Security across the network: Security across the network is always required across the public cloud implementation, as most if the network resources are shared using this cloud. If the vendor does not take ample care regarding the network security, there could be some chances where the sensitive information related to the vendors and customers is stolen by the unauthorized users like anomalies and intruders across the network, which always pees their ears across the public clouds. In most of the cases, the customers can be considered as the culprits who violate the security across the network for the public clouds, as once they move towards the public clouds, they simply neglect protecting their own data and thus develop an attitude towards losing the data across the network being worked across these public clouds.
Compliance: Compliance is the main risk associated with the public cloud implementation and need more attention towards this in terms of the business risks. Few customers always want their data to be stored across few locations even across the public clouds and this is the primary violation towards the public clouds and per rules; the data cross the public clouds should be made available at global level. In most of the cases, customers are the real responsible persons to this risk rather than the service providers.
Identity management: Identity management mainly deals with the level of implementation used to identify a particular persona cross the public clouds and in most of the cases, each and every organization fails to achieve this as they are more concentrated on the data security rather than the identity management. Always the public clouds create a new opportunity across the threats and it has been noted that more identity threats are associated with the public clouds when compared with other clouds as discussed. In general the customers are responsible to handle these identity management issues and they should educate the user towards this and also have a tight audit towards the identity management across the public clouds and thus it reduces the risk for the service providers.
Data integration: Data integration is the main issues where most of the customers and vendors of the public clouds work around and there are many chances where there can exist the data soils across the public clouds. As the public clouds are accessed by most of the end users and they can update or delete the data as per their business requirements and at end of the day, a perfect integration mechanism should be adopted in order to ensure the data stored across the data center is accurate and perfect and ready to use by a new customer for the next day. If the integration mechanism fails at the public cloud levels, the new users and the service providers hang out with the old and irrelevant data in most of the cases. A perfect integration mechanism is always missing across the public clouds due to lack of ample standards as discussed.
Vendor viability: Reliability is the most promising factor for almost all the organizations and their viability is measured against their duration of their operations in the market and also the level of service provided by them. In general the success or failure of any cloud implementation mainly depends on the viability of the service provided and the customers fail to assess this aspect across their clouds. There are some chances where few service providers may wind up their operations and thus if that is the case, there could be chances, where the customers loose hopes even on a good and reliable service provider as they are much worried up on the data being shared to the public clouds.
Vendor lock-in: Vendor lock in the issue rose due to the adoption of the culture by the service provider from the traditional software organizations. In most of the cases, these service providers will lock the customers due to many reasons and the customers should wait and request the service providers to release the required services. The most common reasons shown by the vendors is that, they usually say that the cloud is under maintenance and required some to upgrade, but the actual reasons can be something else than customer expectations.
Resource sharing: Resource sharing can be considered as one of the primary risks associated with the public clouds. As the public clouds are designed in a manner to provide the ample services to the maximum number of customers at a single point of time, the service providers usually follow a loosely coupled resource sharing and maintenance mechanisms. The main problem with the public clouds is that, each and every user has equal rights on the cloud and demand for the resources and the other should simply wait till the cloud resources are free and this risk can’t be eliminated and if anyone want this to be streamlined, they should go for a private cloud implementation.
Availability: Availability refers to the service providers and the common tendency of these service providers is that, they usually give lot of promises to the customers during the sing up process and the actual availability is missing in most of the cases. The main reasons for this case is that, as the public cloud is accessed by more number of people, there are many chances of cloud low operations and the corresponding service providers are worried about to bring back the services and mean while if there is any other issues, this particular service provider is not available to the customers in most of the cases and even this risk can’t be eliminated across the public or vendor clouds.
Manageability: Manageability is the common risk associated with the public clouds and the main reason for this is that, in most of the cases the customers are not aware of the managers who are handling the cloud operations and services. As the scope of the management is very high across the public clouds, these management issues are obvious across the public clouds and can’t be skipped in most of the business cases.
Legal ambiguity: Public clouds are grey in area in terms of the legal aspects and the corresponding agreements written are not clear in most of the cases. The main responsibility for this is with the customers and most of the customers think that, as the cloud is anyways public they take the issues in an easy manner and skip the legal versions to be identified across the public clouds.
Thus there are many risks associated with the public clouds in terms of business and few of them are identified and reviewed above. The most common risks include the data integrity, network security and the identity management. Customers and vendors should take ample interest towards these risks management strategies for a better growth of the public or vendor clouds in future.