IntroductionCloud database is a software that allows users to manipulatewith data stored in clouds without the need to install any hardware orsoftware. The database software is maintained by the service provider while theusers use that software and they pay just for the services they consume. Thereare too many reasons why cloud databases are widespread, starting from lowcosts, high availability, reduced infrastructure configuration and management.Data processing is very important and vital issue for every organization. Organizations need to install, manageand maintain database management systems to please their needs. For all of thisjob they need to buy needed hardware, deploy database products, haveconnectivity and hire professional people to manage the system. Every companywho wants to have their own database management system also needs to havedatabase backup, database restore and to take care for migration in some casesfrom one version of database into next one without impact in availability.
Based on the fact that every company who needs database management system isready to pay an amount of money for completing of all those tasks, somecompanies saw this big opportunity and started with offering databasemanagement like a ready service. In case they need a database service theysimply can choose company based on the performance they offer and the pricethey have for pleasing they needs. Having private database management system isnot efficient in most of the cases for organizations instead of taking themready for an amount of money.
The database service provider provides to theirconsumers a seamless process of creating, storing, managing, accessing of theirdatabases. Every database service provider in present times is trying to givemore simply process to their users and more security for their stored data.Service provider takes responsibility for their service they provide to theircostumers. They created frameworks for controlling procedures to minimize riskfor accessing their data, because it can happen unauthorized modification.Database management companies understand the importance of data stored fromtheir users so their goal is always to improve their service in the aspect ofsecurity and performance.
We have noticed that we have a lot of choice when wewant to find a company that provides to us database management system, butchoosing the best offer always it should be based on the security they offer tous. Related workThere are a big amount of research papers and books, whichexplore database clouds and security on them. I have made a selection of thembased on the time they are published, and I will provide a short summary ofeach below.CloudDatabase – Database as a service -Department of Computing, Macquarie University SydneyIn thisresearch paper authors started explaining about cloud database service offeredfrom service providers. Many companies have started using cloud computing andaccessing their data from cloud database. Based on a study in 2011 fromMimecast Survey 36 percent of the companies are running applications from cloudservice.
They explain that Database as a service will be new dimension in ITworld in terms of faster performance and cheaper cost. Recovering database canbe much easier in case of happening a disaster in the database. Cloud databasein this paper is described like complex structure, because service providerholds the data in different data centers that are located in differentlocations. Users can have access to database services via computer throughinternet , or mobile phone user can access the cloud database via 3G or 4Gservices. In detailed way is described the way the user has access to databaseservice, also the process of the nodes and node splitting. Distributed queriesare explained also because every large database for handling in the mosteffective way with data needs to use this system. Choosing the best database asa service is also evaluated from analyzing some of the characteristics that oneservice provider offers to costumers. They also say that choosing best serviceprovider is based on: data sizing, portability, transaction capabilities,configurability, accessibility, certification and accreditation, dataintegrity, security and storage location.
They listed also some advantages anddisadvantages of using cloud databases as a service, and in their conclusionthey say that advantages are more than disadvantages that means that this trendwill grow with more benefits for companies that use it, than the other onesthat decide to make their own database management systems.1 DatabaseScalability, Elasticity, and Autonomy in the Cloud – Department of ComputerScience University of California at Santa BarbaraThis paperstarts with explaining the importance of cloud computing for deployingsuccessful web applications. They define cloud like technology trend forhosting user applications, services and data in the network core. Databasemanagement system in cloud is being more and more widespread because of many featuresof DBMS that are overall functionality, consistency, performance andreliability . A highlighted importance is given to scalability.
They describescalability of database like ability to handle growing amounts of work whenadditional resources are added, in the most cases hardware. Scaling can happenin two ways, vertically and horizontally. To scale vertically means addingresources to a single node, for example involving addition processors or memoryto a single computer.
To scale horizontally in DBMS means to add more nodes toa system, example adding a new computer to a distributed software application.Elasticity from this paper is defined as a model pay per use, and everycompanies goal is to optimize the systems operating cost. To reduce operatingcost of a DBMS autonomy is needed in the administration of such of systems.Conclusion of this research paper is that they gave an overview of challengesin cloud computing infrastructure such as dealing with large scale operations,lightweight elasticity, and autonomic control to minimize the operatingcost.2 DataSecurity and Privacy in Cloud Computing – Yunchuan Sun, Junsheng Zhang,Yongping Xiong, and Guanyu Zhu Authors inthis paper give review for ways how to improve privacy protection and securityof data manipulated throw cloud computing. They start from defining cloudcomputing as an environment whereapplications and resources are delivered over the Internet as a services. Themost important for users to feel safe with using cloud computing is that theyshould believe in trustworthy environment. To make one cloud servicetrustworthy providers should improve data integrity, data confidentiality, dataavailability, and data privacy.
In data integrity part authors say that cloudservice providers should protect data from unauthorized deletion, modification,or fabrication. After that authentication and access control strategies areused for achieving data confidentiality, where encryption has the key importantplace in this field. Data availability means for example when an accidenthappens to a hard disk and we have a damage, every company should have ways ortechniques how to recover their costumers data as fast as possible. Privacy inthe clouds is defined like a state when users visit the sensitive data, andservice provider should prevent unauthorized users from having access tocostumers data.3 Securityand privacy of sensitive data in cloud computing: a survey of recentdevelopments – Ali Gholami and Erwin Laure Introductionof this paper starts with an example of cloud database including healthcare. Aswe know this kind of data is very important, cloud platforms that holds thiskind of data are required to enable organizational safeguards to preventbreakdowns of database management system because this kind of event will havevery costly damages.
Authors analyze several key concepts that are very used incloud computing such as types of cloud services, virtualization mechanisms and”container” technologies. Explaining about security issues in cloud computingstarts with giving a summary for issues such as multi tenancy, loss of controland, loss of trust chain in clouds. Best definition for privacy is as follow “Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups,or institutions to determine for themselves how, when, and what extentinformation about them is communicated to others”4. Authors also give areview for security solutions such as authentication and authorization,identity and access management, confidentiality, integrity and availability. Intheir conclusion authors describe their finished job that with this paper theytried to describe some of the most important provider activities, and they givea big importance to security and privacy of users in cloud computing.
5 Analyze of Amazon web services andEnterprisedb On theAmazon web services the highest priority is cloud security. Costumers of AWSpay one low amount of the money for the service they need and with that theyget a very secure environment for manipulating with their data stored in thecloud. This company includes most important security capabilities that onecloud service provider should have: network firewalls are very important capabilitiesthat let costumers have secure access to their instances and applications,encryption using Transport Layer Security, private or dedicated connectivityoptions. Amazon web services has a security certification called SOC1 which isa security report that guarantees costumers that their stored data is securedfrom unauthorized access. Also in web services we have implemented the AES 256standard which enables encryption and tells to us that nobody can have a viewfrom our stored data in the cloud. Amazon virtual private cloud allows costumersto create private subnet to have more security and more control in theirprocesses. In their company Amazon has a lot of security preventions, fromelectronic devices for detection threats, to reviewing and approving a personaccess to database by authorized people. The most important part of their taskin Amazon is to create secure enough environments because their job is supervised from third party auditorswith a deep analyze to confirm if they are following established rules to stillkeep the gained already certifications.
6 Enterprisedbalso has a goal to keep secured costumers data stored in their servers, theyare based on the fact that databases are mostly used for storing sensitive dataassets. They secure their costumers in the way they have a strongly securityevaluation of their job. This company has some offers for managing sensitiveinformation, they can encrypt Specific Information or Transparent Data. Thesecond model is when we want to encrypt databases both on the hard drive or inbackup. One of the best methods of encryption that this company have is FullDisk Encryption, which protects each file and the temporary storage that cancontain parts of this files.7 ConclusionIn thedescription above I explained cloud computing as a service and more exactlydatabase as a web service.
We analyzed cloud databases as service which allowsusers to store and maintain their data in clouds without having installedhardware. Users can access their stored data from simple pc via internet, theycan manipulate with them and all that they can have it in exchange of smallamount money. This way of accessing data is much easier and secure than buyinghardware and trying to maintain their own database. At the end of our researchpaper we already know to many advantages of using cloud databases, and also weanalyzed two big web services such as Amazon web services and Enterprisedb.
