Addressing cloud computing in enterprise architecture : issues and challenges

This article discusses how the characteristics of cloud computing affect the enterprise architecture in four domains: business, data, application and technology. The ownership and control of architectural components are shifted from organisational perimeters to cloud providers. It argues that although cloud computing promises numerous benefits to enterprises, the shifting control from enterprises to cloud providers on architectural components introduces several architectural challenges. The diminishing control of an enterprise on the architecture ultimately causes service inflexibility and data confidentiality problems. The organisational control on the enterprise data and business processes, and the cloud providers control on technology and services are the two critical issues that need to be addressed in the changed architectural framework. This article identifies the architectural components along with the issues and challenges emerging from cloud-based enterprise architecture.