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

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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

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

6. 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

7. Cloud Computing Service Layers

8. 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 )

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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.

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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 )

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

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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

23. Thank you for your attention