The usage of cloud computing technology in university environment

The usage of cloud computing technology in university environment Mgr. Zuzana Priščáková,1 doc. Ing. Ivana Rábová, Ph.D.,2 Jaromír Salák,3 1,2 Department of informatics, Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel university of Brno, 3Deans office, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel university of Brno, 1 [email protected], [email protected], 3 [email protected] Abstract Cloud computing technologies are well-established in all working environments. Usage of cloud computing in university sector is only 4% from the whole usage of cloud solutions in other sectors. In this article we proposed a model of a university cloud. Students at the university use various Internet capabilities. Cloud enables users to share the data, calculations and data processing, data management services for working with data, etc. We defined an infrastructure model based on users and their devices. When we separated user accounts and user devices, we increase the data security.

Key Words Cloud computing, university, virtualization, file system, data integrity, data security

Introduction Cloud computing technologies are well-established in all working environments. Cloud computing provides high scalability, and thus cloud can be implemented in any environment using information technology. Substance of the cloud is virtualization of resources. This suggests that cloud applications are used at the same time by multiple users. The users connect to the cloud using the Internet. A user on the Internet can communicate with many servers at the same time and these servers exchange information among themselves (Hayes, 2008). Users communicate with each other in a faster way. Sharing of information between users improves work efficiency. Today’s “cloud” platforms such as “Microsoft” and “Google” provide free services to students and staff at educational institutions which include e-mail, contact lists, calendars, document storage, creation and sharing documents and the ability to create websites (Sclater, 2009). However, cloud computing services could provide many of those organizations with the opportunity to continue to take advantage of new developments in IT technologies at affordable costs. Cloud Computing is likely to be an

attractive proposition to start-up small to medium enterprises and educational establishments. The UK’s National Computing Center (NCC) estimates that SMEs can reduce the total cost of ownership of technology using hosted solutions (Microsoft, 2009). Nabil (2010) states that the university management should identify and exploit new technologies that are cost effective, so they seek the widest possible and equitable access to technology for students and staff. This article describes the suitability of a cloud for university environment. On the basis of suitability we describe how to implement a cloud with enhanced safety.

Objectives and methodology In order to determine the suitability for a cloud in universities we identified some previous studies. The use of cloud computing in the university is 4% from whole usage of clouds in other sectors. The largest use is in financial services and management sectors (Tuncay, 2010). A cloud-scale intelligent infrastructure attracts, smart environments like utility computing, smart data centers, pervasive computing, automation, virtualization and intelligent networks already penetrate many spaces of our daily live (Klein, Kaefer, 2008). The main advantage of the cloud is paying fees only for the used services. Students at the university use various Internet services, such as sharing documents, videos, presentations, software, communication via e-mail, instant messaging, etc. Since the access to the cloud can be realized with a web browser, an ideal option for the students working in the university environment is just cloud technology. In general, we can say that these acts concern not only students but also academics. Cloud enables user to share data, calculations of converting data, data management services for working with data (e-mail, chat, video, photos ...). The methods to model it with the challenges like user interface, task distribution and coordination issues are explained and evaluated in (Lijun, Chna, Tse, 2008). Cloud computing infrastructures accelerated the adoption of different technological innovations in academia and its facilities and resources could be accessed by the colleges as on–demand. Praveena and Betsy (2009) provided a comprehensive introduction to the application of cloud in universities. Delic and Riley (2009) assessed the current state of the Enterprise Knowledge Management and how it would turn into a more global, dependable and efficient infrastructure namely cloud computing. Colleges and universities are always on the lookout to upgrade their software and IT hardware in order to attract students and keep pace with the rapid developments in digital technologies. Cloud computing could provide those institutions with the means to achieve those ambitions at prices they can afford.

Furthermore, shifting responsibility to external providers for managing some aspects of their software and hardware infrastructures could also result in cost savings with relation to labor, as fewer IT services staff will be needed than before. Tuncay (2010) established a model that seeks to meet the needs of administrative staff (student affairs, finance and accounting, purchasing and procurement etc.) and education, training and research related to the needs of students and academics working especially in educational institutions. The model is based on a cloud infrastructure, which was divided into blocks: user, network, storage, virtualization, processor, data storage, security, business continuity and firewall. Model points to improve the possibilities of data mining and search their contents. From the student perspective, the model is constructed so that it does not limit the subjects or schools and the content was changed dynamically on a regular basis. User services in this case are linked to third-party commercial services to create new applications. Since the model is quite general, we decided to focus on data security in storing data in the cloud.

1: Required infrastructure model (Tuncay, 2010)

The most important feature of various applications offered through a cloud is their availability and scalability (Tuncay, 2010). User friendly interfaces of cloud based applications enable users to successfully enlarge their computing environment. A cloud-based platform planned by (Erickson, 2009) places the application-content, rather than applications themselves, to the center of interest. Cloud content (scientific and social subjects, art, opinions, textbooks, encyclopedias, etc.) is controlled by the service providers and is available to the users whenever they request (Tuncay, 2010). Improved data mining techniques filter and find the requested content in order to help the students (Fig. 2). Student’s objectives are not limited to their courses or schools, hence existing content should be changed dynamically and frequently (Tuncay, 2010). Custom services are combined with 3rd party commercial services to create new applications (Tuncay, 2010).

2: Required application model (Tuncay, 2010) According to Sosinsky (2011) data stored in the cloud can be considered quite attractive form of outsourcing focused on daily data management. Winkler (2011) advises causes of maintaining the great responsibility of cloud services, some basic best practices for the use of secure data storage to the cloud, as well as the methods and standards for monitoring the integrity of the data regardless of data storage. Erl, Puttini and Mahmood (2013) addresse the creation of a secure storage repository specializing correct with respect to its environment (company, university, etc.) and features (although there are hundreds of cloud storage, each storage site is oriented to other requirements, such as Lim, Coolidge and Hourani (2013) division to store communications by e-mail, storage employee profiles, documentation storage projects, etc.). Of course, requirement may also store all types of documents. When saving the data to the cloud end user assumes that the data (or application, which works in a virtualized environment) is properly secured. Data integrity is critical for every data center. Monitoring the integrity of the cloud is necessary in order to store the data in a virtualized environment. The data corruption can occur at any level of storage. Marsh (2013) mentioned among the main causes of data corruption bit rot (weakening or loss of bits of data on storage media), regulator failure and damage to the deduplication metadata. Unfortunately, a side effect is that if the deduplication corrupted file, the block or bit affects all parts of the data associated linked to those metadata. The truth is that the data corruption can occur anywhere in the storage environment.

Results Based on the above mentioned facts, we have compiled a model university infrastructure cloud (Fig.1). This model meets needs of the administrative staff, such as students, professors, accountants etc. Separation of user devices increased security against data theft. Every data

storage device is controlled through a port. Infrastructure scales up and down quickly in order to meet the demand.

3: A model of a cloud infrastructure in a university For virtualization we can use virtualization technology for servers such as KVM technology, VMware, Citrix etc. University firewall is the first instance protecting from theft of the data. The main data security is in the Security, data integrity field. For communication between people in the university is Continuity between personal of university. For storage, we created a data repository (Storage Resources and Data Resources). The data repository communicates with Security field for enhance the security of stored data. To deal with data security and integrity in a virtualized environment, we decided to use the file system ZFS – The Z file system. ZFS is a file system, originally developed by Sun Microsystems Solaris Operating System. A key feature is the integration of the concepts of file system and volume management. Implementation of the Solaris ZFS is open source licensed under the CDDL (Ayad, Dippel, 2011). ZFS is designed to maximize data integrity, data, images, multiple copies of data and checksums (Ayad, Dippel, 2011). It uses data replication software model, known as RAID–Z (RAID – is a collective term denoting various data storage scheme using multiple disks for distribution or replication of data between disks). RAID–Z provides redundant hardware like RAID, but is designed to prevent the entry of data corruption and overcome some limitations of hardware RAID (Rouse, 2007). ZFS is based on virtual data areas called the zpools. The zpool, which forms the basis of ZFS, may consist of a number of physical devices. Zpool consists from virtual machines (vdevs), which in turn are composed of block devices as files, partitions, or actual physical devices (Ayad, Dippel,

2011). Block devices in the vdev may be configured in different ways depending on the needs and available space. Dynamic load balancing (Dynamic striping) maximizes the throughput of the system by the addition of new physical disk it automatically moves part of the data and thus lightens the other disks from service operations over the given data (Ayad, Dippel, 2011). ZFS tries to ensure optimal load distribution by data transfers between physical devices. The handling systems ZFS file systems (partitioned) are much simpler than the conventional file systems. Instead of physical movement amounts of data are largely implemented as modifications to the appropriate references. Time and complexity of creating a new partition in the ZFS is approximately equivalent to creating a new directory in some common file systems. We solved virtualization of the server with implementation KVM technology. We chose this technology because it´s cost free. KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V). It consists of a loadable kernel module, kvm.ko, that provides the core virtualization infrastructure and a processor specific module, kvm-intel.ko or kvm-amd.ko. KVM also requires a modified QEMU although work is underway to get the required changes upstream. Using KVM, one can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc.

Discussion and conclusion Data security can be defined as the confidentiality and integrity of data processed by the organization (Erl, Puttini, Mahmoud, 2013). In the section Results we presented a proposal for implementation of a university cloud. Based on the available alternatives we have compiled an infrastructure model of a cloud. This model is based on increased data security through data integrity. To ensure data integrity we used ZFS file system. With ZFS file system we divided virtualized data to zpools. In order to reduce the cost of the university cloud we chose KVM technology. This technology provides all the capabilities for working with university data. In this article we showed how to implement a cloud for the university.

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