Security Difficulties of E-Learning in Cloud Computing Dr. Tamer S. Fatayer Alaqsa University Computer Science Department Information Technology Forum 2 April 25, 2012

Agenda Cloud Computing. E-learning needs cloud computing Terms Characteristics Benefits E-learning needs cloud computing E-learning How E-Learning uses cloud Security difficulties of e-learning in cloud computing Discussion & Conclusion

Cloud computing term Cloud computing is an umbrella term used to refer to Internet based development and services. Cloud computing allows to move the processing effort from the local devices to the data center facilities. Cloud computing allows consumers and businesses to use applications without installation and access their personal files at any computer with internet access.

Basic Cloud Characteristics no-need-to-know: terms of the underlying details of infrastructure, applications interface with the infrastructure via the APIs. flexibility and elasticity: allows these systems to scale up and down at will – utilizing the resources of all kinds: CPU, storage, server capacity load balancing, and databases pay as you Go: pay only for what is used and no more

Cloud computing benefits Web-scale problems Large data centers Different models of computing Highly-interactive Web applications

Different models of computing Utility computing Why buy machines when you can rent cycles? Examples: Amazon’s EC2, GoGrid, AppNexus Platform as a Service (PaaS) Give me nice API and take care of the implementation Example: Google App Engine Software as a Service (SaaS) Just run it for me! Example: Gmail

Cloud Computing Service Layers

Web application What is the nature of software application From desktop to the browser SAAA==web based application Example : Google Maps, Facebook How we deliver highly-interactive web based application? AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML )

E-learning In-class teaching has evolved over many years and the task of teaching is a routine job for faculty. Clearly, lectures are periodically updated and revised and new topics are added but the underlying process is still routine. In e-learning is often introduced as a project. A project has a clearly defined schedule, goals that need to be met and, in most cases, a limited budget. As every project is exposed to some risks, risk is security

Agenda Cloud Computing. E-learning needs cloud computing Terms Characteristics Benefits E-learning needs cloud computing E-learning How E-Learning uses cloud Security difficulties of e-learning in cloud computing Discussion & Conclusion

E-learning Internet was constantly changing from a place used to read web pages to an environment that allows end-users to run software Applications as in cloud “SAAS”. Interactivity and collaboration have become the keywords of the new web content. cloud is focused on collaboration Also, the e-learning systems need to keep the pace with the technology, so the new direction is to use cloud computing.

E- Learning & Cloud Computing Many education institutions do not have the resources and infrastructure needed to run top e-learning solution. Blackboard and Moodle, the biggest players in the field of e- learning software, have now versions of the base applications that are cloud oriented several cloud computing services providers that offer support for educational systems. Among them are Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc

Agenda Cloud Computing. E-learning needs cloud computing Terms Characteristics Benefits E-learning needs cloud computing E-learning How E-Learning uses cloud Security difficulties in cloud computing Discussion & Conclusion

E- Learning & Cloud Computing at least two entities involved in an e-learning system: students and the trainers. The students: Take online course Take exams Send feedback Send homework, projects The trainers: Deal with content management Prepare tests Assess tests, homework, projects taken by students Communicate with students (forums )

Distributed e-learning system software components (client application like web browser) application server database server hardware components clien computer, communication infrastructure servers).

M-Learning as example nowadays mobile applications, especially multimedia-based applications, have serious limitations due the processing power and memory constraints Due the fact that the data processing is on the server side, the use of mobile devices for learning is growing fast. The e-learning server will use cloud computing, so all the required resources will be adjusted as needed.

E-learning use cloud E-learning systems can use benefit from cloud computing using: Infrastructure: use an e-learning solution on the provider's infrastructure. Platform: use and develop an e-learning solution based on the provider's development interface Services: use the e-learning solution given by the provider.

Agenda Cloud Computing. E-learning needs cloud computing Terms Characteristics Benefits E-learning needs cloud computing E-learning How E-Learning uses cloud Security difficulties of e-learning in cloud computing Discussion & Conclusion

Security Difficulties A very big concern is related to the data and application is security because both the software and the data are located on remote servers that can crash or disappear without any additional warnings The role of security in e-learning is to provide a secure end-to-end session between the student and the institution’s e-learning network To apply e-learning in the cloud computing we must take aware of the following security issues when you (companies developing e-learning) work in the cloud

Security Difficulties improbability – it is almost impossible for any interested person (thief) to determine where is located the machine that stores some wanted data (tests, exam questions, results) or to find out which is the physical component he needs to steal in order to get a digital asset To exploit the services of various mechanisms including replication management, access control, and packet filtering to formulate the response to such symptoms. One of the benefits of focusing on symptoms is that many kinds of attacks produce similar symptoms, so that the capacity to cope with a finite number of symptoms results in the ability to mitigate the effects of many attacks.

Security Difficulties Connecting application and Infrastructure Attacks affect the availability and quality of system resources and an application needs awareness of these effects to cope with and survive them. However, the gap between application and infrastructure restricts application awareness of these changes. A middleware which bridges this gap between application and infrastructure to produce adaptive responses that are unpredictable to the attacker. The ability to adapt to changing environmental and operational conditions is key to surviving the symptoms of intrusions. However sophisticated intruders predict adaptive responses and design their attacks to thwart them. Therefore, the ability to produce adaptive responses that are unpredictable to the hacker, is needed.

conclusion The development of e-learning solution cannot ignore the cloud computing trends. There are many benefits from using the cloud computing for e-learning systems. security mechanisms deployed in e-learning systems must be standard based, flexible and interoperable, to ensure that they work with others’ systems. They must also work in multi-tier architectures with one or more middle tiers such as web servers and application servers

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