28 Sep In this project, you will make narrated presentation to convince the BallotOnline management of the value of migrating the organization’s existing IT infrastructure and services to
In this project, you will make narrated presentation to convince the BallotOnline management of the value of migrating the organization's existing IT infrastructure and services to a public cloud. You will learn about cloud computing technology and services and how organizations can take advantage of this trend.Your supervisor, Sophia, BallotOnline's director of information technology, has tasked you with creating a presentation that will convince the executives that using cloud-based computing to accommodate Ballot Online future growth rather than trying to expand the current infrastructure will help the company do business faster and at lower cost while conserving IT resources. Question: you will prepare your presentation for the Ballot Online executives. This presentation should present them with a compelling business case and cover the benefits and possible drawbacks of adopting cloud infrastructure, data on cloud economics, and a demo of some basic cloud capabilities. Your presentation will include an executive summary along with the following steps:
- Overview of cloud computing
- summary of service and deployment models
- summary of cloud compute and storage infrastructure components
- advantages and disadvantages
- economic analysis
- IT business requirements (provide a concise description of what each bullet should ensure)
- SWOT analysis
Please use power point to answer the question and add references
A Move To The Cloud
Benefits And Possible Drawbacks
BallotOnline
Executive Summary
Proposed move to a cloud computing architecture.
Drawbacks of continuing the traditional datacenter model.
Overview of cloud computing architecture.
Advantages & disadvantages of cloud computing architecture.
Economic implications to the organization.
Organizational IT business requirements.
SWOT analysis.
– This presentation is centered around the proposed move of ballotonline services to a cloud computing architecture model.
As we are all well aware of the massive growth in the company and our options of expanding our IT infrastructure to meet the new demands.
We have between expanding our local datacenters and eventually building more, or moving all IT infrastructure to the cloud.
Expanding the local datacenters will cost more as we have to factor in capital expenditure, which is not a factor when we move to the cloud.
The only common denominator between both models is operating expenditure, which is still much cheaper as compared to maintaining & expanding our local datacenters.
Considering our current IT budget of 10% of total budget, and also 1% decrease yearly for the next 5 years, the only way we can sustain that is if we move to the cloud.
This presentation will give a brief overview of cloud computing architecture, highlight the benefits of moving to the cloud, point out a few drawbacks and concerns, its economic implication to the company, satisfaction of our IT business requirements, and finally an overview of a SWOT analysis.
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Cloud Computing Overview
Easy access to data, services & applications over the internet.
No need to build, maintain or manage physical servers locally.
Virtualization technology.
Pay for only what is consumed. Storage, compute, etc.
No upfront cost to procure resources or infrastructures.
99.9% availability.
In its simple form, cloud computing can be defined as an internet-based computing model that allows the use of virtual network servers to manage, maintain, process and store data. It leverages the internet to access a shared pool of computing resources such as storage, processing power and memory, which is used to provide access to data, applications and services from any internet enabled device.
Due to its internet based architecture and access to a shared pool of physical computing resources, there is no need for the organization to build, maintain or manage physical servers locally. This would be provided and maintained by the cloud provider, hence the responsibility of all that is transferred to the cloud services provider.
The cloud architecture is built using what is known as virtualization technology, which relies on the use of software to simulate hardware functionality and create a virtual computer system.
The subscription model is a pay as you go and what you use. It is like subscribing for an electric service, you only pay for what you use without an upfront payment.
The cloud is designed in such a way that it provides 99% availability. The cloud providers datacenters are spread out geographically in such a manner that an issue occurring in a region doesn’t spread to other regions. If services are configured with high availability and replication, the cloud architecture automatically fails over to a working region or availability zone.
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Cloud Deployment Models
Private cloud – dedicated solely for an organization use.
Public cloud – shared across many organizations / users and delivered via the internet.
Hybrid cloud – the use of both public and private cloud models.
Multi cloud – the use of multiple public cloud providers, mostly for business continuity and disaster recovery.
Private cloud refers to any cloud solution that is dedicated for use by a single organization. Computing resources are not shared in this model. The datacenter can be located on-premises or managed by a 3rd party vendor and resources are delivered via a secure private network. The goal of a private cloud is not sharing computing resources with other customers and it gives organizations more control over the resources.
Public cloud is the most popular cloud computing model. IT services are delivered via the internet and resources are shared amongst multiple organizations and users. It offers vast choices in terms of solutions and computing resources to address the growing needs of organizations of all sizes. Popular public cloud providers are Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure & Google cloud.
Hybrid cloud combines the private and public cloud functionality and solutions. A common use case example is when an organization uses their private cloud environment for their IT workloads and use the public cloud to accommodate occasional spike in resource usage.
Multi cloud solution is the use of multiple public cloud providers. A common use case is for business continuity or disaster recovery. If provider A has a general outage, organizations can switch to provider B as a backup solution. It is better than having two physical locations popularly known as hot and cold sites.
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Cloud Services Delivery Models
Infrastructure as a service – IAAS – Storage, compute, processing power, GPU.
Platform as a service – PAAS – Application development framework.
Software as a service – SAAS – On-demand software.
Infrastructure as a service is also known as cloud infrastructure services, it provides organizations and end users with cloud-based alternatives to on-premise physical infrastructure, there by allowing organizations to purchase resources on-demand, instead of the more costly venture of having to buy and manage hardware.
Platform as a service provides the required platform or framework for software and application developers. This helps them necessary tools needed to build apps and it is delivered via the internet, instead of locally.
Software as a service is the most consumed public cloud service. This service makes software available to end users over the internet, and it is mostly subscription based. They are typically ready-to-use and run from a users’ web browser, which allows businesses to skip any additional downloads or application installations.
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Compute & Storage Components
Compute comprises of processing power, memory, & networking.
Storage holds data on servers and can be accessible with any internet enabled device.
– Compute is a generic term that is used to describe processing power, memory, networking and other resources required for the computational success of any program. Compute resources are measurable quantities of compute power that can be requested, allocated, and consumed for computing activities.
– Storage can also be regarded as a component of compute but it is often talked about separately as compute can be de-allocated or de-coupled and still have storage services in use by the organization or users. In essence, storage can be consumed independently of other cloud computing resources.
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Advantages of Cloud Infrastructure
Quick & easy deployment.
Efficiency and cost reduction.
Highly scalable.
Business continuity & disaster recovery.
Easier team collaboration.
Massive storage capacity.
To mention a few advantages of cloud computing infrastructure
It is very quick and easy to deploy resources and applications in the cloud than in a traditional datacenter. With a few clicks, a fully working server can be deployed within minutes. In a traditionally managed datacenter, it would take a lot more time for hardware resources to be procured and configured to suit organizational needs.
The cost of procurement of hardware resources in a traditional datacenter environment is very high and this is not a factor in a cloud infrastructure. Capital expenses are eliminated with a cloud architecture, only operational expenses are considered, and this is even still cheaper as compared to maintaining a traditional datacenter.
The cloud is highly scalable in the sense that if during peak periods, there is a need to scale up in resources, the cloud has an auto scaling feature that adds resources as needed or if consumption exceeds a set threshold. Also, this feature removes resources when resource consumption reduces.
Due to the high availability nature of the cloud architecture, it can be leveraged to implement a business continuity and disaster recovery plan. A multi-cloud approach is the best cloud model for such implementation.
Teams residing in various geographical regions can collaborate easily and manage tasks effectively with the adoption of a cloud computing architecture.
The storage capacity that can be derived from a cloud computing architecture can be said to be unlimited. Although the more storage capacity consumed, the more expensive it gets. Regardless, it would be cheaper than any on-prem storage solution, considering capital expense, maintenance and other datacenter factors that requires operational expense.
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Disadvantages of Cloud Infrastructure
Internet connectivity dependency.
Vendor lock-in.
Limited control.
3rd party security issues.
One huge dependency of a public cloud computing model is its reliant on always-on internet access. If there is an outage with the organization’s ISP, all cloud-based resource, application and data would not be accessible. A possible solution to this is to have a primary and backup ISP and a failover procedure.
Some services in the cloud requires a vendor lock in agreement, especially if the cloud vendor is using a proprietary hardware or software to render this service. This is a disadvantage as it doesn’t mostly support portability to a different cloud vendor or on-premise solution, in the case the organization wants to opt-out of the service.
Utilizing a public cloud solution is accepting the fact that the organization has limited or no control of where the data is stored physically or where the hardware is located geographically. This might cause jurisdictional issues for some organizations.
With not knowing the exact location data is stored in the cloud environment, this comes with its own data security risks as well. When it comes to data purging, most organizations like to shred storage devices to completely remove the risk of data remanence, in a cloud architecture, customers do not have access to the physical data storage devices, hence this risk is something that would be lived with for sensitive data.
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Economic Implications
Current budget constraints.
Capital expense.
Operational expense.
Total cost of ownership.
The current IT budget which was established by the executive leadership team shows that not more than 10% of total projected revenue would be allocated and there is also a 5-year plan of reducing the IT budget by 1% every year, reaching a goal of no more than 5% of the total revenue in the 5th year. As the budget shrinks, it is also proposed that the IT infrastructure grows from the current 800 physical servers in 4 datacenters to about 2000 servers across 10 datacenters by year 5
In a cloud architecture model, the first form of cost savings comes from the subtraction of capital expenses. The cost of datacenter hardware purchases is something to be factored in for a traditional datacenter environment. This is not the case in a cloud environment, as the cloud provider takes care of that. Considering our current fiscal year budget, $4 million was allocated to capital expenses and $6 million was allocated to colocation fees and other operating expenses. The organization will automatically be saving $4 million in capital expense with a move to the cloud, as the cloud provider will be responsible for procuring all the datacenter hardware
Operational expense applies to both a cloud architecture and a traditional datacenter architecture. This is the money spent on maintenance and cloud subscription for services consumed by the organization.
According to VMware on AWS Total Cost Of Ownership calculator, it will cost approximately $60 million to run 800 servers for 3 years in a traditional datacenter, and it will cost about $5 million to run the same number of servers in the cloud environment for the same duration. Doing the math and putting into consideration the increase in number of physical servers from 800 to 2000 and 1% decrease in yearly budget for the next 5 years, we would not be able to expand and maintain the cost of running our infrastructure in a traditional datacenter. According to the numbers, from the VMware report, we would only be spending about 50% of our current fiscal year budget on 800 servers for the next 3 years if we adopt the cloud computing infrastructure.
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Economic Implications Cont’d
Data depicting total cost of ownership for a 3-year period.
Total cost savings of about 55 million dollars as compared to running a traditional datacenter.
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IT Business Requirements
Functional requirements – Business rules, transactions correction, authentication, authorization, audit & accounting, reporting.
Non-functional requirements – Performance, scalability, availability, disaster recovery, security.
Data storage requirements – Security, portability, backup & restore, sensitive data isolation.
A business functional requirement in its obvious definition defines how a system should behave and function when given instructions or put to use. The number one business rule for an online voting system is to ensure that voter’s identities are verified and can cast their votes securely. With this in mind, a cloud-based solution must be present to accommodate this requirement just as we have in a physical environment. Every casted vote is considered a transaction and should be handled as such. A transaction of this nature should be verified, corrected for mistakes if any was found, cancelled if considered invalid, and should not be duplicated. Authentication into the voting systems is considered a high priority as this should be one of the most secure parts of the entire online voting system. A poor authentication design would simply allow anyone into the system and make changes to already casted ballots and this would defeat the entire purpose of an online voting system. Authorization works hand in hand with authentication as this defines the permissions of users after they are authenticated into a system. With a poorly designed authorization system, a malicious user that successfully authenticates can escalate their privileges and completely change the entire system, making votes invalid or manipulated. A sensitive system such as a voting system needs to be auditable. There is a need to be able to tell who did what, when and where. This would help in keeping track of authenticated users and the actions they performed.
Asides from the necessary functional requirements for the voting systems to carry out what it was designed for, there are other non-functional requirements necessary for the system to be effective and perform well. Voting season would be peak periods in every country that the organization serves and during this period, there would be a huge spike in the consumption of resources, depending on the number of voters making use of the voting systems at a particular point in time. Part of the advantages of utilizing a could architecture is the horizontal scalability of cloud resources. These resources can scale without interruption of operations. More resources can be added as needed and reduced when consumption reduces. This feature is something that cannot be achieved in a traditional datacenter. In the case of a natural disaster, election violence or unforeseen circumstances that could disrupt an ongoing election and render votes invalid, the always on availability nature of the cloud architecture can be leveraged. Once votes are casted and the system registers and validates them, that data is recorded and kept safe in the cloud. If there is any form of disruption, that data can be retrieved at any time from multiple availability zones, if replication is enabled. In today’s cloud computing world, most cloud providers have interoperable architectures, and this can be leveraged by the organization to create a disaster recover and business continuity plan. In a situation where one cloud provider experiences a service outage, the backup can kick in and business for the organization can continue with zero to minimal disruption in service.
Due to the sensitivity and privacy requirement of a voting system, encryption of its data while in motion and at rest is critical to the design of the system. Data should also be easily ported from one cloud provider to another or to an on-prem storage location. In the case of highly sensitive data that requires total physical or logical isolation, cloud vendors provide a means of physically separating customers data from one another to avoid any form of data spillage or leakage.
All of the above mentioned requirements are readily available in a cloud architecture and are offered by most cloud providers.
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SWOT Analysis
Strengths – Cost effective, fast system provisioning, scalable, business continuity & disaster recovery, accessibility, unlimited storage.
Weakness – Bandwidth consumption, unknown data location, integration with legacy apps, dependency on always on internet connection, physical control.
Opportunities – Adaptive to future needs, pay as you go model, move to latest technology with zero Capex.
Threats – Data security concerns, cloud provider migration issues, reliability of service providers, unwillingness to change.
After performing a swot analysis of moving to a cloud computing architecture, some of the strengths include its massive cost savings, easier and faster resource & application provisioning, it scales up and down easily without extra admin effort, it can be leveraged for business continuity and disaster recovery planning with a huge cost saving, ease of accessibility to all end users, and its unlimited storage feature with data replication.
Some of the weaknesses include high bandwidth consumption, unknown physical location of organization’s sensitive data, lack of integration with legacy applications in the current physical environment, huge dependency on always-on internet access, and lack of physical control of infrastructures.
Some beneficial opportunities to the organization includes easy adaptation to future business needs or requirements, payment for only services consumed, exploring and moving to latest technology with zero capital expense.
Threats are mostly centered around sensitive data security concerns, migration issues between cloud providers, reliability of service providers and also the unwillingness to change that might be encountered by some involved parties.
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Conclusion
Multi – Cloud model
Leveraging all cloud services model
Advantages outweigh the disadvantages
Major cost savings – Capex
Satisfies all IT business requirements.
Strengths & opportunities outweighs weaknesses & threats.
In conclusion, Adopting a multi-cloud architecture and leveraging all cloud services model would be a perfect implementation that would satisfy the organization’s IT business requirements. A move to the cloud has many advantages that would be beneficial to our organization. Even though it has some disadvantages, I believe the advantages outweighs the disadvantages. The biggest advantage of the cloud infrastructure is the cost savings it offers compared to a traditional datacenter environment. With our current IT budget and goals for the next five years, I believe a move to the cloud would help us meet and exceed these goals.
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References
Smith, J. (2018). 13 Benefits of Cloud Computing and Top FAQs. dotCMS – Digital Experience Platform. Retrieved 26 July 2022, from https://www.dotcms.com/blog/post/11-benefits-of-cloud-computing.
Advantages of cloud computing – javatpoint. www.javatpoint.com. (n.d.). Retrieved August 2, 2022, from https://www.javatpoint.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-cloud-computing
Figure 1. SWOT Analysis for Cloud Computing – Researchgate. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/SWOT-Analysis-for-Cloud-Computing_fig1_262189207.
Virtualization Technology & Virtual Machine Software: What is Virtualization?. VMware. (2022). Retrieved 2 August 2022, from https://www.vmware.com/solutions/virtualization.html.
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