FEATURE
Cloud computing in the health sector – ready for the prime time?
Alberto Tinazzi IT Security Consultant eHealth Security Services
atinazzi@ehealthsecurity.com.au
What is cloud computing? Cloud computing is a new term that is being increasingly used thanks to the large interest the media are showing on the topic. But what is cloud computing exactly? Should health professionals consider cloud computing? What implications will a health professional be facing if considering the adoption of this technology? Typically services, data and applications are located
on the end user’s machine or on servers located on the business premises. Under a cloud computing arrangement, data, applications and services are situated in specialised data centres and made available to the end user via the Internet. The US National Institute of Standards and
Technology defines cloud computing as: “...a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction...”1 There are three delivery models for cloud computing services: • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) • Software as a Service (SaaS) • Platform as a Service (PaaS) In Infrastructure as a Service the cloud provider
offers a range of virtualised infrastructure components such as virtual network devices, virtual storage devices and virtual servers to meet customer specifications. Software as a Service represents a new way of delivering software. Rather than selling software that
Alberto Tinazzi is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). He works as an independent information security consultant specialised in the healthcare sector. He has 16 years experience as an IT professional, specialised in information management and security. He has spent the last 10 years working within the health sector covering a number of different roles within the Division of General Practice Network.
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the customers have to install and configure on their computers and servers, the software is centrally hosted and made available to customers via the Internet. What makes this service attractive is that software maintenance is handled by the vendor. With Platform as a Service, the provider offers
development environments that customers use to build their own applications.
‘Going cloud’ is a business decision, not an IT one The advantages of ‘going cloud’ for an organisation include: • Reduced upfront costs of computer equipment; • Flexible on-demand processing capacity; • Collaborative capabilities; • Reduced operational ongoing costs; • A reduced carbon footprint; and • Improved business continuity. An organisation no longer needs to replace
obsolete servers with new ones, greatly reducing the up-front costs and downtime. The organisation only needs to pay an ongoing fee to their cloud service provider, which in exchange supplies processing power, memory, storage space and network access. Another great advantage of cloud computing environments is the flexible on-demand processing capacity, which makes the provisioning for new servers a simple task. If the business grows and more resources are required, the customer will simply have to acquire more resources from the provider. Most of the time, a new server can be provisioned within minutes. The collaborative capabilities introduced by
cloud computing allows businesses to explore new opportunities for interacting with their customers and business partners. The ongoing costs of managing IT infrastructure
may also be reduced as customers do not have to worry about air conditioning, power, physical security, scheduled maintenance, breakages and other related costs.
www.pulseitmagazine.com.au
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