ITC561 Cloud Computing

1.DTS Engineering, a local engineering company has engaged you as a consultant to advise them on the use of Cloud computing in their daily operations. They have a series of staff that work on different projects in different parts of the country and are looking to provide them with office automation, such as email, word processing and spreadsheet capabilities, as well as online storage for their files. What are the critical points, other than cost, that you need to consider in order to prepare your advice for this company? Your report to DTS should be about 2 pages.

2. DTS Engineering is considering using an IaaS provider to host some of its computing infrastructure. They have asked you to prepare a report for them that describes the difference between locally hosted computing infrastructure consisting of servers, storage and network the DTS data centre, and similar infrastructure provided using an IaaS provider. What are the critical points, other than cost, that an enterprise would need to consider in choosing to migrate services and storage from local hosted infrastructure to an IaaS service provider. Your report to DTS should be about 2 pages.

3. DTS engineering is also considering whether to use PaaS or SaaS to provide services to its employees. DTS has deployed Microsoft Exchange 2012 in its data centre to provide email services to all 300 employees. It has also deployed Microsoft SharePoint 2013 from its data centre as a collaboration and document management tool for its employees. The SharePoint 2013 instance has been extensively customised to suit DTS’s needs and also Runs Project Central, their Project Management tool as a separate application from within SharePoint. All employees have the Microsoft Office 2013 suite of office automation products installed on their respective desktops or laptops. DTS want you to report on:
1. Should DTS move to a SaaS provider in order to provide email and office automation services for their employees What are the advantages and disadvantages of moving to a SaaS provider for these services.
2. DTS would like to move its SharePoint 2013 instance to the cloud to make it more accessible, particularly to its users in remote locations. What is the best model (IaaS, PaaS or SaaS) for DTS to use for this service Choose the model that you consider most appropriate for this service and discuss why the model you chose is the most appropriate for the SharePoint service.

DTS Engineering is a company that is planning to integrate cloud computing on their daily operations. It is needed as the different group of staffs working in different places and projects need an integrated platform in order to access and manage the critical information. The daily working tools of online office automation services such as word, spreadsheet and emails are needed to be integrated in their daily operations. This extensive task needs a proper feasibility analysis and a proper project plan. In order to make this system work, every workers of the company are needed to be provided with the adequate training for understanding the new operations. Implementation of this new system indicates the changing operations of the company. Therefore, if it is not done correctly, it may lead to a costly disruption and major cost overruns to the business, which the company certainly cannot afford (Paraiso et al., 2012).  

 Another critical point is that is needed to be considered is selection of a proper system that would help in automating the different operations of the company. Apart from this, having a clear requirement and expectations about the system that will be delivered is another major critical point that is to be considered in implementation of a new system.

The major aim of this project is to automate the inefficient and the ineffective processes. It is therefore important to reexamine and streamlining the workflows within the company so as to understand how the new system will work.

Another critical point that is needed to be considered apart from the cost of implementing the system is the time that is allocated for implementing the work. The integration of a completely new system in a very short time may yield negative results. Proper time should be allocated for analyzing, designing, planning, implementing and testing the situation. This will further help in implementing the new system in an efficient way.

Another critical point that is needed to be considered while preparing advice for the company, implementing proper training methods so the users can implement the new system without any problem.

The online storage of files is a critical issue as it is important to maintain the confidentiality of the files apart from ensuring the fact the files will be easily accessible by the users even in remote locations (Wei et al., 2014).

The storage of important files in the cloud is an effective option; however, it is associated with a number of risks, the major one being the loss of data or data theft. It is therefore essential for the organization to choose a proper cloud environment, which would be beneficial for the company. A hybrid cloud environment can be a solution as it ensures the proper security of the files stored and can be easily accessed by the authenticated members. It is important for the company to decide, which members can access the files. Only the authenticated members would be given the permission to access and modify the data stored online (Yang & Jia, 2013). Therefore, ensuring proper security of the information system on which the files would be stored is essential to consider.

Migrating to IaaS infrastructure 

DTS engineering is considering to use IaaS service provider for hosting different computing infrastructure. It is a better option in comparison to the locally hosted computing infrastructure as IaaS provides virtualized resources over internet. It is a basic layer of the cloud-computing model where the service provider provides the hardware, while the files and data is managed by the client (Kavis, 2014).  It will therefore be beneficial for the company to move to the IaaS infrastructure since there is no risk about the loss or data theft.

The critical points that is needed to be considered while moving migrating all the operations and services of DTS engineering from local hosted to IaaS includes, understanding how it works and understanding the time and requirements for implementing this task.

Apart from the cost, it is essential for the company to analyze which cloud environment would be suitable for data transfer. Choosing a right cloud environment is an important step on the cloud migration part. All three cloud environment of public, private and hybrid cloud offers all the benefits and therefore, it is important to choose a model that meets the purpose of migration. Public cloud offers a highly scalable environment and is a cost effective solution as well (Garrison, Kim & Wakefield, 2012).). However, the public cloud environment is not secure due to the lack of control in its accessibility. Private cloud on the other hand provides a more on premise environment; however, it is not a feasible solution for DTS engineering sure to its limited access.  The mixture of public and private cloud environment, which is hybrid cloud is recommended for the company to adopt a hybrid cloud environment for migration (Hashizume et al., 2013).

Furthermore, it is important for the organization to evaluate the effort and the resources needed for integrating the new cloud application. Data conversion is an important issue that a company needs to consider before shifting all the files to the cloud based application. DTS engineering must has a detailed understanding of the data requirements for the cloud-based application (Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2016). This is a critical point because in order to implement the system in a proper way, proper data conversion and data transfer should be carried out.

While implementing this cloud-based application, it is a challenge to ensure that all the information security and proper control on access management is applied to the information-system for eliminating the risk of misuse of the data stored in the application (Almorsy, Grundy & Müller, 2016).

Migration of the data to a cloud environment should be in compliance with the internal policies and external regulations and therefore, it is essential for the company to know how will the data being stored in the cloud environment be secured (Galante & de Bona, 2012).  

Implementation of the cloud in daily business operations helps in streamlining the different processes within an organization. This is an intensive task and therefore several points are to be considered before implementing the system. Reliability of the application and data is to be ensured before implementation of cloud into the system (Arora, Parashar & Transforming, 2013).

SaaS or PaaS or IaaS

3.1. Should DTS move to SaaS? 

DTS is considering the use of PaaS or SaaS for providing services to the staffs. The company uses Microsoft Exchange 2012 to provide email services to its employees. Now it is important to evaluate whether DTS should move to a SaaS provider for updating the office automation services that is used by the staffs. The disadvantages and advantages of migration to a SaaS environment are discussed below-

The advantages of using SaaS (Software as a service) are as follows (Jadeja & Modi, 2012)-

1. SaaS generally offers a subscription based service and therefore, there are no up-front license fees. This helps in implementing SaaS into business at a much lower cost. Furthermore, the service provider manages the IT infrastructure of the running software, which helps in reducing the cost of hardware and software maintenance.
2. The SaaS application is easier to implement as it is already installed and configured in the cloud. This furthermore reduces the amount of delay in the deployment of this new system
3. All the software and hardware updates are taken care by the service provider and therefore, the company has less responsibility in managing the system.
4. SaaS application can be easily accessed by the employees of the company, as an employee can access the application with the help of a web browser and an internet. Almost all the employees of the organization uses Smartphone and therefore, it would not be a problem in remotely accessing the files from SaaS.
5. Scalability is another major advantage of SaaS, as it offers flexible option of subscription.

The disadvantages of SaaS are as follows-

1.  One of the major problems with SaaS service is lack of control. The in house office automation services provide a higher degree of control of the files and data. While in SaaS, every clients need to have a latest version of the software and therefore, the client has no control on the software.
2. The files and data of the DTS should be stored in a secured manner, which will allow the authorized users the access to the stored data. Access management is a major issue in SaaS and therefore it is important to evaluate whether this application will meet the requirement of DTS (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012).
3. Internet plays a huge role in SaaS application and therefore, if the speed of the internet is low, the whole application might run at much slower speed.

3.2. The appropriate cloud service: IaaS

DTS is planning to transfer its sharePoint 2013 to a cloud environment for increasing its access. For that, IaaS cloud infrastructure would be appropriate to consider, as it offers a number of benefits. The advantages of adapting to IaaS infrastructure are as follows-

1. IaaS or infrastructure as a service is a cost effective solution as it has considerably lower infrastructure cost. The organization has no responsibility of ensuring the uptime and maintenance of installed equipments or replacement of the equipments, which are not in use. IaaS considerably economizes an organization, which no longer requires to buy extra capacity during the business spikes. The pay as you go model offered by IaaS offers a cost saving solution to the organization by paying only for the capacity needed at a given point of time. It further helps in avoiding a large amount of annual charge by reducing the utilization of the bandwidth.  
2. The IaaS model provides scalability and flexibility in data management. The IaaS model can be scaled up and down in response to the requirements of the employees.  Apart from this, the IaaS model have latest and most powerful storage that can be utilized in moving its SharePoint 2013 instance in the cloud.
3.  The IaaS provides optimal support for DR, BC and data availability. The disaster Recovery or DR plan available in IaaS is cost effective. In case a disaster strikes, all the employees of the company can access the same infrastructure that they have been using to access files with the help of an internet connection (Chen & Zhao, 2012).
4.  If this service is chosen, DTS will have a full control over the files and data that is stored in the model. DTS will have a full control over the system that simplifies its integration with the enterprise infrastructure.

References 

Almorsy, M., Grundy, J., & Müller, I. (2016). An analysis of the cloud computing security problem. arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01107.

Arora, R., Parashar, A., & Transforming, C. C. I. (2013). Secure user data in cloud computing using encryption algorithms. International journal of engineering research and applications, 3(4), 1922-1926.

Chen, D., & Zhao, H. (2012, March). Data security and privacy protection issues in cloud computing. In Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (ICCSEE), 2012 International Conference on (Vol. 1, pp. 647-651). IEEE.

Galante, G., & de Bona, L. C. E. (2012, November). A survey on cloud computing elasticity. In Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC), 2012 IEEE Fifth International Conference on (pp. 263-270). IEEE.

Garrison, G., Kim, S., & Wakefield, R. L. (2012). Success factors for deploying cloud computing. Communications of the ACM, 55(9), 62-68.

Hashizume, K., Rosado, D. G., Fernández-Medina, E., & Fernandez, E. B. (2013). An analysis of security issues for cloud computing. Journal of Internet Services and Applications, 4(1), 5.

Jadeja, Y., & Modi, K. (2012, March). Cloud computing-concepts, architecture and challenges. In Computing, Electronics and Electrical Technologies (ICCEET), 2012 International Conference on (pp. 877-880). IEEE.

Kavis, M. J. (2014). Architecting the cloud: design decisions for cloud computing service models (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS). John Wiley & Sons.

Paraiso, F., Haderer, N., Merle, P., Rouvoy, R., & Seinturier, L. (2012, June). A federated multi-cloud PaaS infrastructure. In Cloud Computing (CLOUD), 2012 IEEE 5th International Conference on (pp. 392-399). IEEE.

Rittinghouse, J. W., & Ransome, J. F. (2016). Cloud computing: implementation, management, and security. CRC press.

Wei, L., Zhu, H., Cao, Z., Dong, X., Jia, W., Chen, Y., & Vasilakos, A. V. (2014). Security and privacy for storage and computation in cloud computing. Information Sciences, 258, 371-386.

Yang, K., & Jia, X. (2013). An efficient and secure dynamic auditing protocol for data storage in cloud computing. IEEE transactions on parallel and distributed systems, 24(9), 1717-1726.

Zissis, D., & Lekkas, D. (2012). Addressing cloud computing security issues. Future Generation computer systems, 28(3), 583-592.