Track: Computers and Computing
Abstract
Cloud is an economical viable proposition for companies , Small and Medium Scale companies(SMEs) in particular by facilitating a financial reduction in IT usage encouraging companies to focus and allocate their business funds and strategies on other major business activities. It offers an innovative and promising vision in the field of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). But performance issues, data vulnerabilities, security issues, data portability issues and financial risks involved, make this adoption a risky process. The risks that come with outsourcing software and data to another party are problematic for many companies which makes trust on cloud service provider as an extremely important factor. This paper investigates the issues and challenges facing SMEs which are inclined towards cloud benefits. This paper also explores the role of initial trust based on contractual agreement called Service Level Agreement (SLA) and Cloud Service Provider’s reputation in managing risk of cloud adoption. On the basis of literature review of all the aspects and then on the basis of analysis of expert opinion using Delphi technique the paper proposes a risk informed cloud adoption framework based on trust between service provider and companies.