Context matters: A review of the determinant factors in the decision to adopt cloud computing in healthcare

Cloud computing is an IT service paradigm that can, if used meaningfully, enhance traditional health IT approaches and offer major benefits to the healthcare industry. However, its adoption by healthcare organizations has been accompanied by diverse challenges that could impede its meaningful use. Decisions about its adoption should be made after serious consideration of relevant industry-specific factors. Whereas the literature has focused on cloud computing adoption in general, the industrial specificities that influence the decision to adopt cloud computing in the healthcare context have yet to be systematically addressed. We reviewed empirical studies on both information systems and medical informatics to investigate the determinant factors of the cloud computing adoption decision in healthcare organizations and the industrial specificities of those factors. Based on the results of our review, we proposed a conceptual framework of cloud computing adoption studies in healthcare and made seven recommendations for related future research. Our research contributes to the theory by providing a comprehensive list of industry-specific factors that influence cloud computing adoption decisions in healthcare and explains their specificities for the healthcare industry. For practitioners, the identified factors serve as a checklist that informs healthcare organizations’ decision making regarding cloud computing adoption.     

从资源观理论视角看云计算对中小企业竞争优势的影响

实践证明,企业能够利用信息技术创造持续竞争优势。作为新的信息技术服务模式,云计算在近年来得到了快速发展,并为促进中小企业信息化建设和创造自身竞争优势带来了契机。本文首先应用灰色线性回归组合模型对我国云计算的未来市场规模进行预测,并结合云计算在中小企业中的实践应用来说明云计算是促进中小企业获取持续竞争优势的必然选择。并在此基础上,基于企业资源观理论深层次分析云计算如何影响中小企业竞争优势。     

Examining cloud computing adoption intention,pricing mechanism,and deployment model

Cloud computing is a new information technology (IT) paradigm that promises to revolutionize traditional IT delivery through reduced costs, greater elasticity, and ubiquitous access. On the surface, adopting cloud computing requires a firm to address many of the same concerns they face in adopting any enterprise IT. However, cloud technologies also offer new pricing and deployment strategies that are unavailable in traditional enterprise solutions. It is unclear how previous research frameworks of enterprise IT adoption relate to these new adoption strategies. To bridge this gap in the literature, our study uses the technology–organization–environment (TOE) framework of innovation diffusion theory to develop a cloud service adoption model that deals with not only adoption intention, but also pricing mechanisms and deployment models. Our research model has been empirically tested using 200 Taiwanese firms. We found that: (1) Cloud adoption is still at its initial stage, since the adoption rates are very low; (2) the perceived benefits, business concerns, and IT capability within the TOE framework are significant determinants of cloud computing adoption, while external pressure is not; (3) firms with greater IT capability tend to choose the pay-as-you-go pricing mechanism; (4) business concern is the most important factor influencing the choice of deployment model, with higher concerns leading to private deployment options.     

[2015年第2期] 云计算的价值创造及其机理

云计算在各行业的创新应用 , 衍生出诸多新型业态和新型商业模式, 产生了巨大的 经济价值和社会价值,主要体现在： 云计算集中了信息技术资源和服务,大幅提高了 IT资源的 应用效率; 降低了应用技术门槛, 最大限度扩展用户规模; 集中整合了数据资源, 挖掘出大数 据价值潜力; 引起体制机制的变革, 以技术方式突破体制屏障; 加强了信息系统综合集成, 实 现智慧管理与服务。 云计算应用创新具有独特的价值生成机理。 首先, 云计算通过将市场交 易双方的博弈改变为无限重复动态博弈, 形成诚信自律机制, 提高了市场交易效率从而形成 增值; 其次,云计算的创新应用向资本市场展示了收益前景,以内部学习效应形成了以未来收 益弥补当前亏损的资本补偿机制 , 挖掘了知识价值; 第三, 云计算形成了新型互联网商业平 台 ,以交叉补贴机制确保长期可持续经营,创造了低成本、高收益的价值增值模式。 鉴于云计 算平台已经成为涉及公共利益、承载公共服务的信息基础设施, 建议将云设施视为信息基础 设施,纳入监管保护体系; 制定针对云计算的知识产权和个人信息保护措施,鼓励云计算创新 应用 ;开展多层次试点示范,帮助中小企业和社会大众利用云计算创新创业。     

An empirical study on business analytics affordances enhancing the management of cloud computing data security

The mechanism of business analytics affordances enhancing the management of cloud computing data security is a key antecedent in improving cloud computing security. Based on information value chain theory and IT affordances theory, a research model is built to investigate the underlying mechanism of business analytics affordances enhancing the management of cloud computing data security. The model includes business analytics affordances, decision-making affordances of cloud computing data security, decision-making rationality of cloud computing data security, and the management of cloud computing data security. Simultaneously, the model considers the role of data-driven culture and IT business process integration. It is empirically tested using data collected from 316 enterprises by Partial Least Squares-based structural equation model. Without data-driven culture and IT business process integration, the results suggest that there is a process from business analytics affordances to decision-making affordances of cloud computing data security, decision-making rationality of cloud computing data security, and to the management of cloud computing data security. Moreover, Data-driven culture and IT business process integration have a positive mediation effect on the relationship between business analytics affordances and decision-making affordances of cloud computing data security. The conclusions in this study provide useful references for the enterprise to strengthen the management of cloud computing data security using business analytics.     

Cloud computing as an innovation: Percepetion,attitude, and adoption

Cloud computing is a current trend that reveals the next-generation application architecture and it is estimated that by 2013 the cloud market will have reached $8.1bn. While cloud services such as webmail, Flickr and YouTube have been widely used by individuals for some time, it not until relatively recently that organisations have began to use cloud services as a tool for meeting their IT needs. This study aims to investigate how cloud computing is understood by IT professionals and the concerns that IT professionals have in regard to the adoption of cloud services. The study was carried out in Taiwan and used a survey by interview approach to understand IT professionals’ understandings and concerns about cloud computing. The findings of the study suggest that while the benefits of cloud computing such as its computational power and ability to help companies save costs are often mentioned in the literature, the primary concerns that IT managers and software engineers have are compatibility of the cloud with companies’ policy, IS development environment, and business needs; and relative advantages of adopting cloud solutions. The findings also suggest that most IT companies in Taiwan will not adopt cloud computing until the uncertainties associated with cloud computing, e.g. security and standardisation are reduced and successful business models have emerged.     

云计算架构在银行批处理流程优化中的应用研究

银行业在实现业务和数据集中处理的信息化架构后,随着业务的发展,面对数量越来越多、规模越来越大的批处理需求,如何提高计算资源的使用效率和灵活配置资源是银行信息中心不断面对的挑战。以资源和应用虚拟化为核心的云计算架构和技术正在不断发展和成熟,它可以有效地提高信息中心的资源使用,为批处理业务动态配置有效资源。针对以批处理中按照业务类型和处理流程进行资源配置的传统方法,提出了一种将业务流程进行优化分解成为可以进行独立并行处理任务的方法,可以在云计算环境下分组处理具有共同特征的计算和操作任务,实现优化资源调配。通过HadoopMapReduce并行计算架构进行模拟验证,初步实验结果表明了该方法在批处理执行效率、资源使用和灵活性方面的优势,在大量批处理业务领域（金融、证券、电子商务）具有一定的应用和研究价值。     

Cloud computing: A democratizing force?

There has never been a more disruptive innovation in the IT landscape such as cloud computing since the emergence of the Web in the early 1990s. This IT delivery service has the potential to change many aspects of organizations’ operations, thinking, culture, work and their ability to control global warming. With the increasing ubiquity and pervasiveness of mobile devices, cloud computing's impact could be even greater and much wider in its reach. But this emerging innovation has many hurdles to surmount to become the “telephone” or the “water” equivalent of the IT world. An examination of these issues will be made in this article and an exploration of the empowering and democratizing credentials of cloud computing will be attempted.     

Towards performance evaluation of cloud service providers for cloud data security

Today’s data is sensitive that requires privacy and security both from the cloud service providers (CSP) as well as from users in its all the form of data states: data at rest, while transferring data, enquiring data, and processing the data. Cloud computing has been applied in the health sector, national security services, banking and other business and companies that store confidential data into the cloud as we have seen in recent years. Therefore, information and data security is a crucial issue that needs to be addressed thoroughly in the cloud computing business. This research deals with the performance analysis of recent cloud data security models. This paper proposes cloud data security models based on Business Process Modeling Notations (BPMN) and simulation results can reveal performances issues related to data security as part of any organizations initiative on Business process management (BPM).     

Reaching for the “cloud”: How SMEs can manage

Cloud computing is an emerging new computing paradigm for delivering computing services. The approach relies on a number of existing technologies e.g., the Internet, virtualization and grid computing. However, the provision of this service in a pay-as-you-go way through the popular medium of the Internet renders this computing service approach unique compared with currently available computing service modalities. This article highlights some aspects of this uniqueness and also explores some of the concerns that might be preventing some companies from adopting it. Notwithstanding these concerns, it is argued in this article that cloud computing is likely to prove commercially viable for many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) due to its flexibility and pay-as-you-go cost structure, particularly in the current climate of economic difficulties. A case study of a cloud experience by a British SME is also presented in this study in order to further highlight the perceived values of cloud computing in terms of cost and efficiency for real small enterprises.     

商业生态系统视角下的云计算经济发展模式研究

云计算经济是伴随云计算的产生和发展而兴起的,对其发展模式的研究目前还是一个新的领域。从商业生态的视角对云计算经济发展模式进行研究,首先借鉴商业生态系统的研究成果,设计出云计算经济商业生态系统的结构模型,根据商业生态系统的特征提出云计算经济商业生态系统发展动力机制;最后根据商业生态系统结构特征和逻辑斯蒂增长模型设计商业生态下云计算经济发展的理论模型和数学模型。     

Making use of cloud computing for healthcare provision: Opportunities and challenges

Cloud or utility computing is an emerging new computing paradigm designed to deliver numerous computing services through networked media such as the Web. This approach offers several advantages to potential users such as “metered” use (i.e., pay-as-you-go) which offers scalability, online delivery of software and virtual hardware services (e.g., collaboration programmes, virtual servers, virtual storage devices) which would enable organizations to obviate the need to own, maintain and update their software and hardware infrastructures. The flexibility of this emerging computing service has opened many possibilities for organizations that did not exist before. Among those organizations are those engaged in healthcare provision. The aim of this article is to shed some light on this development and explore the potential (and future) of cloud computing in contributing to the advancement of healthcare provision. A small case study will also be presented and discussed.     

A fad or future of IT?: A comprehensive literature review on the cloud computing research

Cloud computing is now a global trend and during the past decade, has drawn attention from both academic and business communities. Although the evolution of cloud computing has not reached the maturity level, there is still adequate research about the topic. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the development and evolution of cloud computing over time. A content analysis was conducted for 236 scholarly journal articles, which were published between 2009 and 2014 in order to (i) identify the possible trends and changes in cloud computing over the six years, (ii) compare publishing productivity of journals about the cloud computing subject, and (iii) guide future research about cloud computing. The results show that the majority of the cloud computing research is about “cloud computing adoption” (19%), and it was followed by the “legal and ethical issues” of cloud computing (15%). It is also found that “cloud computing for mobile applications” (6%), “benefits & challenges of cloud computing” (5%) and “energy consumption dimension of cloud computing” (4%) are the least attention-grabbing themes in the literature. However, “cloud computing for mobile applications” and “energy consumption dimension of cloud computing” themes have become popular in the last two years, so they are expected to be trendy topics of the near future. Finally, another finding of this study is that the majority of the articles were published by engineering, information systems or technical journals such as “IT Professional Magazine”, “International Journal of Information Management” and “Mobile Networks and Applications”. It seems as if this topic is generally ignored by the managerial and organizational journals even though the impact of cloud computing on organizations and institutions is immense and is in need of investigation.     

Service strategies of small cloud service providers: A case study of a small cloud service provider and its clients in Taiwan

Small enterprises play an important role in the technology innovation and economic development of most countries all over the world, particularly in Taiwan. Due to a lack of financial resources and expertise, small enterprises tend to find novel ways to utilize IT resources in order to reduce IT adoption costs, to achieve better flexibility, business agility and scalability, and to react faster to market demands. Whereas Taiwan has been promoting cloud computing to help Taiwanese enterprises adopt more effective information technologies, we found that the service strategies of small cloud service providers are individually differentiated in order to survive in the competitive cloud computing market. This paper reports a case study of a small e-learning service provider and its four clients in Taiwan. Some novel insights are revealed through this case study and recommendations are provided accordingly.     

云计算技术在图书馆中的应用研究

云计算是一种新型的基于互联网的商业计算模型,它是分布式处理、并行处理和网格计算的发展,具有安全可靠、海量信息存储、快速方便等特点。云计算以其独特的优势被各个国际著名厂商重视,并在各领域都起到一定的影响,同样它也将对图书馆的发展产生深远影响。现今,图书馆应该思考的是如何运用云计算来调整服务模式,以便更加有效地适应读者与图书馆之间的互动,并解决好云计算运用过程中出现的数据安全、标准和版权等方面问题。     

云计算环境下移动图书馆系统设计与构建

指出云计算带来了IT架构的革命性变化,云计算模式的应用将从根本上改变图书馆服务理念、信息获取与保存方式,移动图书馆成为现代数字图书馆信息服务的一种崭新服务系统。设计与构建了一个基于WAP的移动图书馆系统模型。     

Cloud computing enabled business model innovation

Cloud computing's primary layer of security is its widespread adoption by businesses due to its ability to provide easy, on-demand network access to a large pool of configurable processing resources. Pressure from developed-world governments to keep up with the latest IT trends makes it challenging for colleges around the world to adopt cloud computing in engineering education. Although cloud computing as a concept has become more popular in recent times and quite a few studies have been conducted, the adoption and application level is still very low, particularly in developing countries. This study provides a realistic framework for gauging the sustainability of a company model. While digitalization is widely acknowledged to be crucial, the study's results reveal that the perceived available options for business model innovation depend not only on the value proposition itself but also on the position in the value network. The primary goal of this research is to create a cloud computing service provider business model that is built on circular economy principles and can guarantee the sustainable usage of cloud computing resources.     

云计算给图书馆带来的发展机遇

云计算技术以其强大的功能已在一些商业领域得到了初步的应用。作为应用IT的重地,云计算技术也将在图书馆中得到大规模的普及应用。在介绍云计算特征和概括云计算应用类型的基础上,分析云计算技术给图书馆带来的发展机遇,强调图书馆应理性对待云计算、加强云计算理论和案例研究、回归服务本质的理念。     

浅述公安高校图书馆专业特色数字资源开发建设的必要性

21世纪,云计算作为一种以数据为中心的新型网络计算方式,已经深刻地影响到了互联网的运作和服务模式。做为公安高校专业性较强的图书馆,面对这种IT新技术带来的强烈冲击,必将受到更为严峻的挑战和考验。如今,云计算已经使图书馆的文献信息服务工作进入了一个崭新的发展阶段;应用云计算的模式,将从根本上改变公安高校图书馆传统文献信息的服务理念。所以,公安高校图书馆应该尽快适应云环境,抓住机遇,全力应对云计算泛知识环境带来的挑战;加快开发具有公安警察文化特色的专业数据库步伐,并对如何开发高质量的公安警察类特色数字资源进行了阐述。     

云计算在高校信息化建设中的应用研究

从支撑技术和IT服务模式两方面介绍云计算,并阐述云计算在高校信息化建设中所带来的节约投资成本、提供安全数据存储、提高资源共享水平、改善软件使用方式和为高校带来丰富应用等5种优势;认为高校应采用专用云与公用云相结合的混合云应用模式;并提出由基础设施层、基础设施服务层、平台服务层和应用服务层组成的高校专用云结构模型。