Addressing Security in the e-Business On-demand Environment

Author: Aparna Prasad
An on-demand business is one which is flexible enough to respond to any fluctuations in the running of the business. What differentiates an on-demand business from its competition is the fact that it is responsive in real time—as the events occur. This is possible only because all its business processes are thoroughly integrated, and the IT infrastructure exists in an on-demand operating environment.

This concept has somewhat evolved over the years. On-demand computing means that the IT infrastructure which includes computing, storage, and other resources are brought and made available to the company as a whole or to a particular process on an as-needed basis. What is not needed is kept in the general pool of resources which is made available to others and essentially the ‘pay as you go’ theory is followed. This concept can be applied both to the resources and services supplied by a third-party service provider, and to the sharing of resources among the internal users of a business.

While there is no doubt that there is an immense amount of value delivered from this concept, there are still some major concerns that are inhibiting businesses from fully utilizing the power of on-demand, the most important one being security. In this paper we shall discuss how security should be addressed when transitioning to an on-demand world, and then apply the findings of our study to the Strategic Alignment Model.