Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise: A Step ...

56 Chapter 3 Defining the Clouds for the Enterprise
The advantage of integration-as-a-service is that you can access pretty
pricy integration software functionality for the price of a rental agreement.
Moreover, many of the integration-on-demand providers have very sophisticated
software delivered through a browser that leverage the new rich Internet
application technology such as AJAX.
The downside is that there are many firewall mediation issues to deal
with. Many systems you may want to integrate do not have Port 80–compliant
interfaces and protocols, meaning they cannot speak outside of the firewall
to the remote, on-demand integration server. Thus, many integration-ondemand
providers leverage software that has to exist behind the firewall to
mediate the differences in the local, native interfaces and turn them into
something that can be sent outside of the firewall, typically Web Services
that leverage Port 80–compliant Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).
Thus, you end up with an on-premise footprint that diminishes the value of
an integration-on-demand solution.
Security-as-a-Service
Security-as-a-service, as you may have guessed, is the ability to deliver core
security services remotely over the Internet. While the security services provided
today are often rudimentary, more sophisticated services, such as identity
management, are becoming available.
Security-as-a-service is a tough sell considering that security is typically
a weak point of cloud computing. Providing security on demand seems like
an unnatural act. However, there are times when security delivered out of the
cloud makes sense, such as for securing a cluster of cloud resources you are
leveraging within your enterprise or even between enterprises. Thus, you can
enforce security hierarchies between physical organizations out of the cloud
or perhaps have cloud-delivered on-demand encryption services or identity
management solutions.
The downside is rather obvious, considering that most look at security
as something that needs to be controlled and thus not outsourced. However,
as time goes on and security on demand becomes more sophisticated, and as
more corporate data and applications reside in the clouds, then there will be
an uptake in security-as-a-service.