Key Factors Increasing Trust in Cloud Computing Applications in the Kingdom of Bahrain

Abstract

During recent years, cloud-computing applications have been increasing. However, with this increase there are many concerns that affect the adoption of these applications. One of these is the perceived trust of users. This research investigates the factors that influence perceived trust in cloud storage based applications in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Toward this aim, this research followed a quantitative research approach where the main research strategy is based on the results of a questionnaire. Through the questionnaire, a proposed model was tested with 178 cloud storage application users in order to identify factors affecting their trust of cloud storage applications. The results revealed that security and reliability both directly affect users' trust in cloud storage applications. At the same time, data location, backup and recovery, availability and cloud transparency all affect trust indirectly through security. The contribution of this research resides in proposing a new model of users' trust in cloud computing applications that can be added to other researchers' models in the field. In addition, the results of this research provide insights for the developers of cloud computing applications toward better perceived trust by users.