ITC561 Cloud Computing1

Slide note: Cloud computing is the paradigm of information technology. It is utilized for allowing the global accessibility of bulk amount of system resources and various services, which can be easily provisioned with lesser managerial effort, over the Internet connection. Cloud computing can also be defined as the mode of data operation, with which storing, management and the manipulation of data is done easily. This also helps to deploy the several networks of software that are utilized to enable the centralized data storage. The other definition of cloud computing is that it is utilized in involving any type of Internet service delivery.

Slide 4: Concepts of Cloud Computing

Slide Note: Infrastructure as a Service: IaaS can be referred to various online services that help to provide application programming interfaces and are used for taking into consideration various lower level details. The data security or data partitioning are done with the help of IaaS.

Platform as a Service: It provides a specific online platform for all of the users for the purpose of performing various operations (Hashizume et al., 2013).

Software as a Service: It is the particular software licensing model that is used for the providing software to the users.

Slide 5: Deployment Models of Cloud

Slide Note: Public Cloud: The public cloud can be defined as the type of cloud that could be utilized by all users irrespective of their location. The employees of more than one organization can access to a public cloud.

Private Cloud: The private cloud could be defined as the typical type of cloud, which is utilized by only a restricted group of users. The example of this private cloud is that it can be accessed in only one particular organization.

Hybrid Cloud: Hybrid cloud can be defined as the typical type of cloud, which is the amalgamation of private and public clouds. It is expensive in comparison to the other clouds.

Community Cloud: This particular type of cloud can be defined as the specific cloud model that could be accessed in a restricted community only.

Slide 6: Cloud Advantages for Regional Gardens

Slide Note: Cloud computing has various important and significant advantages. Following are the various advantages of cloud computing for the Regional Gardens Ltd.

Scalability and Flexibility: This is the first advantage that helps to provide scalability and flexibility.

Disaster Recovery Planning: It helps to avoid disaster both manually and naturally.

Auto Updates of Software: Software is updates automatically (Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2016)

Incremented Collaboration: Helps in good collaboration.

Simple Accessibility: It helps in simple and easy accessibility.

High Security: It is extremely safe and secured.

Slide 7: Cloud Architectures

Slide Note: The cloud architectures can be sub divided into three major cloud service models:

IaaS: It provides virtualized infrastructure to the users.

PaaS: It provides online platform to its users (Almorsy, Grundy & Müller, 2016).

SaaS: It provides software delivery model to its users.

Slide 8: Infrastructure Selection

Slide Note: Advantages of Three Service Models:

1. IaaS: It is highly secured, efficient and effective.
2. PaaS: Extremely cost effective and flexible.

• SaaS: Cheapest of the three and scalable (Hashizume et al., 2013).

Taking into consideration of the three service models, IaaS is the best suitable infrasturcture for Regional Gardens.

Slide 9: Current Infrastructure in Regional Gardens

Slide 10: Process to Move in Cloud

Slide note: Regional Gardens Ltd. should be following typical processes for the movement of web infrastructure in cloud. The steps are given below:

1. Managing changes: They should be able to manage all the changes within the organization.
2. Knowing about loud Computing: The entire concept of cloud computing should be understood by them perfectly.

• Checking for the Software Licenses: The software licenses should be checked properly (Fernando, Loke & Rahayu, 2013).

1. Checking Problems in Data Security: The data protection should be checked significantly.
2. Checking the migration costs: Many times the migration costs can exceed the budget and thus this should be checked properly.
3. Keeping track of Connectivity Costs: The connectivity costs should be checked properly.

The company of Regional Gardens Ltd. has decided to move their office automation system to cloud. Two types of approaches are possible for this.

Ad hoc approach can be defined as the specific approach that is utilized for the purpose of office automation (Hashizume et al., 2013). It is an unstructured approach and never follows any particular process. There are various important benefits of this ad hoc approach. The first advantage is the speed. It is extremely fast and does not take up huge time to complete and thus can be claimed as the fastest of all. The second advantage of this approach is that it has the feature of working with excess security. The office automation system with the ad hoc approach in any organization can complete the work with safety and security and thus can be termed as the most secured approach (Manvi & Shyam, 2014). The third benefit for the ad hoc approach is the cost effectiveness. It is extremely cost effective and can be easily afforded by all organizations.

Although there are various advantages, ad hoc approach does comprise of several disadvantages. The first and the most dangerous drawback of the ad hoc approach is that it never follows any process (Almorsy, Grundy & Müller, 2016). Due to this unstructured execution, often various organizations do not want to take up this approach. The second drawback of this particular approach is that it is very tough to implement it.

The second approach for office automation system of Regional Gardens Ltd. is the structured approach (Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2016). The main advantages of this particular approach include following of processes. Due to this process following, the structured approach is accepted by various companies. The second important advantage of the approach is that t is extremely easy to implement.

The major disadvantages of the structured approach include wrong data and slow approach (Dinh et al., 2013). It has been noticed that this particular provides erroneous data most of the time and even the overall processes are completed extremely slowly.  

The recommendation regarding office automation system approach for the Regional Gardens Ltd. is Ad hoc. Although, ad hoc approach is extremely complicated to implement; however it is the most effective amongst the two. Thus the recommended approach is ad hoc.

Regional Gardens Ltd. is required to migrate their web infrastructure to cloud. Two options are available. They are the Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service.

Various differences are present between PaaS and IaaS. Following are the differences between PaaS and IaaS.

Due to the security issues in Platform as a Service, Regional Gardens Ltd. should not opt for this service. In spite of incurring higher costs, IaaS is the best solution for their problem. The web infrastructure should be migrated to the infrastructure as a Service.

Regional Gardens Ltd. has decided to shift their SharePoint 2010 software to a cloud model. The most important advantage of the cloud model is that the data is secured and stored perfectly. There are three types of cloud models: Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service.

There are several important differences between the Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service (Almorsy, Grundy & Müller, 2016). Following are the differences between them in a tabular form.

The recommended cloud model for the Regional Gardens Ltd. is the infrastructure as a Service or IaaS. It would be the best as well as the most suitable model of cloud for the organization since it comprises of several important benefits. While migration of data to the cloud, the first concern that strikes every company, is the security. IaaS is the perfect answer for this type of concern (Pahl, 2015). It would be the best cloud model in comparison to all the others. This the major benefit of this cloud. Moreover, it helps to reduce the infrastructure expense and thus help in cost savings. The third important factor in IaaS is that it is very flexible as well as scalable. Moreover, the migration is done with excess speed.  

However, few issues are present with this recommended model of Infrastructure as a Service. These issues often create problem for the users since they are not willing to compromise with the quality of the model. The first problem is the cost. It is very costly and the maintenance cost is also high. Very small organizations cannot afford this easily as it strikes in their budget (Kavis, 2014). For solving this problem, cheap cloud providers are to be selected for implementation of the cloud. This would reduce the overall cost and thus the budget would be successfully met. The second issue with the recommended model of Infrastructure as a Service Infrastructure as a Service is that vendors can often steal the confidential information and thus confidentiality could be lost. The solution to this problem is that the selection of only trustworthy vendors.

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

Dinh, H. T., Lee, C., Niyato, D., & Wang, P. (2013). A survey of mobile cloud computing: architecture, applications, and approaches. Wireless communications and mobile computing, 13(18), 1587-1611.

Fernando, N., Loke, S. W., & Rahayu, W. (2013). Mobile cloud computing: A survey. Future generation computer systems, 29(1), 84-106.

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.

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

Manvi, S. S., & Shyam, G. K. (2014). Resource management for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) in cloud computing: A survey. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 41, 424-440.

Pahl, C. (2015). Containerization and the paas cloud. IEEE Cloud Computing, 2(3), 24-31.

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