The document discusses the application of cloud computing in smart cities. It begins by defining cloud computing and smart cities. The research questions examine the power of cloud computing, Dubai's vision for smart cities, factors for successful smart city implementation, and security concerns with cloud computing. The methods section describes using secondary sources like books and articles for qualitative analysis. The results section addresses each research question in turn. The discussion elaborates further on some of the questions. The conclusion reflects on gaps in literature and recommends additional research methods. Overall, the document investigates how cloud computing can help achieve smart city objectives and addresses its role as a key smart cities technology pillar.

1. The Application of Cloud Computing in Smart Cities
Ahmad Alraisi, Bader Abdelqadir, Farouq Hassan, Mansoor Tayeb | CIN50
Higher Colleges of Technology | Dubai Men’s College
Introduction
In this research, we will discuss how cloud
computing can work to achieve the ultimate
objective of having a smart city, and why is this
emerging technology considered as one of the
main pillars under smart cities technology. To
know how those technologies linked together, we
have first to define each one of them to
understand the relationship between them. As
per Peter Mell and Timothy Grance (2011, p. 2),
“Cloud computing is a model for enabling
ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network
access to a shared pool of configurable computing
resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,
applications, and services) that can be rapidly
provisioned and released with minimal
management effort or service provider
interaction.” On the other hand, Business
Dictionary (2015), define smart cities as “A
developed urban area that creates sustainable
economic development and high quality of life by
excelling in multiple key areas; economy, mobility,
environment, people, living, and government.
Excelling in these key areas can be done so
through the strong human capital, social capital,
and/or ICT infrastructure.”
Research Questions
The research questions are focusing in Smart
city in general and in Dubai in specific. As well
RQ will cover the Cloud Computing power and
benefits. Moreover, we will explain the
challenges that Smart cities will create such as
information security and privacy.
Research Question # 1 (RQ1): What is the
power of Cloud Computing?
Research Question # 2 (RQ2) what is Dubai's
Vision in Smart Cities?
Research Question # 3 (RQ3): What are the
factors of successful implementation of Smart
Cities?
Research Question # 4 (RQ4): Security concerns
in Cloud Computing
Literature Review
We divide the literature review into three sections,
technical review of the technology, challenges, and
related technology. In technical review part, we
will talk about Cloud Computing and Smart Cities
technically. In challenges, we will talk about Cloud
Computing and business continuity. In addition to
Implementation of Smart Cities. Moreover, in
section three we believed that related technology
such as Big Data and Internet of Things are hot
topics that concern Smart Cities.
Methods
We Utilized the library books, articles, and journals
since our research is secondary research type
without using any samples to support our research
topics. We used qualitative analyses in our
research because “qualitative data are likely to be
characterized by their richness and fullness, based
on your opportunity to explore a subject in as real a
manner as is possible." (Saunders, Philip Lewis
Adrian Thornhil, 2012, p. 546).
The books we chose are related to Smart Cities
technology and cloud computing technology that
will improve our knowledge to support what we are
explaining. Since the books are from the college
library, we are assuming that it’s relatable since
almost all teachers are encouraging us to use the
college library for our research. We made sure that
the book we choose had an elaborate information
about smart cities and the use of cloud computing
in it.
Results
This section provides the results of the study. It
is divided by the different research questions.
Research Question # 1: What is the power of
Cloud Computing?
In this question covered the general idea of
cloud computing. We utilized various secondary
sources to address this research questions. The
source that was the most appropriate was from
Srinavsan (2011), in which he talked about types
of Cloud Computing services and. We will explain
the benefits of using cloud computing in more
details such as providing central management for
the services, providing ubiquity access and
control. In addition to the availability of the
services 24/7 to keep the business continues
without disruptions.
Research Question # 2: What is Dubai's Vision in
Smart Cities?
In this topic, we will talk about smart cities in
general and how this emerging technology
started. We will talk about Dubai smart cities
vision for 2020 and how this can shape the
business in Dubai.
Research Question # 3: What are the factors of
successful implementation of Smart Cities?
In this research question, we will look at
successful and failure implementation of Smart
Cities. We will focus in this topic about the Smart
Cities successful story in terms of using cloud
computing. On the other hand Smart Cities
failure in terms of bad using or not using cloud
computing to provide the services.
Research Question # 4: Security concerns in
Cloud Computing
In this topic talk about the information security
implication in Smart Cities. How the cloud
computing can help to reduce the risks. On the
other hand how cloud computing could secure
the services and privacy of Smart Cities data.
Discussion
DISCUSSION ON RQ1
Cloud Computing has a significant impact on the
technology and changed the life in many ways,
many studies stated Cloud Computing from
technical wise. However, few studies have focused
on its impact on everyday life. (Ferkoun, 2013).
Cloud computing impacts on different wises,
socially the technology is impacting on how
people are communicating and interacting with
each other, also the businesses get the benefits by
using data from social media platforms in
combination with cloud-based information
resources to get better insights on potential
services, innovations, and customer requirements.
(Ferkoun, 2013).
DISCUSSION ON RQ2
In March 2014, H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin
Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice-President, Prime
Minister and Ruler of Dubai launched the strategy
to transform Dubai to a smart city, this
announcement reflect one of the major milestone
in Dubai strategy 2021.
H.H Sheikh Mohammed explained why a smart
city is a need for Dubai by saying: “Smart City’s
main aim is to provide better connections and
increase cooperation between the emirate and its
residents. It promotes the use of government
facilities using the largest possible number of
smart applications.” (Dubai Silicon Oasis, 2015).
DISCUSSION ON RQ3
Smart Cities focuses on building fully connected
and integrated infrastructure that ensures easy
mobility for all residents and tourists and provides
easy access to all economic centers and social
services.
DISCUSSION ON RQ4
In smart cities, the people who use the services
are the customers and it is very important to make
them feel safe when they use your services and
here where security comes in first place.
Information security pillars are confidentiality,
integrity and availability.
Conclusion
During this research, we came across many resources
either online or library materials like books, which
has a very intense content related to smart cities.
But due to the shortage of time we had to choose the
resources that fit our research questions. We believe
that we could’ve use interview technique with smart
cities experts – if we had time – which will enhance
our research outcome.
There was a gap in the literature whereby there is
only a few resource that talks about Dubai as a smart
city and their plans of transformation. But we were
managed to extract some information’s from
newspaper articles that gave us a glance about how
Dubai want to be in the near future. On other hand,
we could highlight more in discussion about the
impact of cloud computing in society and economy
positively to show the importance role CC plays.
For future similar research, we recommend that the
searcher uses other research methods besides the
one we used – like interviews, survey, or discussion
groups, to come with a better outcomes and give this
topic the right focused that it deserve.
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Abstract
This research is about the Application of Cloud
Computing in Smart Cities, in this research we
are investigation the importance of using cloud
computing in smart cities. The method that we
used in this research is Qualitative and its
secondary research, the outputs of the research
are creating new opportunities, new challenges
to addressing global issues and leading to the
rapid development of new capabilities.
Eventually, the research will help to understand
the smart cities requirement along with the
importance of cloud computing.