Trust Challenges in a High Performance Cloud Computing Project

The literature on cloud computing has been dominated by examples and issues from small to mid-size companies. This paper reports on a large scale cloud pilot project within the petrochemical industry, perhaps one of the biggest examples of cloud computing pushing the boundaries of what you can do with sensitive data. The study aimed to explore the challenges and practicalities of initiating and evaluating cloud projects. Action research is used to examine the nuances throughout a million dollar cloud pilot which lasted over one year from start to finish. The study was able to identify some emergent issues affecting initiation, implementation, technical security challenges and evaluation of a significant change to the security provision of critical data within a large international company affecting many stakeholder groups. One emergent theme was that of the 'political cloud' which was represented by a clash between organisational behavior, the perception of security and internal politics within an organisation; much like the fault lines between tectonic plates. The paper hopes to make contribution by modeling some of the complexities of cloud computing data security and trust challenge by providing insights on the trust and protection of data within companies, particularly large international companies.