Social Cloud Computing: Architecture and Application

Abstract

AbstractWith the increase in the use of social networks and cloud computing, users have started a new way to interact with people, including their friends, colleagues, etc. Social networks reflect real-world relationships, which allows users to share information and establish connections with each other, thereby creating dynamic virtual organizations. Cloud applications need to provide a large number of heterogeneous, geographically distributed resources, which are managed and shared by many stakeholders who may or may not know earlier. Online relationships in social networks are usually based on real-world relationships, so they can be used to infer the degree of trust between users. Due to this, many security issues are arising, which, if not addressed carefully, may affect the adoption of this promising computing model. Apt response to these threats is of special significance in the social cloud environment. In the social cloud environment, computing resources are provided by users themselves. We believe that considering trust and reputation requirements can take advantage of security by incorporating the concepts of trust relationship and reputation into these schemes. In this paper, a survey is presented on the social cloud. The article includes its architecture, application on Facebook as a social networking site, and other usages. At last, the relation between trust and reputation is presented that is essential while sharing cloud resources in the social cloud environment.KeywordsCloud computingSocial networkingSocial cloudTrustAnd reputation