June, 2009
by Staff Editor
CMG-AE held its spring meeting on April 30 with an emphasis on Cloud Computing. The attendees were able to increase their knowledge of the subject with the following excellent papers.
"Definition and Basic Concepts of the New Computing Styles"
Ing. Martin Pscheidl, MBA, MSc - CA Software Austria GmbH
"Cloud Computing - a Pragmatic View, or Should We Go for the Clouds?"
Dr. Leszek Kotsch and Dr. Harald Hoffmann - Metadata GmbH
"Cloud Computing - Obstacles and Opportunities for Big Business"
John Rhoton, HP EDS CTO Office, Ltd.
"Does Cloud Computing Ever Raise Legal Issues?"
Ing. Herbert Bieber, MSc - BWsecure
"Federated Identity - the Distribution of User Identities for Mayn Distributed Applications"
Martin Pscheidl, MBA, MSc - CA Software Austria GmbH
"Cloud Computing From a Pragmatic Perspective"
Wolfgang Singer, Member of the Technical Experts Council (TEC) CEEMEA - IBM Austria GmbH
The session showed different views on Cloud Computing. The current "hype-word" has appeared since 2007, but is still not clearly defined. In general, Cloud Computing is not really new, but now the necessary technologies have matured.
Using Cloud Computing as collaboration is understandable, however, large firms are still concerned about collaboration.
Elements of Cloud Computing are: external footprint, external firewall, access via internet, scalability, pay-per-use, distinguishing private / public cloud. Challenges in Cloud Computing are about the financial structure, security, compliance, integration and organization.
Even from a legal (data protection) perspective, there are still many unanswered questions such as: the transfer or transmission of data, clarifying the legal position, compliance with the Austrian data protection requirements, dependence on service providers, exit, etc.
Cloud Computing promises many benefits, but requires rethinking and other architectural advances.