Community Cloud

Community Cloud, Facts and considerations

The concept of multiple organizations sharing the resources of an extensive cloud network is not a new one. Cloud vendors routinely utilize community clouds in cases where multiple organizations share the same area of interest or background; for example, one of the mostly commonly referenced areas such as this would be healthcare. But area of interest is not the only reason that a group of organizations might share a community cloud, perhaps they require the same type(s) of security or compliance. There are an endless number of reasons as to why a community cloud might be formed, but the real question is; when is it (community cloud) a good idea and when is it a bad idea?

An interesting feature of community clouds is that they can be managed in several different ways. For instance:

• Every organization can appoint their own manager to deal with their own resources
• A third party may be appointed to oversee management of the entire community cloud
• All involved organizations can hold a meeting to appoint a joint cloud manager
• A head manager may be appointed who works in conjunction with 'branch' managers from every organization participating in the community cloud

Community clouds have mostly been resigned to governmental organizations, but are quickly finding their way into the public sector. The biggest roadblock for implementing the community cloud model in the public sector (en masse) is lack of resources. Most public organizations simply don't have the capital, expertise, or access to the equipment needed to effectively pull off a community cloud scenario. This is slowly changing however, the technology behind cloud computing is being disseminated by more and more people every day after all.

Community Cloud Considerations

Establishing a community cloud warrants an investigation into several areas; most notably:

• How will availability and/or potential security breach issues be handled (from a legal perspective)?
• How are operational / maintenance costs divided among those participating in the community cloud venture?
• How will the managing body distribute the cloud resources? (Will they be prorated? For example)
• Will there be contracts involved? And if so, who will draw up said contracts?
• Are there any special considerations to be made concerning security?
• Will the community cloud be open geographically?
• How will the establishment of services be paid for?
• Who will be responsible for establishing a management structure?

Setting up, running and operating a community cloud is a bit like running a hospital or classroom; there are inevitably going to be problems and mishaps, so you must have a contingency plan in place to deal with these issues.

One of the reasons that businesses have neglected to implement or participate in community cloud networks is due to a lack of established security regulations / procedures. As it is, no organization currently oversees or provides any type of authenticated security verification for the processes, structure or establishment of community cloud services. For businesses, a lack of either availability or security ultimately translates into loss of profits. Any business participating in a community cloud scenario should make sure that all data transmitted (both to and from) should be double encrypted; meaning, data remains encrypted when stable and when being transmitted. And as with any other type of cloud network, community clouds must also be able to offer individual organizations a set of emergency options; basically, all data must be backed-up in another location in order to allow them to speedily recover important files.

Since many different organizations may share in the development and operation of a community cloud, they also share in the cost of establishing it. This essentially provides two massive benefits:

1. The greater the number of companies involved, the more capital is available to invest; conversely, the lower the individual investor's cost.
2. More investment funds directly translate into more hardware / software / virtualized resources. The more organizations that are involved, the more powerful the system becomes.

There are certain inhibitors in a community cloud however, such as software licensing. You would assume that since a group of organizations inhabit the same community cloud that they would be able to share software licenses, this is not the case. Software licenses are generally limited to specific or individual organizations; a community cloud does not constitute an organization (though they share resources, they do not share profits). But this is also true of any other type of cloud or grid networking / computing, so it shouldn't be that much of an inhibiting factor.

One of the biggest selling points of the community cloud model is that it doesn't require individual organizations to provide their own IT departments / infrastructures. This is great news for companies looking to run their operation sans an IT department (thereby freeing up additional budgetary resources), but could be potentially bad for those organizations that are intensively involved in tech-related matters.

It is estimated / predicted that many cloud service providers will eventually begin marketing individual community clouds to organizations of similar type or design. And there's no disputing that this makes sense, at least from a logical perspective. If there are 10 healthcare organizations that are looking for cloud services it only makes sense to bundle them together. Doing so might even allow cloud managers to set up specific 'public areas' within the community cloud that would allow everyone to access medical research and / or patient files, thereby more efficiently utilizing their resources.

As with any other development in computer networking, community clouds are yet another stepping stone toward a more perfect model for businesses and organizations to create, share and communicate both internally and externally. Whether or not the community cloud model that currently exists will become the standard model for business / organizational computer networking remains to be seen. The community cloud model is however a significant advancement in terms of networking infrastructure; if its inherent design scruples can be dealt with in a comprehensive manner it may offer businesses and organizations a completely streamlined way of running their operations.

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