Information Stewardship in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing ecosystems of service providers and consumers will become a significant part of the way information services are provided, allowing more agile coalitions, cost savings and improved service delivery. Existing approaches to information security do not readily extend to this complex multi-party world. The authors argue for a mathematical model-based framework for the analysis and management of information stewardship that makes explicit both the expectations and responsibilities of cloud stakeholders and the de- sign assumptions of systems. Such a framework supports integrated economic, technology, and behavioural analyses, so providing a basis for a better understanding of the interplay between preferences, policies, system design, regulations, and Service Level Agreements. The authors suggest approaches to constructing economic, technology, and behavioural models and discuss the challenges in integrating them.