Towards a compliant and secure cloud: cloud migration, swapping providers and contractual aspects

ENGELSK: One of the issues in the cloud today is the switching between different service providers. Cloud providers often deliver their services through specific platforms(API), with specific tools, customized and special file formats that could cause dependencies. The cloud customer could potentially become dependent of the cloud provider. This is called a provider "‘lock-in"’, and could potentially hinder the migration process, the further development of the cloud technology, and the enabling of cloud computing technology for businesses and organizations. We are attempting to improve security, avoid the "‘lock-in"’ problem, and ensure compliance in cloud computing and cloud environments through the improvement of business resilience and business continuity. Security, compliance, business continuity and business resilience are all aspects that influence trust between actors in a cloud computing environment. The trust issue hinders a lot of different organizations and business to take the step into the cloud environment. This issue of trust, along others, creates uncertainty for organizations and businesses considering moving their storage, applications or services into the cloud. This thesis aims to solve or improve this particular issue, and with it, enable more secure cloud computing. The thesis results and findings aims to help organizations and businesses with the planning process, to help keeping their data secure, and successfully migrate/swap providers. The results and findings are concluded upon two different case studies of two cloud customers. The findings from these case studies are presented through security checklists, lists of SLA/Sec-SLA metrics and through a modification of a conceptual model. A solution or improvement of these issues will enhance trust in cloud computing and enable more organizations and businesses to enter the cloud, utilize its efficiency and benefit from its low cost service on demand