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SECURING CLOUD COMPUTING Introduction Security Challenges in the Cloud IBM Security Framework IBM Solutions for Securing the Cloud Conclusion From the Gartner Files: Assessing the Security Risks of Cloud Computing About Us	Introduction "Organizations potentially can gain a competitive or cost advantage through selective adoption of cloud computing, but not without first taking a comprehensive look at the associated risks, ensuring that they are consistent with business goals, along with the expectations of regulators, auditors, shareholders and partners." – Gartner, Assessing the Security Risks of Cloud Computing Jay Heiser, Mark Nicolett, 3 June 2008. Today’s corporate leaders face multiple challenges, including the need to innovate in extremely competitive business climates. Organizations are facing accelerating business change and are striving to reach their full potential by rapidly implementing innovative business models while simultaneously lowering the IT barriers to innovation and change. These challenges call for a more dynamic computing model that enables rapid innovation for applications and service delivery. Cloud computing can be one element of such a model. Common attributes of cloud computing include the ability to elastically scale to meet burgeoning computing needs, the rapid provisioning of resources for improved service, and the abstraction of these resources. The chief benefit, however, is the ability to control the costs of delivering IT resources to the organization. Public cloud resources are acquired by organizations as a service, can be paid for on a per-usage basis or via a subscription model, and are accessed through the Internet. They can also be rapidly scaled up and down to deliver a high quality of service. Many organizations are working to determine which of their workloads can be sourced through public clouds and which should be kept in-house and delivered through private clouds. Assessing the risks associated with cloud computing and how they can impact critical applications and services in the organization is a critical factor in this decision-making process. Organizations can also consider options to mitigate and manage these IT security risks. Source: IBM
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