Benefits and Challenges for Business Process Management in the Cloud

Business processes are not only variable they are as well dynamic. A key benefit of Business Process Management (BPM) is the ability to adjust business processes accordingly in response to changing market requirements. In parallel to BPM, enterprise cloud computing technology has emerged to provide a more cost effective solution to businesses and services while making use of inexpensive computing solutions, which combines pervasive, internet, and virtualization technologies (). Despite the slow start, the business benefits of cloud computing are as such that the transition of BPM to the cloud is now underway. Cloud services refer to the operation of a virtualized, automated, and service-oriented IT landscape allowing the flexible provision and usage-based invoicing of resources, services, and applications via a network or the internet. The generic term “X-as-a-Service” summarize the business models delivering almost everything as a service. BPM in the cloud is often regarded as a SaaS application. More recently, BPM is being regarded as a PaaS as it facilitates the creation and deployment of applications, in this case business process solutions. The PaaS landscape is the least developed of the four cloud based software delivery models previously discussed. PaaS vendors, such as IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft delivered an application platform with managed cloud infrastructure services however, more recently the PaaS market has begun to evolve to include other middleware capabilities including process management. BPM PaaS is the delivery of BPM technology as a service via a cloud service provider. For the classification as a PaaS a BPM suite requires the following capabilities: the architecture should be multi-tenant, hosting should be off premise and it should offer elasticity and metering by use capabilities. When we refer to BPM in the cloud, what we are really referring to is a combination of BPM PaaS and BPaaS (Business Process as a Service). Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) is a set of pre-defined business processes that allows the execution of customized business processes in the cloud. BPaaS is a complete pre-integrated BPM platform hosted in the cloud and delivered as a service, for the development and execution of general-purpose business process application. Although such a service harbors an economic potential there are remaining questions: Can an individual and company-specific business process supported by a standardized cloud solution, or should we protect process creativity and competitive differentiation by allowing the company to design the processes individually and solely support basic data flows and structures? Does it make sense to take a software solution “out of the box” that handles both data and process in a cloud environment, or would this hinder the creativity of business (process) development leading to a lower quality of processes and consequently to a decrease in the competitive positioning of a company? How to manage the inherent compliance and security topic. Within a completely integrated business application system, all required security aspects can be implemented as a safeguarding with just enough money. Within the cloud, however, advanced standards and identity prove is required to monitor and measure information exchange across the federation. Thereby there seems to be no need for developing new protocols, but a standardized way to collect and evaluate the collected information.

Data Security Issues and Solutions in Cloud Computing

Cloud is considered as future of Information Technology. User can utilized the cloud on pay-as-you use basis. But many organizations are stringent about the adoption of cloud computing due to their concern regarding the security of the stored data. Therefore, issues related to security of data in the cloud have become very vital. Data security involves encrypting the data and ensuring that suitable policies are imposed for sharing those data. There are several data security issues which need to be addressed. These issues are: data integrity, data intrusion, service availability, confidentiality and non-repudiation. Many schemes have been proposed for ensuring data security in cloud environment. But the existing schemes lag in fulfilling all these data security issues. In this chapter, a new Third Party Auditor based scheme has been proposed for secured storage and retrieval of client's data to and from the cloud service provider. The scheme has been analysed and compared with some of the existing schemes with respect to the security issues. From the analysis and comparison it can be observed that the proposed scheme performs better than the existing schemes.

Applying Kolb Learning Experiential Theory with Cloud Computing in Higher Education Institutions

The maturity of free and open source movement has brought a number of ICT tools. It has affected the way courses are delivered, the way contents are developed, the way data are interoperable, the way learning and teaching materials are shared, the way learners access classes and the way library resources are shared. In developing countries, several libraries are migrating into digital libraries using low cost technologies readily available due to open access, free and open source technology and e-publishing tools. Recent development of cloud computing technology provides state of art tools for libraries. It provides a common platform for easy information storage and sharing. Thus, there is lowering of the cost required to procure and manage library ICT infrastructure due to the capability of that cloud computing which allows the storage to be on a single, efficient system that saves cost and time. In developing countries where most libraries suffer from limited budgets for ICT services, it is anticipated that the future of digital libraries is on cloud libraries.

Customer Satisfaction via Service Quality Dimensions

The purpose of the study is to measure the customer satisfaction via service quality dimensions as a whole and individually in the context of stock broking services. A non probability convenient sampling approach has been used in the study. Respondents have been restricted to those who have the experience of trading in stock market through stock brokers. The sample consisted of 229 valid individual customers from Bhopal (MP), India through structured self-administrated questionnaire. Convergent validity, discriminant validity and reliability of the collected data were measured before testing of the research model. An exploratory factor analysis has been conducted using principal components analysis to determine the dimensions of financial service quality. A linear regression was performed to test the relationship between the service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction. The findings suggest that service quality as a whole and individually have a significant impact on customer satisfaction. The results of the study provide useful information for managers to improve service quality which leads to customer satisfaction. The findings were solely on stock broking services from Bhopal (MP) in India which impacts its generalisability. Replication of the present study might be required in other stock broking markets, to improve generalisability using larger samples. Another potential area for future research could be the link between service quality dimensions, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and customer retention at stock broking services. The study is important considering the economic advantages of satisfying and retaining current customers as opposed to seeking for new customers which is essential in stock broking services. The paper contributes to the literature on stock broking services in India.

Mobile Cloud Resource Management

Providing mobile cloud services requires seamless integration between various platforms to offer mobile users optimum performance. To achieve this, many fundamental problems such as bandwidth availability and reliability, resource scarceness, and finite energy must be addressed before rolling out such services. This chapter aims to explore technological challenges for mobile cloud computing in the area of resource management focusing on both parts of the infrastructure: mobile devices and cloud networks. Starting with introducing mobile cloud computing, it then stresses the importance of resource management in the operation of mobile cloud services presenting various types of resources available for cloud computing. Furthermore, it examines the various types of resource management techniques available for mobile clouds. Finally, future directions in the field of resource management for mobile cloud computing environment are presented.

Cloud Computing for Secure Services in E-Government Architecture

E-government tries to take advantage of new technology to provide better service to citizens. Some of the main challenges in the face of E-government are query processing high volume applications, data center management, data security and E-government services. Cloud computing can be a good option for responding to these issues and fixing them, and guarantee the realization of E-government, with maximum efficiency and maximum safety. In this paper, the authors propose a novel architecture for E-government by using Cloud computing architecture which can largely increase the integrity and security service in E-government, and also increase users' confidence in the system and may lead to increased participation.

Management of Privacy and Security in Cloud Computing

There are a number of risk domains that are relevant for information privacy and security in cloud-based scenarios and alternative deployment models, which require implementation of a number of controls. However, cloud service providers often take a one-size-fits-all approach and want all their customers to accept the same standardized contract, regardless of their particular information security and legal compliance needs. Taking ISO 27001 Information Security Management standard as a guide, we have employed the Delphi method with a group of cloud computing experts from around the world who are subscribed to the “Cloud Computing” group on LinkedIN to identify the most applicable controls in a generic cloud service provider – customer context. Based on these results, we use a sample of cloud computing customer service agreement as a case study to further discuss related contingencies. As a result, this chapter argues that a more balanced approach is needed in service contracts to ensure the maintenance of necessary service levels and the protection of cloud users.

Behavioral Intentions to Adopt Technological Innovations

Cloud computing services are a prominent innovation that has changed consumer behaviours towards adopting new technological services. Despite the popularity of this technological innovation the underlying factors that contribute to a consumer's intention to adopt cloud computing services has not been well researched. This paper builds upon the well-known behavioural intention theories of the technology acceptance model and social cognitive theory to develop and test a number of hypotheses designed to understand the factors influencing intention to use cloud computing services. The research hypotheses in the paper propose that perceived usefulness, consumer innovation attitude, social norms, performance expectancy and trust influence behavioural intentions of consumers towards cloud computing services. The hypotheses are tested in a sample of United States and Chinese consumers to understand whether there are differences in behavioural attitudes towards technological innovations. The paper identifies research limitations, practical implications and future research suggestions.

Investigating the Relationship between Educational Quality and Students' Satisfaction

This research aims at investigating the relationship between higher educational quality and students' satisfaction who are studying in the professional programs (MBA, DBA, and Diploma) offered by Faculty of Commerce, Cairo University. The research depends on stratified random sample of 235 students. The response rate is 83.9% and data is analyzed by different statistical methods. The research ends with the following results: (a) there is positive, strong, and significant relationship between higher educational quality and students' satisfaction level; (b) there is positive, strong and significant relationship between functional quality, technical quality, college image and the overall higher educational quality; (c) there is positive, strong, and significant relationship between functional quality, technical quality, college image and students' satisfaction level; (d) technical quality is the strongest determinant of the educational quality followed by college image and finally functional quality. Finally, the research ends with some suggested points for future research.

Dimensions of Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Systems Success in Kuwait

An extensive body of research has tested the information systems success model in many contexts. Surprisingly, few of these studies have applied it to e-commerce. A study by represents one such initiative, but it is crucial to address several remaining gaps associated with that study. Moreover, no e-commerce success model has considered the Arab world, which exhibits unique cultural factors influencing e-commerce. The authors' study proposes an improved IS success model for e-commerce in the Arab world. This model, based on that of , adds several enhancements to the validity and generalisability of his efforts, uses the latest SEM techniques, including both monetary and nonmonetary value conceptualisations, uses a multidimensional conceptualisation of system quality, and proposes specific factors of e-commerce service quality. The authors tested the proposed research model with a truly randomised sampling approach using 288 experienced business-to-consumer (B2C) consumers in the Arab world. The results largely support our hypothesised model. The most important difference between our results and those of previous studies is our finding that although service quality influences value, it has no bearing on user satisfaction in an Arab context. This study will be useful for practitioners and researchers seeking to improve the understanding of B2C e-commerce success in the Arab world.