Report Of SoftArc Engineering Ltd

Introduction

SoftArc Engineering Ltd is an Australian company that has its domain in civil engineering operations and activities. The company also has operations at a global scale covering Indonesia, Papua New Guinea to name a few countries. The latest decision taken by the company is to move its infrastructure to cloud and the document highlights some of the relevant details related to the move that is required to be made.

Approaches to Office Automation: Ad-Hoc Approach

The first approach that may be applied in SoftArc Engineering Ltd to automate its offices is the Ad Hoc Approach. It will be a flexible and task based approach which will be carried out as per the requirement and the component to be automated. The procedure that will be followed in this approach will be the execution of several iteration in which iteration will automate certain decided components of the office of the company. The methodology has been recommended in this case as it will bring out numerous benefits for the company. The stakeholders, clients, customers and end users will be involved in the process and the final result will therefore be free from any defects. Due to the ad-hoc nature, the approach will be value based which will mean that there will be no pre-defined procedures that will be required to be followed. Any changes in the implementation or requirements will be easily incorporated (Jatain, 2013).

Along with the advantages, there will be a few disadvantages in terms of costs as there may be hidden costs involved and also, the focus on the documentation of the activities will be very limited in this approach.

Pilot Approach

The second approach that may be applied in case of SoftArc Engineering Ltd has been recommended as the pilot approach. It will involve the contribution of a team of testers and experts that will validate and provide their response before the migration process is done. The entire delivery will be made once and at one go after a positive feedback is provided by the team of testers and experts. The development and implementation processes will be based upon the comments and response that is provided (Javadi, 2013).

Likelihood of the risks in terms of the presence of defects will be negligible in this case as the procedure will be validated by the experts themselves. Also, the experts will have a complete knowledge about the automated components and may act as trainers and mentors for the other employees to make them comfortable with the new components (Yaghoubi, 2014).

Pilot approach has a complete reliance on the selected group of testers and experts that puts the risk of a single point of failure.

Recommended Approach

After evaluating the advantages, drawbacks and features of both the ad-hoc and the pilot approach as stated above, it has been recommended that the approach that shall be selected and applied in case of SoftArc Engineering Ltd shall be the Ad-hoc approach for office automation. The reason behind the selection of this approach is that there may be sudden changes in the requirements that may be experienced in this case which will be handled well by the ad-hoc approach. Also, involvement of the clients and stakeholders will develop a higher level of connection and trust which will be missing in case of pilot and other approaches. It is because of these features of the ad-hoc approach that it has been recommended to be used for automating the offices of the company.

Locally Hosted Data Centre v/s IaaS Provider in Public Cloud

Critical Issues and Factors to be Considered

• A detailed analysis in terms of the needs and requirements of the components and features of cloud computing would be required that shall be incorporated in the infrastructure instead of going with the flow and adapt the unnecessary components as well.
• IaaS vendors and providers in the market are not limited to one or two; rather there are numerous providers in the market. Market analysis will play a major role in this case as it will be essential to understand the offering, advantages, disadvantages, risks and features of each of the vendors.
• Collaborations, compatibility and integration of the cloud components with the existing system components and features will be required to be done. Issues in any of these parameters may adversely impact the final performance and therefore these factors will play a significant role.
• Data management and storage will be essential as there will be huge data sets that will be involved and the issues with the data operations and storage will bring in a lot many risks and threats (Sahandi, 2012).
• Maintenance support after the delivery of the components shall also be considered as it will be necessary to provide the required support to the company post-production as well.
• Security components and features will be critical in this case as there are several security vulnerabilities associated with cloud computing and components. IaaS provider will be required to ensure that none of the security risks will take place and there will be measures available to deal with them.
• System qualities that will be required to be evaluated are:
  • It would be necessary to evaluate the performance of the components as it is an essential system quality that is required to be reflected and is also demanded by the end users.
  • Reliability of the information along with the components will also be one of the essential system quality and will be required to be incorporated
  • It would be necessary to evaluate the availability of the components as it is an essential system quality that is required to be reflected and is also demanded by the end users.
  • Adaptability of the system along with the components will also be one of the essential system quality and will be required to be incorporated.

IaaS v/s PaaS v/s SaaS

• SaaS

SaaS stands for Software as a Service and is a deployment model for cloud computing which has the following set of features that are offered to the users.  

• Easy web access for all the services
• Centralized control that enables easier management and tracking
• Lesser maintenance is involved
• Supreme level of integration capabilities will be provided (Sharma & Sood, 2011)

• PaaS

PaaS stands for Platform as a Service and is a deployment model for cloud computing which has the following set of features that are offered to the users. 

• Based upon the common standards and practices
• Level of usability is high in this case
• Multiple users can simultaneously work without compromise on performance
• Level of scalability is very high (Ashraf, 2014)

• IaaS

IaaS stands for Infrastrcture as a Service and is a deployment model for cloud computing which has the following set of features that are offered to the users. 

• Allows the usage for multiple users at the same time
• Allows dynamic scaling that enhances the scalability
• Can be availed on low costs
• Involves distributed resources

Recommended Model and Associated Reasons

IaaS is the model that has been recommended to the requirements and specification that are associated with SoftArc Engineering Ltd.

It has been recommended that the approach that shall be selected and applied in case of SoftArc Engineering Ltd shall be the Ad-hoc approach for office automation. The reason behind the selection of this approach is that there may be sudden changes in the requirements that may be experienced in this case which will be handled well by the ad-hoc approach. Also, involvement of the clients and stakeholders will develop a higher level of connection and trust which will be missing in case of pilot and other approaches. IaaS will adapt to the features of the ad-hoc approach easily (Rao, 2013).

The model will yield the following advantages for the organization.

• Allows the usage for multiple users at the same time
• Allows dynamic scaling that enhances the scalability
• Can be availed on low costs
• Involves distributed resources

Risks and Problems

• There is sharing of resources that is involved which may lead to several risks and vulnerabilities. Also, shared access may bring in many risks.
• Cost is varied and it may reach sky high in case of enhanced number of add-ons.
• Occurrence of security risks may lead to a number of legal obligations along with many of the regulatory issues as well.
• Violation of access controls may bring in many errors related to the authentication and authorization of the components (Gonzales, 2015).
• Ownership is one of the problems that is related to the IaaS model.

Countermeasures to Risk and Problems

Enhancement of the security infrastructure and mechanisms shall be done in terms of the basic and advanced security components.

There shall also be administrative controls that shall be applied to make sure that the risks and problems are avoided.

Conclusion

Cloud computing is one of the essential computing technologies that is required to be adapted in the organizations and the decision regarding the same has been taken by SoftArc Engineering Ltd. The approach that has been recommended for office automation is ad-hoc approach along with IaaS as the deployment model for the same. There are several advantages that will be offered to the organization with this model.

References

Ashraf, I. (2014). An Overview of Service Models of Cloud Computing. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from https://ijmcr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Paper18779-783.pdf

Ashraf, I. (2014). An Overview of Service Models of Cloud Computing. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from https://ijmcr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Paper18779-783.pdf

Gonzales, D. (2015). Cloud-Trust - a Security Assessment Model for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Clouds - IEEE Xplore Document. Ieeexplore.ieee.org. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7072526/?reload=true

Jatain, R. (2013). Different prospects of Office Automation Systems. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from https://ijcttjournal.org/Volume4/issue-3/IJCTT-V4I3P103.pdf

Javadi, M. (2013). Assessing Office Automation Effect on Performance Using Balanced Scorecard approach Case Study: Esfahan Education Organizations and Schools. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from https://hrmars.com/hrmars_papers/Assessing_Office_Automation_Effect_on_Performance_Using_Balanced_Scorecard_approach1.pdf

Rao, C. (2013). Cloud: Computing Services And Deployment Models. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from https://www.ijecs.in/issue/v2-i12/8%20ijecs.pdf

Sahandi, R. (2012). Cloud Computing from SMES Perspective: A Survey Based Investigation. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from https://jitm.ubalt.edu/XXIV-1/article1.pdf

Sharma, R., & Sood, M. (2011). Enhancing Cloud SAAS Development with Model Driven Architecture. International Journal On Cloud Computing: Services And Architecture, 1(3), 89-102. https://dx.doi.org/10.5121/ijccsa.2011.1307

Singh, S. (2012). Cost breakdown of Public Cloud Computing and Private Cloud Computing and Security Issues. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from https://airccse.org/journal/jcsit/0412csit02.pdf

Yaghoubi, N. (2014). Investigating the Effect of Office Automation on Organizational Excellence. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from https://hrmars.com/hrmars_papers/Investigating_the_Effect_of_Office_Automation_on_Organizational_Excellence.pdf