Data and application security in cloud

Abstract

Cloud computing is an emerging technological paradigm, which provides computing resources as utility. Like other day-to-day utilities, cloud computing follows pay-as-you-use model, where users are charged according to the usage without regard to where the services are hosted or how they are delivered. Today, majority of companies follow an IT infrastructure-driven business model. With the growing demand, rise in customer base and market place competitions, companies prefer focusing on respective business policies and services they offer, rather than IT management overheads. Therefore, there is a high probability that the future of present day business model may shift to clouds where non-IT companies no longer have to procure, manage, and maintain IT resources. They will host applications and data to the servers, which are deployed by cloud providers, possibly in geographically dispersed locations. However, security is a major challenge before outsourcing any IT needs of business. As cloud provides a multi-tenant virtual computing environment, where competitive businesses may co-exist, hosting of sensitive information formission-critical applications is of utmost concern. This chapter reviews the recent works reported specifically in the area of data and application security relevant to cloud computing. Some works which use biologically inspired phenomenon to manage security and load balancing in cloud environment, have also been studied. The aim of this chapter is to provide an insight into the present state-of-the-art cloud security problems, proposed solutions, and identify future research directions as well as scopes in various security issues.