Page 249 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

INFORMATIONWEEK ANALYTICS, JUNE 2009

that will creep up over time, but today we believe the top risks
associated with cloud computing can be organized into two
high-level areas: Operational risk considerations include secu-
rity, performance, and availability. Business viability and legal
and compliance risks comprise the other major area of con-
cern.

We’d argue that 70 to 80 percent of cloud computing risks
are no different from the standard third-party outsourcing
risks we’ve been tackling for years. There are, however, a few
unique angles that will keep us on our toes. Some items we’ll
be keeping our eyes on:

• Provider “chaining.” The potential for cascading

failures increases as cloud providers construct
technologies and services on top of other cloud
providers. . . .

• Stealth PaaS: Building a new product or service on
top of a PaaS platform has its challenges, but what
happens if you aren’t even aware that PaaS
technology is being used? . . .

• New methods of introducing nasty code: How many

people using Amazon’s EC2 for OS hosting grabbed
a public Amazon EC2 Machine Image (AMI) that
simply “looked good”? With OS images able to be
uploaded by anyone and widely available in public
computing clouds, the threat of someone in your
organization downloading an OS template
preloaded with malware not only exists, it’s likely.

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