pertain to overlapping trust boundaries imposed by a cloud provider sharing IT
resources with multiple cloud consumers.
• A cloud consumer’s operational governance can be limited within cloud
environments due to the control exercised by a cloud provider over its platforms.
• The portability of cloud-based IT resources can be inhibited by dependencies
upon proprietary characteristics imposed by a cloud.
• The geographical location of data and IT resources can be out of a cloud
consumer’s control when hosted by a third-party cloud provider. This can
introduce various legal and regulatory compliance concerns.