Weathering the Storm: The Policy Implications of Cloud Computing

Throughout the history of computing, there have been several paradigm shifts from main-frames to mini computing to microprocessing to networked computers. On track to be the next major paradigm shift is that of cloud computing. While the definitions are still being debated (see: http://videos. techielife.com/what-is-cloud-computing/video-online/ 2008/11/13), fundamentally, cloud computing can be defined as a push in designing services where information is stored and processed on the Internet (i.e., “the cloud”) usually via massive large scale data centers which can be accessed remotely through various clients and platforms [18, 2]. Cloud computing itself has often been referred to as a conglomeration of ideas such as Software as a Service, Web 2.0, grid computing, and utility computing [2]. In essence, cloud computing is an umbrella concept which attempts to synthesize and encapsulate this over arching movement of access anywhere, process anywhere while abstracting the entire process to the user masking it in the cloud. The advantages of cloud computing is that it offers enormous amounts of power in terms of computing and storage while offering improved scalability and elasticity. Moreover, with efficiency and economics of scale, cloud computing services are becoming not only a cheaper solution but a much greener one to build and deploy IT services [7, 6]. For example, in terms of processing power potential, Google recently used its cloud computing infrastructure to process and sort one petabyte of data in six hours [5]. In terms of time and cost, the New York Times used Amazon Web Services to process and convert an archive of 11 million articles in less than a day and for a fraction of the cost [8]. Cloud computing is quickly taking the IT community by storm as more platforms, applications, and services are being developed for cloud computing. While many users may have never heard of cloud computing, a recent report by Pew Internet Life found that 69% of Internet users are already using a type of cloud computing based application [14]. Furthermore, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, IBM, Yahoo, Oracle, and Salesforce are all heavily investing in cloud computing as the future of computing. Industry experts estimated the current market for cloud computing to be worth $160 billion [2]. Acknowledging its importance, in terms of education, Google and IBM have put forward an academic initiative with six major universities to help explore and foster research in the area of cloud computing, of which four of the six universities are iSchool members [12]. Given this, researchers in the academic community and interested parties in the IT and business world are just now exploring new and exciting ways to harness the true power of the cloud, however key legal and policy questions remain unanswered [10]. These problems include both new policy issues unique to cloud computing and existing technology/policy issues, including: • Jurisdiction and regulation (Where and how will it be governed?) • Ownership of Data (Who owns the data in the cloud?) • Data Portability (Can you migrate between services?) • Data Retention/Permanence (What happens to data over time?) • Intellectual Property • Security and Privacy (How is data secure and protected?) • Reliability, Liability and Quality of Service (What happens when the cloud fails?) • Government Surveillance (How much data can the government get from the cloud?) • Monopolization of computing