Cloud Computing and Social Network Sites

Arnd Weber,D Hallinan,Michael Nentwich,G Hunt,M Jaglo,T Leimbach,D Bachlechner,S Strauß,R Nielsen,T Lynn

doi:10.14512/tatup.23.2.71

Abstract

Cloud Computing and Social Network Services (SNS) are some of the most controversially discussed IT developments in recent years. Huge expectations exist for Cloud Computing, providing lower costs of computing while increasing employment. However, Cloud Computing as well as Social Network Services may come with a substantial risk of losing data privacy. The project conducted on Cloud Computing Services and Social Network Sites addressed the potential and impacts of these technologies. The project report showed that (1) adequate data security and privacy are critical but difficult to achieve, that (2) more consumer protection is needed and that (3) the market for Cloud Computing is not growing as fast as initially forecast, resulting in a lower than expected increase of employment and lower contribution to GDP growth. The study was carried out between 2012 and 2013 on behalf of the European Parliament’s Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA) by the Danish Board of Technology (DBT), the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI), the Institute of Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ITA), the Irish Centre for Cloud Computing and Commerce at Dublin City University (DCU/IC4), and ITAS. In this article, we highlight findings from interviews, literature reviews, and case studies. In addition, selected contributions from a project workshop under the auspices of the 5th European Innovation Summit are presented, conclusions drawn, and finally key policy options presented.

Highlights

Cost savings: Lower costs are typically cited as a motivation for cloud adoption
The evidence from the study suggests that by having the application running in the cloud, rather than on a dedicated server, significant cost savings could be achieved
It is reported that Nuremberg Airport migrated high demand traveller services to the cloud, resulting in cost savings (PAC 2012)

Summary

Economic Benefits and Potential of Cloud Computing

In this project we explored public computing services that are new and have characteristics such as on-demand availability, resource sharing, and supposedly lower costs than local computing. Google Cloud Services (Drive, App Engine, and Compute Engine) are estimated to have generated revenues of US$ 314 million in 2012 (Panettieri 2013) While large providers such as Amazon and Google sell excess capacity cheaply, others, such as Rackspace and Salesforce, while generating significant revenues, may not generate substantial profits, if at all (Henschen 2012; OGara 2012). Estimates for a GDP growth of 0.05 % to 0.3 %, by Etro (2009), seem overly optimistic as this may require, e.g. significant outsourcing in telecommunications into the cloud This is difficult to imagine due to the latency requirements of telecommunications companies

Issues

Findings

Policy Options