Data Location and Security Issues in Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is a generic term for delivering hosted services over the Internet. It follows a pay-as-you-go approach. Cloud Computing offers numerous benefits for the enterprises, however, there are also many issues, as with any new paradigm or technology. One of the main issues relate to the security and confidentiality of customer data in terms of its location, relocation, availability and security. This paper outlines the Cloud benefits, briefly explains the delivery and deployment models and discusses in detail the issues relating to data in the Cloud. The aim is to provide some useful background information for organizations preparing to migrate to the Cloud to take advantage of this latest computing paradigm.