Cloud computing has revolutionized the way corporate data and personal information is stored over the internet. Various solutions provided by cloud computing has led people to store their organizational data as big data over the cloud instead of investing time, money and physical space in data storage centers.
At individual and organizational levels, everyone is relying on the cloud based storage services to keep their data safe. The cloud provides a somewhat infinite disk space to store data. That’s why it is being preferred to other traditional methods of data storage especially huge chunks of data i.e big data.
Is Cloud Computing the right platform for Big Data?
But the pertinent question is how much of reliance on cloud computing for big data is justified? Are cloud based services the pinnacle of data storage technology? What are the catches and areas of concern? Unfortunately there are no clear-cut answers to these questions and the same depends on several other factors pertaining to the nature of informational data to be stored and shared. The convenience of using an online storage service as compared to deploying a physical space with big computer storage is unarguable. However one thing we need to keep in mind is “Is it really safe out there?”
Trust and Security are the key Ingredients:
The factors to consider while choosing a cloud based service for your huge amount of data are availability and durability. Any such service which scores low on being accessible at all times and a service which is prone to glitches and outages are not worthy investments. A service which is equipped with self checking and rectifying algorithms is preferable. The cloud architecture also plays a very important role in cementing the credibility of a cloud based data storage service.
Cost factors for renting out big data space on the cloud are very critical to your organization’s economics. Leasing out big space for a shorter duration of time tends to be less expensive than longer period of time. Data mining and web crawling are effective and cheaper ways to achieve our goals.
Of course, such mining operations should be mindful of the resources of the web sites or application interfaces they mine, respect their terms, and not impede their service. A poorly planned data mining operation is equivalent to a denial of service attack. Lastly, cloud computing is naturally a good fit for storing and processing the big data accumulated form such operations.
Appropriate choice of the cloud architecture is very important while figuring out the pros and cons for big data storage on cloud. Organizations are advised to scrutinize the data security challenges and assurances from the cloud service provider. Plenty of research into the functioning capabilities of various cloud based services is to be checked before putting all your data at the disposal.
While reliability is the foundation of cloud computing and IoT providers, trusting them with everything, especially Big Data is not a clever thing to do. Technically the public cloud services are most reliable when it comes to storing big data as such services are flexible enough to provide a more secured space for data. The fact of it being public doesn’t make it easily accessible and hack-able.
