The Reality and Future of the Secure Mobile Cloud Computing (SMCC): Survey

Mobile communication and mobile computing has revolutionized the way subscribers across the globe leverage and use a variety of services on the go. Mobile devices have evolved from mere simple handheld mobile phones that enabled voice calls only a few years back to smartphone devices that enable the user to access applications and value-added services anytime, anyplace. All of these, together with the recent reigniting of cloud computing technology, has spearheaded into the opportunistic and economically viable Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) as the next innovative technology and ultimately a utility wave such as electricity or water. But this has created huge loopholes in facilitating reliable, scalable, performance oriented, safe, secure and auditable trusted services at affordable prices and profitability. Thus, this research proposal aims to create a fully-fledged Mobile Commerce-based Safe Mobile Cloud Computing (MCSMCC) framework to specifically accommodate Safe MCC (SMCC) with economic pricing models and e-trading schemes. As for the safety measures comprising of security, privacy, trust, identity management, audit and digital forensics among other related measures to suit SMCC, the objectives are to define and specify the necessary processes and protocols for secure e-trading, These objectives are further complimented by further defining and specifying SMCC pricing schemes that will be fair and equitable to users and vendors alike, and encourage critical mass market uptake and usage with confidence. Both of these central objectives will be experimented through simulation and prototyping to test and verify their purpose, effectiveness and efficiency.