Computing clouds are set to be the data centers of the future as there is already a major combination of resources that are served within computers that are geographically dispersed. Whenever a new server is plugged in, the cloud expands to accommodate new resources on the ones that are already there.

The result of this is that vendors will conveniently put their applications in hybrid clouds without having to figure out the possibility of a machine failing or even where the hardware is located. Virtualized hybrid cloud infrastructure offers reliability for vendors who do not have to worry about developing clustering or failure over components.

On the other hand, customers also get to store their data in the cloud without having to think of buying software that will process or manipulate the data. All they need to pay for is the time that the cloud uses when performing a task with data.

Even then, with the threat of cyber attacks as well as other security concerns arising the question is who will secure the clouds for the future?

Different Forms of Cloud Architectures

Cloud architecture comes in various forms. However, only three are recognized by the industry today. They include the following:

• Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) – This model is designed to allow the cloud to serve virtual machines that are empty and may be filled with just about anything that a customer or vendor desires from their operating system or CRM solution of their preference. Since this model is designed to abstract physical hardware, its sense of being cloud infrastructure is such that more memory models, CPUs, network switches, and hard drives may be added to the resource pool regardless of the location of the storage array and servers across the world.

• Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) – This cloud computing model is capable of servicing applications that use more than one programming language that may be filled using software that was not initially developed for the cloud. As such, this computing cloud does not have the capability of scaling to cloud ready. It also abstracts structures of the operating system, thus its sense of computing cloud is in the sense that you will not experience problems like patches, OS upgrades, incompatible libraries, and other down times among others.

• Software-as-a-service (SaaS)–With this model, the cloud is designed to serve applications that may be used to execute just about any task that customers perform using on-premise software, uploading data to the cloud storage and downloading it when the need arises. It abstracts whatever it is below the level of the application. Overall, there is no hardware that requires maintenance or even an operating system to patch, hence there is no possibility of software conflict as it is simply a computer on the web.

Security is the Backbone of Cloud Computing

Although virtualized cloud computing presents multiple benefits, security remains an issue of major concern that must be looked into before embracing cloud storage. Before you decide to store your corporate data on the cloud, it is critical to ensure that it will be secure enough.

Overall, cloud is elastic in nature, making it easy to counter attacks, even as the structure of cloud computing facilities has continued to make physical breaches unlikely. Furthermore, some developers also come up with automated procedures that handle security tasks such as software patching and platform hardening hence reducing mistakes that are likely to come up with manual interventions.

Overall, attaining the same level of security for centers with on-premise data can be quite complex. Yet the level of threat that is mostly associated with multiple tenacity of cloud computing is new.

Cloud computing cannot be avoided due to the security challenges. Rather, there is an opportunity to look at the security component and implement it efficiently.