White paper – Running a business on the cloud

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Running a business on the cloud

This white paper recognises three areas an organisation planning to shift to the cloud should access:

• Planning for Shifting Information Technology (IT) Responsibilities: Together with the human resource (HR), an organisation should locate areas that would be altered through elimination or reduction by the cloud
• Developing New Skills:  IT Staff with interest in business should be trained on relating with vendors, staff inclined to technology could become internal system integrators to tie together the various cloud services utilized by an organization.
• Strategic Business Skills: IT moves from cost focused to strategy focused – adding value by delivering solutions that drive benefit.

Since the concept of cloud computing is still evolving, an organisation could have problems on how can recruit, hire and train employees. The author suggest assessing candidates participation with cloud communities such as blogging, twitter contributions and question and answer sites.

Also an organisation can create talents through professional development program with new or incumbent staff.

Finally,despite a number of opposition to the cloud such as security issues, legal implication and technical reasons, the author feels the benefits are more – enabling an organisation to focus on its core strategy.

Reference:

Kepe, B. (2011). Running a Business on the Cloud: Management Strategies for the New IT. Available: http://www.rackspace.co.uk/fileadmin/uploads/involve/user_all/running_a_business_on_the_cloud.pdf. Last accessed 10th July, 2013.

What is virtualisation

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In cloud computing, virtualisation  is used to give access to all tenants working on the server. This video breaks down the concept of virtualisation for easy understanding.
Virtualisation could be server based  or desktop based. An organisation making optimal use of its computer resources could still incur high cost from maintenance, up-time, update and upgrade of its several resources, also lots of servers means lots of energy consumption. However this organisation can take up virtualisation services from virtualisation companies.
Server virtualisation provides multiple virtual machines (VM) that resides in  fewer servers and users would still interact with a piece of hardware as if they were multiple servers. This saves resources, energy of running all servers and time of running software update and maintenance.
Desktop virtualisation provides energy efficient servers for the desktop. Here users are given access to their desktops and associated applications through the servers. It gives security in event of loss of desktop and also consumes less energy.

Discover Which Expedient Cloud is Right for You

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The cloud offers many benefit such as low cost, massive elasticity, high availability, no equipment, etc.
To determine which is right for your organisation you need to evaluate your business needs.
If your organisation demands can vary and would want them to be met at all times while saving costs, then the public cloud is right for you.
On the other hand, your organisation could prefer security and control of sensitive information, then private would be best.
However, an organisation could need both features to be integrated by being flexible, yet secure. This would need a hybrid cloud. In this case sensitive information would be deployed to the private cloud while others would be in the public cloud.

Reflection on what I have learnt so far

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I have been studying cloud computing in school and this is a video of what I have learnt so far

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZR2ovyah5I

Private cloud computing: Do it yourself vs Managed service

Private cloud is an infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, whether managed internally or by a third party, and hosted internally or externally.
This video provides a comparison of in-house and hosted private cloud by explaining what is involved in terms of cost, time and resources  when an organisation provides third party virtualisation software within their own infrastructure or throough a cloud infrastructure expert. It recommends taking up a hosting solution whereby an an organisation like Gogrid can managed the private cloud for the organisation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgyxG4k6a5Q

Webinar: Prepare for and minimize the security risk of cloud computing

This webiinar organised by Gartner addresses security issues of an organisation venturing into cloud computing.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are more disposed to take up cloud services because of their minimal security data and primitive IT capability, they usually start public cloud use with Software as a Service (SaaS). On the other hand, Large organisations have sensitive data, sophisticated IT capability and they usually start public cloud use with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

Therefore descending order of cloud use based on security concerns are:

1. Small to Medium Business

2. Civilian Government

3. Individuals

4. Fotune 500 and Finance

5. Military

Futhermore, no single application of SaaS can meet all need because of differences in organisations needs and policies, location and regulation, data security etc.

Also, the webinar discussed security levels of SaaS. Low level security applications include: email, websites, social networking, discussion board etc. Medium level are email, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), supply chain planning, sourcing, purchasing, logistics, etc. High level security applications are Virtual data rooms for investment support, board of director portals, litigation support, collaborative development, defense logistics.

There is need for security control of data both from SaaS cloud providers and cloud customers depending on data sensitivity. Cloud suppliers can provide control through network encryption, server encryption, endpoint encryption, directory Integration, login logging, detailed activity logging and strong authentication. To compensate for providers weakness,  control should be provided through User and IT Acceptable Use Policies, Data Tokenization Gateway, Data Loss Prevention, Client or Gateway Encryption, Provisioning Integration, Logging and Network access control.
Encryption is a useful tool to control data security however it is easy to make mistakes with, loss of key is loss of data and if server is encrypted searching becomes difficult. It is needful to use standard algorithm and manage access to the key effectively.

Contract concession: Are not effective ways to ensure data protection especially for SaaS. The degree of contract is proportional to sensitivity of service. For example a contract could require a provider give a customer access to its financial information periodically to ensure it is financially viable.

Finally some recommendations for cloud service customers are:

1. Base purchases on business requirements

2. Use standards for external party risk assessments

3. Protect highly sensitive data with control technology as it becomes practical/available

4. Always have a contingency plan for supplier failure

5. Seek business ownership for the business’ use of information and technology

 

Reference:

Heiser J (2013). Prepare For and Minimize the Security Risks of Cloud Computing.  Gartner. Available: http://my.gartner.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=202&mode=2&PageID=5553&showOriginalFeature=Y&resId=2475516&commId=74709&channelId=5502&id=68387730

 

 

 

White Paper – Cloud Computing Promises: Fact or Fiction

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This white paper critiques some understanding of cloud computing while examining the benefits and draw backs of cloud computing to business.

1. Cloud computing combines a number of technology none of which are new therefore cloud computing is not revolutionary but evolutionary. It is an evolution that drives IT delivery to achieve business needs.

2. Not all software applications delivered through the internet are cloud computing because not all Application Service Providers (ASP) are cloud service providers

Differences between Application Service Providers (ASP) And  Software as a Service (SAAS) Cloud Providers

•  SAAS is instantaneously provided and available whereas ASP requires dialogue with representatives before software can be made available

•  SAAS is scalable, resources can automatically adjust to respond to demand while ASP has a fixed capacity.

•  Even though some SAAS like Google apps are free to use, most operate on a pay-per-use model while ASP runs on an annual license.

3. IT department cannot be completely eliminated but can be reduced depending on the level of services being used from the cloud

4. As long as a cloud vendor provides server images that can host an application, an organisation with an aim of reducing application hosting cost and using the elastic scalability of the cloud could move their in-house application without modification to the cloud. Whereas leveraging scalable storage solution through a vendor’s specific API’s and exploiting Platform as a Service (PAAS) would require modification or re-development of the application

5. In terms of cost, small and medium enterprises benefit more from cloud computing than large organisations. However the agility and flexibility of the cloud could cover for the lapses in cost.

6. Despite that the scalability and elasticity of the cloud provides an ability to improve application performance, performance problem could arise by  some cloud providers overselling their capacity in addition to the way other tenants use the cloud resources.

7. Software should be moved to the cloud if it benefits the organisation by enabling; pay-per-use, ease of access, off-the-shelf, self provisioning and scalability while software that is custom built and accessed only on premise could be left out of the cloud.

8. IAAS and SAAS can be successfully switched from one vendor to another but difficulty arises in switching PAAS between vendors. Applications developed in most platforms resist another vendors platform because of lack of interoperability.

9. Cloud has security concern such as data protection and unauthorized access, however if these issues are resolved on a case by case basis, the cloud offers a computing environment at least as safe as non-cloud computing systems.

10. Cloud computing has been considered a utility like electricity. Yet in electricity, there are standards used in comparing two vendors before selecting one but in cloud computing lack of standards and platforms make it difficult to directly compare two vendors services

Reference:

Czarnecki, C. (2010). Cloud Computing Promises: Fact or Fiction. Available: https://resources.learningtree.com/details.aspx?dl=Cloudcomp.pdf. Last accessed 8th July 2013

Three Successful Steps to Cloud Computing

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Cloud computing is explained by comparing the cloud to a financial service an orgainsation outsources issuing payslip of its customers to. In cloud computing, businesses run in-house are moved to data centres else where.

The three proposed strategic steps to a successful cloud computing are:

1. Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM): This enables an organisation keep track of business needs, services, technical and configuration operations

2. Virtualisation: The process that enables resources like hardware and software to be shared.

3. IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL): Manages IT by aligning technology with business needs through consistent processes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0QYAzRywbQ

VALUE STREAM MAPPING: An Analysis Of How McDonalds Delivers Its Products And Services

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Value is anything a customer is willing to pay for. Waste is anything that does not add value to the customer, example queuing, and delay.

Lean methodology is about meeting demand with perfect quality and no waste. There are several tools and techniques of Lean methodology and Value stream mapping is one of them.

Mcdonalds operates on just in time production by producing what is needed. Small numbers of ready finished product are always available, however everything is always ready to spring into action as soon as a customer places an order. A computer based system communicates the customer’s order directly to the production staff and the modern cooking equipment can prepare a batch of hamburger patties in less than one minute.

Reference

Dixon, N. An Analysis Of How McDonalds Delivers Its Products And Services. Available: http://www.slideshare.net/nicoledixon/an-analysis-of-how-mc-donalds-delivers-its-products-and-services. Last accessed 6th July 2013

Value Stream Mapping

My group and I have been involved in making a prezi presentation on VALUE STREAM MAPPING. You can view it by clicking on this link:

http://prezi.com/njkk4d5mjbot/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share