Essay Sample: A Cloud-Based Data Center by the Al Bashayer Meat Company S.A.O.C.

The plan to incorporate a cloud-based data center by the Al Bashayer Meat Company S.A.O.C. is one of the most significant steps that a medium-sized business can use to grow and gain a competitive advantage in the market. Today, there is a growing number of web-based business services in Oman as well as other countries of G.C.C.The company's move to adopt a cloud-based enabled data centre will make it possible to merge with other companies,operate uniformly, and develop its ways of carrying out business operations through the cloud-based data centre. This step will not only help the business grow but also help to automate services, modernize business, and ease customer experience.

Server-based virtual machines (VM) are significantly useful in the cloud environment. The VM systems are instrumental in the remote management of a company’s data (Sharma, Dhote, and Potey 2016, p175). A business can access or control the VM through remote access utilities or web browsers. VMs are beneficial elements to consider in cloud computing because the technology is based on the provision of virtual computing resources from a remote data centre controlled by the provider. VM will provide an opportunity to use hardware systems from the cloud that are faster and more reliable than local-based computer systems. A virtual machine (VM), a software based on cloud or remote server, will provide several options that require IT departments to analyses and decide on how they can be incorporated to ensure that Al Bashayer Meat Company S.A.O.C. achieves its vision and objectives. Using suitable solutions, VM would be able to provide an ideal platform for business experience.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

VMs place strict data access and management policies on service usage. Security concerns and other data management issues are handled more efficiently in VM systems. Consequently, Al Bashayer Meat Company can access the backup storage provided in the cloud with minimal risk of data corruption or loss. Through VM, customers can access cloud services more efficiently and effectively (Garrison, Wakefield, and Kim 2015, p377). Client-based VM, on the other hand, allows IT management to control and manage data centrally on a remote server and execute on client device locally. Client-based VM will enable users to standardize virtual machine images; it also provides access from a variety of different computer system configurations. Virtual machine images can be executed on a virtualized system and delivered to users through a network.

Through cloud-based technology, Al Bashayer Meat Company S.A.O. will be able to create a value proposition, attract more customers and, more importantly, improve the employee experience. The cloud environment, however, is a critical platform in business that is faced with security issues and other aspects of the company that needs to be considered before venturing into virtualized business operations (Garrison, Wakefield, and Kim 2015 p378). This report presents various security mechanisms in the cloud environment, solutions that are valuable in the market, and recommendations for Al Bashayer Meat Company S.A.O.

Cloud Security Mechanisms

Cloud security and data protection aresome of the most critical issues that the company must code; there are various security threats that the cloud environment is currently facing. However, there are several security mechanisms used to mitigate this problem to help the company achieve its objective in a cloud environment. Cloud security offers various security mechanisms and architectures to safeguard data, virtualized IP, services applications, and other cloud-related infrastructure(Garrison, Wakefield, and Kim 2015 p380). Cloud computing being a model of service that is delivered through computerized systems and remote servers, has associated critical security threats. Such issues require adequate attention,especiallywhen a company is a cloud provider, to ensure consistency in the availability, reliability, and security of the offered services(Ahmad, Kumar, and Singh, 2019, p505). Some of the security threats that Al Bashayer Meat Company is likely to face as a cloud service provider are data breaches, unauthorized penetration, virtualization and insiderattacks, and insufficient authorization challenges. The security mechanisms aimed to counter the security threats mentioned earlier are encryption, Single Sign-On (SSO), and Identity and Access Management (IAM) techniques.

Encryption is one of the commonly used security mechanisms used in a cloud environment to mitigate various security threats. It is a digital coding operation that preserves the confidentiality and integrity of the user's data. Whenplain text is entered into the system, it is automatically paired with a string of different characters referred to as encryption(Ahmad, Kumar and Singh 2019, p502). The process goes through two stages that are encryption and decryption.

The ciphertext is unreadable. The message is decrypted upon reaching the recipient. Therefore, if an attacker intercepts the message before delivery, he or she cannot derive meaning from the text file unless they possess a decryption key. The key exchange occurs through a secure protocol. Therefore, only the intended recipient can access the sent information.

Sign-On (SSO)SSO is another cloud security mechanism that Al Bashayer Meat Company should consider to strengthen cloud security and data protection. The technique reducesall sign-insto one, and enables user authentication by the server;this develops a security context of a single user.The implementation of this method is simple sincea network security system can be configured to allow for only SSO(Ahmad, Kumar, and Singh 2019, p503). Once the user login to the server or the account to access cloud-based resources, the server identifies it as a session. No other login permission is grantedunder the same user account duringan ongoing session. SSO is effective in protecting cloud service consumer’s data when accessing the resources on Al Bashayer Meat Company’s cloud.

Identity and Access Management (IAM)Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a cloud security mechanism that consists of the elementsand policies that regulate and keep track of user identities as well as access privileges for a specific user to cloud environment and resources. IAM can help Al Bashayer Meat Company to manage and protect its internal and client’s data from unauthorized access (Sharma, Dhote and Potey 2016, p173). Users maybe employees or customers seeking to access the cloud services of the company; once the system has established digital identity, the user is monitored through the digital access lifecycle. IAMcomprises four components: authentication, authorization, user management, and credential management.

Authentication involves the use of username and password; these are the standard authentication credentials that the IAM system manages. Besides, it can support digital certification, signatures, biometric devices such as fingerprint readers, and voice recognition software. The figure below demonstrates how it works:

AuthorizationOnce the user has been authenticated, the system gradually defines the character to oversee the relationship between user privileges and resource availability.

User ManagementAt this step, managerial competence is considered.The user management software is incorporated into the system to provide different client characteristics and groups of admittance defining passwords policies, resetting passwords,and managing user privileges.

Credential ManagementThe system establishesidentityand provides accessthrough controls rulesbased on a user account, for example, the customer and employee access or management accounts (Sharma, Dhote and Potey 2016, p174). At this point, the system filters authorization to identify insufficiency to protect the system, or the resources form unauthorized access. IAM will help the company overcome critical security threats because it can help to prevent access bya user with insufficient authorization, engage service denial, and manage overlapping trust boundaries.