Cloud Computing Portability and Interoperability - Assignment Example

SAB Student’s name Course & Code Professor’s name University City Date Question 1 A radical change in corporate Information Technology infrastructures is taking place; in this regard standard package software has been favored by many, if not most industries in dealing with custom developments for core enterprise data and information processing (Light et al., 2011). Consequently, different companies are shifting to the use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and at the same time others are shifting to the Best-of-Breed software application (Light et al. 2011). As such this paper seeks to articulate the differences between ERP and the Best-of-Breed software application that are used as systems of data entry and customs operations in most industries. Additionally, the difference shall be supported with specific examples. ERP uses a single vendor strategy . As a result many problems arise from data entry and daily operations, on the other hand, Best-of-Breed software application is based on the integration of standard software from a variety of vendors (Light et al., 2011). Although many successful ERP implementations are claimed to be successful, this is not always the case. A good example is those at Pioneer New Media Technologies and Monsanto; they always yield to problematic implementations (Light et al. 2011). Additionally, the ERP software is very complicated and requires high levels integrations from the users and a consensus in re-engineering an organization’s core business process as a result of the use of the new software. This explains why the software failed at Fox Meyer Drug (Light et al. 2011). As in the case of Best-of-Breed software application, the implementation in many companies has been successful (Light et al. 2011). For example, the software was used by General Motors, and it yield successful results. Most organizations opt to use this software since it is integrated standard software from a variety of vendors. In effect, the software is simple to use since it is developed by many vendors (Light et al., 2011). Evidently, most industries prefer using Best-of-Breed software because it is not complicated and has a variety of vendors. Best-of-Breed software application provides an infrastructure that accommodated the implementation of new or improved applications thereby providing companies with a constant state of art capability (Light et al., 2011). ERP, on the other hand, is fixed since it comes when it is complete and has no room for upgrading or fixing any new software as a result it does not give companies an opportunity improvement in business data entries (Light et al., 2011). Consequently, any developing company needs to consider Best-of-Breed software application since it has a variety of vendors. The Strategy and Expected Benefits for an Organization that has chosen an ‘Enterprise-wide’ Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System Most of the industries reports extol the virtue of ERP and its ability to bestow multiple benefits on those firms that can successfully implement these systems (Muscatello et al., 2014). As such, one of the primary objectives for installing EPR as well as its principal benefits is the ability to integrate the business operations in an industry (Muscatello et al., 2014). The customers are entitled to proper services, therefore, the use of ERP has been found to be important in improving customer services by reducing the process involved in the production of invoices to reach the customers easily (Muscatello et al., 2014). As a result, the customers do not wait for a long period before their invoices are produced and directly sent to them. The use of ERP has been found to be effective in reducing inventory costs, improving efficiency and increasing profitability (Muscatello et al., 2014). Additionally, it has also been credited with reducing manufacturing lead times (Muscatello et al., 2014). Consequently, the whole process involved in the manufacturing is speeded up an in most of the industries realize much profits. Other potential benefits of ERP include but not limited to; reduction in working capital, in which the system replaces manpower enabling efficiency, provision of abundant information to the customers about the firm and their needs, the ability to view and manage the extended enterprise of suppliers and the integration of customers into the whole business operations of the industry (Muscatello et al, 2014). Evidently, the ERP systems have a lot of benefits if they are successfully implemented in different firms; they help speed up the operations of the firms to all business domains. The Strategy and the Expected Benefits for an Organization That Have Chosen To Implement a ‘Best-of-Breed’ Software Application The Best-of-Breed software application base on several vendors in coming up with complete software. As a result it has a variety of advantages (Kennedy, 2012). To begin with, it is easy to implement the software (Kennedy, 2012). The software can be easily downloaded from any place then it is tried directly in a specific company. This is, however, enhanced by its ability to be provided by many vendors. This shows that the implementation strategy involved is very simple to use. Additionally, the software gives feature richness to the company (Kennedy, 2012). A Best-of-Breed application can give a much better user experience that automatically translates to increased productivity and efficiency in the business operations. Consequently, the business operations involved shall lead to enough output hence increasing the total profit earned (Kennedy, 2012). The software application enhances industry-specific functionality (Kennedy, 2012). The exchange data with the software packages is done swiftly, and the appropriate details are tracked automatically enhancing efficiency in the daily business transactions at the industry (Kennedy, 2012). Other benefits of using Best-of-Breed software application include but not limited to; minimizing the risk for functional gaps in future since it provides accurate results, it handles special requests and other unique requirements easily just as instructed by the user and it not locked into a single vendor hence gives solutions from several vendors (Kennedy, 2012). The use of Best-of-Breed software application equally has a variety of benefits. As compared to other related software, Best-of-Breed is simple to use its implementation hence is not complex as such (Kennedy, 2012). Availability of many vendors such as Microsoft, PeopleSoft, Oracle and Epicor just but to name a few gives the users a variety of options when looking for solutions making the software more efficient. Question 2 In order to select a new Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP), establishing the correct program and its implementation are two of the most important factors to be considered. When evaluating systems one should consider ERP, as it helps to raise important discussion topics with active vendors as well as developing questions to ask about their customers’ strategies. There are different varieties of articles that tend to explain good practices to be done while implementing ERP strategies, the need to understand each strategy and its limitation is always the difficult part. There are three main ERP strategies that are widely considered in the world, these strategies are: Big bang- the implementation happens only in one instance. All the available users of a system switch to the new system in a particular date. Phased rollout- changed from one system to the other system occurs over a certain period. Switching from one system to another occurs in a series of specific steps. Parallel adoption- in this strategy both the old and the new ERP system run simultaneously at the same time. Users here are able to learn on how the new system works while still working with the old system [Nea13]. In developing ERP strategies, a series of phases are involved through out the cycle. These phases can always be seen to overlap or involved in a back and forth movement between themselves. When exploring ERP projects, the following can be considered as the crucial phases one should consider: Planning: This phase commences during the sales process and goes ahead to be witnessed during the post sale process. In this phase the project team is created, meetings are held with the relevant documentation put to place as they try to identify the current problems followed by its potential solutions. It is crucial to come up with the general plan that will act as a plan during the rest of the project [Ols13]. Discovery and planning normally start during the sales cycles and continues even after the sales cycle. The implementation team works together with the project team to come up with a solid plan that is the goal of this phase of the ERP project. The main steps associated with this phase are establishing a project team, holding discovery meetings, documenting key processes and requirement and identifying potential gaps, risks, and solutions. Design and Build: during the ERP design phase, the project team works hand in hand with the implementation team to come up with various rules of the new system and thus documenting its standard procedures. During the build phase, the system is prepared to go live, these is normally achieved by carrying out activities like doing the necessary jobs to complete customization of the new system, developing training sessions for the users and importing data from the old system into the new system. It is important for the designers first to solve the problem before actually writing the code. This phase is also part of the implementation phase where the main focus is to create a way that will maximize the benefits of the system. The implantation team work to convert the requirements of the clients system into the most potential configuration options. After these activities, the implementation team will work with the project team to establish the configurations and implementation strategies that will help lead into the development phase of the particular project. Scoping: This includes the entire ERP packages to be involved either during configuration or enhancements. Examples may include a sub module, module collection something like a three way invoice matching. It is a particular stage within the project that determines how granular one needs to go. It is also important to define the necessary business units and geographies where the new system is supposed to roll out. The roles and responsibilities of the users also need to be well defined. Lastly the hardware, software and communications for developing this new systems needs to be well defined [Gan14]. Testing: this involves things like checking if the system is really working according to its intended purpose. Most of the times this testing and the build phase can be sometimes seen to overlap as the project teams will tirelessly jump between the two to fine tune the configurations. By the end of this particular phase, the teams of developers are supposed to be contended with their work on the new system as they are ready to deployment. During this testing, the project team needs to have a user testing acceptance, import sample data, adjust configurations and establish a cut off strategy. End users are supposed to be trained in simulated environment with sample data on the upcoming system. The main reasons for this phase are: Validate the systems functionality and align them with the necessary requirements. Fine tuning the configurations and Establishing end user proficiency [Ols13]. Go-live: this is also known as the deployment phase. The project and the implementation team will need to assess the situation about the new system after a series of testing and decide whether or not to give the system a go. Prior to going live, the final data needs to be loaded and validated. The project teams also need to train workers who will learn and start working in the new system and completely stop using the older system [Ols13]. Post implementation: after the ERP system has gone live, the min purpose of the project team will shift with time as the end users of the new system work continues to evolve. Adjustments and changes within this new system may be needed the project and the implementation team will become more of just and IT committee as they will be looking at the system requests from the users and compare them with the available IT resources. Ensuring that the end users are properly trained to use the system is also another role of the post-implementation phase. Conclusion ERP implementation is usually a difficult task to engage in, but if there is need for an organization to engage in one in order to better the performances of its system and workers then it is a risk worth getting involved in. The above steps should be considered and followed for a successful strategy. ERP can be used by a company to store, collect, manage and manipulate data from a variety of business activities. Question 3 Cloud computing is a technology that depends on sharing of applications and computing resources instead of handling them using personal devices and local servers (Xiao 2011). Feng et al. (2011) explains that the term ‘cloud’ metaphorically represents internet services. As such, Erl, Puttini & Mahmood (2013) postulate that cloud computing is an internet-reliant computing where organizational operations and services are delivered to devices and computers through the internet. Cloud computing harnesses and applies the traditional high performance and supercomputing power (Fernando, Loke & Rahayu 2013). This computing power was mostly used by research facilities and militaries in controlling and performing over ten trillion computations every second. To achieve this operation, cloud computing networks some servers and allocates tasks and data processes to them. Due to technological advances and changing operation trends, most companies and organizations are in cooperating cloud-based operations to the running of the organizational processes. This, Erl, Puttini & Mahmood (2013) explain, is a strategy that puts to use the concepts of shared services and converged infrastructure to achieve economies of scale and coherence. This option of synchronizing operations through shared services in cloud computing offers the organizations a wide range of benefits (Behrend et al. 2011). At the same time, it presents some limitations and risks. This paper critically analyzes the cloud computing model within the specific realm of transition processes, benefits, limitations and risks. Key aspects and terminology in cloud computing To clearly understand cloud computing, it is important to understand its three fundamental concepts; web services, virtualization, and multitenancy. Virtualization refers to technology that does not reveal the physical components of a system, only showing the user the abstract or emulated platform. The emulated system behaves very much like the physical system, with the advantage of allowing the ease of configuration, maintenance and replication on demand. Multitenancy is when one application serves several clients. The biggest advantage of multitenancy is that it allows maximization in terms of the utilization of the system’s memory and processing resources in ways that could not be possible with replication to each client. Web services are those software services that support interoperability from one machine to another as they interact over the network (Marston, et al., 2011). There are three basic types of cloud computing deployment or service providers; public, private and hybrid. The public are the most common and have multiple customers accessing applications and services through the net. Every individual has their resources which a third party vendor provisions. This third party will host all the clients and manage all their security, infrastructure, and applications. The customer often has no information regarding the management of the infrastructure. Private cloud uses the concept of the public cloud but does so on a private network. The users have the benefit of cloud computing but have control over the management of their data and the security measures. This instills more confidence in the capabilities of the cloud computing network but often comes with a lot of expenditure. Hybrid incorporates the characteristics of both the public and private cloud computing systems. An organization can benefit from both the public and private type on the same network. For instance, an organization can store or handle sensitive information on the private network while handling situations that demand large traffic on the public cloud (Carlin & Curran 2011). Advantages of cloud computing There are five major characteristics that make cloud computing better than similar technology. Cloud computing offers multitenancy. In previous systems, one dedicated resource would be dedicated to one single user. In cloud computing, resources are shared on the application, host or application level. Cloud computing offers scalability. It provides users the ability to scale up to thousands of systems, as well as the ability to increase bandwidth and storage space (Carlin & Curran 2011). Apart from scalability, cloud computing can also offer elasticity. One can either scale up or down the resources one uses according to their needs. This makes it ideal for businesses with fluctuating needs. They can easily release those resources that they do not need. Additionally, cloud computing has the advantage of the pay as you go. A user only pays specifically for that which they use, during the time they require it. Finally, there is the ability to self-provision resources. One can add additional systems like processing speed, software and storage capacity, as well as various other network resources. Cloud Computing Obstacles Several obstacles get in the way of the implementation of cloud computing because of the very characteristics that make it so popular. Here are some of the top problems that cloud computing faces; Reputation fate is sharing: reputations do not combine well with virtualization. For instance, blacklisting IP addresses that send spam emails might limit the ability to host effectively some services for other customers. There is also the issue of legal liability. Many cloud hosting companies prefer that the legal liability with the client company rather than the cloud computing company. Licensing: software licenses often work such that after purchase, the number of computers that software can be used is restricted(Armbrust, et al., 2009). Many cloud computing service providers originally relied on open source software but no longer use it because it is not commercially viable. Software vendors cannot sell products into cloud computing since the records that they use to track their progress rely on quarterly sales, which in turn rely on one-time purchases. Bugs: the problems of bugs on large scale systems is another obstacle. These bugs are especially difficult to handle because often one cannot reproduce them in a small configuration. This means the only way to remove them is through the large scale debugging at the production data centers. Data lock-in: while it may be attractive to the service providers, data lock-in is one of the biggest fears of clients,w ho dread such situations and problems such as service providers running out of business, vulnerability to price increases and reliability issues. The obvious solution would be standardization, but many fear this would prompt a rush to the bottom or the lowest provider, resulting in a flattening of the profits. This should not necessarily be the case. Customers value quality and will not necessarily jump to the cheapest service provider.Secondly, standardization means the same infrastructure for both the private and public cloud. Transition The transition to cloud computing typically follows four steps or processes. One might also consider these necessary factors to consider. The cloud strategy and planning involves portfolio management, making transition plans, risk management, consulting on cloud policy, forecasting and various other strategy services. Strategy and planning happen all through the transition and implementation process. The following are the important aspects of strategy and planning. Strategy and planning involve the assessment and analysis of the business needs, the data and application assets and the gaps therein. This helps the enterprise decide on their cloud strategy and delivery mechanism. After the assessment and analysis, it is easy for the enterprise to choose the cloud computing option most suitable. The next stage that follows is the design and building of architecture for the implementation. In the design stage, there are three infrastructure domains the company must consider; business, information systems and technology architectures(The Open Group, 2013). Business architecture encourages the company to focus on its core needs and makes it easier for the company to obtain non-core capabilities from external sources. They also facilitate collaboration between the core and non-core components of the business. The business architecture also encourages the faster development of new goods or services with an emphasis on the reduction of time to market. There are two categories of information systems infrastructure, data, and application infrastructure. Data infrastructure is the interaction of the different sources of data for the company like logical data, physical data assets, and various data management resources. Application infrastructure provides the key business functions through the management of the data assets. Technology infrastructure supports the interaction of the various platform components, the logical data, and the physical technology components. The next step in the transition is the optimization stage. This is one of the most important steps in the process. An important components of cloud computing is the optimal use of resources. Without this stage, most of the capabilities of the system will be localized and incomplete. Examples of optimization procedures include consolidating data centers into a smaller number, reducing the servers used in a single site through the selection of better platforms and the decommissioning of any platforms that are underused or not used at all. Others include virtualization, which reduces the compute footprint and the migration from legacy applications to next generation applications that can use the basic characteristics of the cloud better. It is important to handle security issues at this point in the transition process. While there are many organizations driving standards in the cloud computing game, it is still relatively in its infancy stages. There are many potential security threats to a cloud network, many of which come from the idea that there are only a few service providers dealing with billions of customers. There is a worry that the few providers will not be able to handle security for the many clients they handle. For instance, a common threat comes from the fear that the password/username system used by many cloud service providers is not robust enough. When there are many customers, there is a high propensity of similar usernames which can degrade any forms of authorization measures (Carlin & Curran 2011). Reassigning of IP address poses significant threat. Where one customer no longer needs an IP address, it is economical to reassign it to another instead of having it stay idle for long. Without stringent security measures, it is easy for another customer to gain access to the resources of the cloud service provider (Carlin & Curran 2011). Another potential security problem has to do with legal jurisdictions. One might wonder why physical location matters while cloud computing is all about virtualization. Information is the currency in the cyber world, and many customers of cloud computing service providers often do not know where their information is stored. Sometimes, servers that store information might be in another country, where the rules governing data security and storage are different. Hackers might exploit loopholes to their advantage and access information. The perfect example is in the difference in data privacy laws in the US and the European Union. It becomes clear that one can easily take advantage of the open view on data privacy in the US (Carlin & Curran 2011). Interoperability and portability are some of the most important aspects of cloud computing that one must consider at this point. Data and application portability and the fear that come from cloud computing portability inefficiencies are some of the biggest obstacles. Many have the fear of data lock-in, which can easily be solved if the system makes it easier, faster and cheaper to move data and applications to different users and cloud service providers. Interoperability between the various players in the cloud computing environment also helps grow the overall health of the cloud computing ecosystem. There are several reasons why it is difficult to achieve interoperability and portability. The first is that it is difficult to create the uniform standards required. Many vendors find that when customers can easily access their services, they lose their commercial advantages. The uniformity between various vendors requires agreement between the various developers on the details of different interfaces that could be difficult to achieve. While many cloud computing aspects are simple, not all applications are the same. Since every application is different, there is a need for the standardization of interfaces to enable collaboration in terms of portability and interoperability across at least the same industry or sector. This is where the next stage of transition, standardization, comes into play. Standardization typically happens with optimization. It is the stage where one makes sure that the chosen platforms, operating systems, network, computing power and storage will meet the service standards required. One must enforce the standards throughout the environment to make sure that they are easy to use, uniform and manageable. Standardization must also include both front and back end capabilities. Reference List Armbrust, M. et al., 2009. Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing, Berkley. Behrend, T. S., Wiebe, E. N., London, J. E., & Johnson, E. C. (2011). Cloud computing adoption and usage in community colleges. Behavior& Information Technology, 30(2), 231-240. Carlin, S. & Curran, K., 2011. Cloud Computing Security. International Journal of Ambient Computing and Intelligence, 3(1), pp. 14-19. Erl, T., Puttini, R., & Mahmood, Z. (2013). Cloud Computing: Concepts, Technology, & Architecture. Pearson Education. Feng, D. G., Zhang, M., Zhang, Y., & Xu, Z. (2011). 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