Cloud Computing : Opportunities And Strategy

Introduction

Cloud Computing is something that every company is trying to get their hands on and also trying to implement it on their infrastructure so that they can work more efficiently and this will help in doing their task more easily. Cloud Computing also helps in presenting their data in a more unique and proper way. This helps their employees to work even faster and with this, they can save their data and can also access their data from any part of the world. Sharing of information is also quite easy as the opposite party just needs to download the files (Almorsy, Grundy & Müller 2016).

The following article discusses about the use of cloud computing and how SoftArc is implementing it in their own company and it highlights the points that the company needs to consider before implementing it.

• Accessing the files is possible from anywhere and anytime.
• Integration with previous solutions should exist.

Major benefits and issues regarding using office automation

This feature is very much required for the civil engineers as with this feature enabled they can get their information without any delays from the files that they already uploaded or created. After creation of their plan, all they need to do is to upload the file and they can share this file with anyone across the world and the biggest ease of having this is that they do not have to carry all these files with them all time (Almorsy, Grundy & Müller 2016). With this, information can be shared also readily.

Another feature is that it should be well integrated with all the previous solutions so that the engineers can get go back to their previous solutions. Even if they need to make some changes to their solutions and review it back, it should be available to the engineers. If it is not integrated, then the engineers need to make the whole plan or solution from the scratch which take a whole lot of time and this will put a financial pressure over the company too (Hashizume et al. 2013).

Office Automation is very much appropriate for the civil engineers as this is fully cloud based which helps them to save their files over the cloud and they can access it from anywhere. It should be able to provide full security to the users so that the file does not get stolen and also users should be able to easily access these files.

Different types of Service Providers

Cloud Hosting Servers are the servers which are basically provided by the service providers and it is mainly operated from other infrastructure which is controlled by a third party. In this, they are responsible to make any sort of changes or make an update to the system so that the users can use them with ease whereas in Locally Hosted Servers, it is a set up that is made by the company itself within their premise (Hashizume et al. 2013). For this to make happen, the company need to install everything that is required for the cloud setup and if any future update comes, they need to install it from the beginning. There are certain benefits and advantage of using Locally Hosted Servers and Cloud Based Servers which are:

Security becomes the biggest concerns for any organization as their main goal is to safeguard their company information from the prying eyes. For this, locally hosted servers are considered the best as with this the company can get full control over their data and the data remains within the infrastructure only and the company can also even monitor who is looking into their data and who is trying to access those data. This is not possible with the cloud based servers as in this, all the data is in a scattered form and the data is out in the open so it can be viewed by anyone (Hashizume et al. 2013). With this, the company has got no control over their data.

The second thing that any company sees is the Accessibility and for this, cloud based servers are considered the best as they are much superior and they help in enhancing the data and it also helps in greatly improving the ability so that users can reach out to their data (Othman, Madani & Khan 2014). It is also quite useful when there is a need to search for any particular data and this feature is not possible with the servers which are installed locally within the organization.

Cost is the third factor that a company needs to consider while choosing the cloud technology and for this Cloud based Servers are the best as it is already installed so there is no extra cost for installation and in case of locally hosted server, the company needs to set up the whole system within their organization and it requires maintenance also time to time which is not the case for cloud based servers (Sanaei et al. 2014). Another problem is that if there is any update, then the company need not to worry about installing it as it is totally over the service providers to install the updates but in case of locally hosted servers, the company needs to install the updates from their own and by doing so they need to update the whole system from the beginning and by doing so there might be some data loss (Wei et al. 2014).

Factors needs to be taken care by SoftArc

There are various factors that SoftArc needs to consider while moving to cloud service providers with the help of IaaS.

• Location is the first thing that the company needs to consider as it is very important for the company to deal with customer satisfaction so they should choose a service provider whose data center is close to users so that they can reduce the latency and they can deal better with their users more efficiently and get to know more from them (Sadiku, Musa & Momoh 2014).
• API is the second thing that the company needs to check with their service providers and they should opt for the service providers which is having strong API because having strong API will help the company to control every aspect of the cloud and also having strong API will let the company to treat the whole infrastructure as a code (Sanaei et al. 2014).
• Auto-Scaling is the next thing that the company should prioritize while choosing their service providers as this will help them to have less deviation when it comes to traffic and this also helps in maintaining the load balance. It also helps in analyzing and monitoring the overall of the company by keeping a close watch on any incoming traffic.
• The last thing that the company needs to consider is the Architecture as the company needs to be in constant communication with different servers and all these communications should be maintained well secure (Sadiku, Musa & Momoh 2014).

Main difference between IaaS, SaaS and PaaS

Platform as a Service (PaaS) is considered the lowest of all three known cloud services and it is basically used for software development and deployment. It is generally a server side application and helps in providing a working environment where all the software related things such as installation, managing and up-gradation of the software takes place (Hashem et al. 2015). It is also useful when it comes to reducing the cost of the licensing software. It also helps in virtualization which gives a clear idea about the development and deployment of the software (Sadiku, Musa & Momoh 2014).

Software as a Service (SaaS) basically works over the old client model of software where the web browsers are given the access to interact with the servers. It is the most common form of service that is currently available for the users by the service providers. While using SaaS, third parties are given the responsibility with the development of the software (Di Spaltro, Polvi & Welliver 2016). The main advantage of using SaaS is that it helps in reducing the cost for the development of the software that includes installation, managing and upgrading the software and also it helps in reducing the cost for licensing the software (Arora, Parashar & Transforming 2013).

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is considered to the top of the service that is currently available. It mainly comprises of automated and scalable resources which comes in built with the cloud storage and network facility and is readily available to the users on demand. The main advantage of using IaaS is that with this, clients can directly access these servers and storage. It also helps in virtualization by creating a “Virtual Data Center”. IaaS is also flexible in nature and it also helps in deployment of automated servers, processing power, storage and also helps with networking (Arora, Parashar & Transforming 2013). It also helps in web scale deployments and also helps with SaaS and PaaS.

SharePoint using Cloud Services

SaaS and PaaS are considered to be the appropriate cloud services when it comes to SharePoint as it a web based application so with the help of SaaS, it can give access to the web browsers which will help them to run it on the servers. It also helps in software development and deployment and also helps in reducing the cost while performing those actions. PaaS helps in developing applications on the SharePoint (Bahrami & Singhal 2015). Being a web service makes the experience even more pleasant.

There are various problems while implementing these services. The first one is that the user needs an internet connection all the time while working with these services as there is no option for offline working. Before choosing any service provider, they should make sure that the service provider is providing high speed internet connectivity. The second big problem is of data threat as on using cloud based servers, the data is out in the open and anyone can view this information. So to avoid this problem, the service providers should try to encrypt these data all throughout the time (Garg, Versteeg & Buyya 2013). Using cloud based servers also takes the control away from the company to monitor their data so before choosing any cloud based servers, they should do a deep research over them and about their services. Last issue is that they should choose a service provider whose data center is close to the users so that the latency can be reduced and they can be in constant touch with their customers (Di Spaltro, Polvi & Welliver 2016).

Conclusion

Cloud Computing becoming an integral part for SoftArc as with cloud computing, they can process huge sum of information within few minutes and it supports multi processing from different systems which makes it even more faster. The data that are stored over the cloud are strongly encrypted and if any unauthorized access takes place, the data might get corrupted and it may be of no use then. The main advantage of using these cloud computing is that files can be access from anywhere in the world and also it can shared to any part without any delay. Cloud computing also helps in by providing features like Scalability, Robust and is mainly Task Centric and it is a very powerful tool to work with who knows it true power.

Reference

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Di Spaltro, D., Polvi, A., & Welliver, L. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,501,329. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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