Cloud Computing and Virtualization - Essay Example

Cloud Соmрuting and Virtuаlisаtiоn NAME NUMBER TUTOR DATE Introduction Cloud computing paradigm, which the latest technological development in information technology, provide means for government organization and private companies to address the issues of agility of service and to budget issues. Concurrently, new business models based on cloud computing defined debated and implemented in various fields. S--‐mart. need to adopt and implement cloud-based services and therefore requires state of the art architecture and cost effective techniques of acquiring and procuring information technology services. Cloud Benefits Among the strength is the provision of valuable insight, in a confidential way, concerning how institutions handle the security problem of their data? If the outsourcing company has a team of experienced information security team, the client organization will not experience much trouble since the organization that offers outsourcing services can assist the clients in reengineering access privilege rules to strengthen the security or to adjust to regulatory changes. Forsan inc. do not need extra hardware software or architecture requirements since cloud computing provided these services through Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (Iaa) and Software as a Service (SaaS). Fig 3. Cisco cloud Hardware, software and architecture Cisco cloud cost benefits At my company level, the benefits of the cloud will be geared to encourage Forsan Inc business to migrate to new levels of systems and infrastructures which have never been in use before. Beside direct cost benefits, there will be concentration on upgradability and economies of scale of ICT infrastructure. Basically, if software and storage will be handled by the cloud, they will no longer need to purchase expensive servers and large data storage devices. They will rent storage of space depending on the amount of data they need to store and its future prospect. Scalability will be automatically handled by the cloud service providers making office computer setup extremely simple due to availability of auto-detect services such as Microsoft office 365, which takes away the need to setup a network of the servers and import settings internally. The security of its data will also improve since the business data will be hosted by cloud service providers with greater capabilities of protecting it. In addition, these cloud service providers will be able to localize issues such as natural disaster or fire which can destroy my data (Khajeh-Hosseini 2010). This is because cloud computing provides always-on nature due to frequent data backup. Since the officer will be using a single system and upgrading will be automatic, there will be no need for training since the environment will always remain consistent. The security team of the outsourcer can facilitate curtail security information when the outsourcing company’s application programmers are carrying out base migration or performing updates involving security of internal application. They can also provide the recommendation on security product hence saves the client’s security team the lengthily and tedious process of security evaluation. Moreover, the client benefits from general state of the art information security environment since the service provider uphold its marketplace reputation by developing and enforcing proper documentation. Cloud risks On the other hand, the shared storage and computing environment by multiple clients poses several risks compared to an internal contained environment data center. In an outsourcing computing environment, wide area networks, Local area networks and dial up access serving multiple clients makes the whole computing environment more vulnerable to a myriad of attacks. These include; the possibility of the employees of a third party to access unauthorized data, the risk of sharing spool or direct access storage device, data transmission risks and sharing the network and sometime the risk of sharing the CPU. Moreover, some client cans posse’s gateways to the mainframe from distributed systems and local area networks. The worst of it all is the fact that a small vulnerability is magnificent when it comes to cloud environment due to resource sharing. Cloud Based System Design Hardware, software and architecture requirement Design Justifications The most appropriate cloud type for S-mart. is virtual private cloud. It allows the cloud service providers to provide unique service to private cloud users. Virtual private enables the S-mart. to use infrastructure services as part of its private cloud. Virtual private cloud has be ability to augment at-scales and on-demand features with private cloud. S-mart. will be able to extend the trust boundaries such as control, security, compliance and service-level management. In regards to complexities of workload migration and related data from private to cloud Cisco has developed a unique set of its cloud capabilities in the form of solutions and protocol, which mobility of long-distance scenarios from private to virtual private clouds. Application to be migrated To choose which application are fit for the cloud, select application with under-utilized assets; these are applications that are can possibly have immediate business need to expand and can run out of capacity; applications with architectural flexibility; applications that are used by partners; applications that uses traditional tape drives to backup data; and applications that needs global scale for instance advertising apps and customer-facing marketing. Examples of application that can be migrated include batch processing applications, backup systems, development, and testing and build system, log processing systems, queuing systems, training and pre-sales demo systems or content management systems. The application which can remain in-house includes HR service, ERP systems, backend billing systems CRM systems and customer-facing web application (VeltE, Velte & Elsenpeter, 2009) . Cloud migration process It is obvious that migration to Cisco virtual private cloud increases business agility and lowers the cost of infrastructure. For S-mart. to migrate successfully, they have to consider three things. These are its application architecture complexity, how much effort they are willing to put and how loosely coupled their applications is. Research shows that the most effective way that S-mart. can follow is step by step approach. They also need to invest both resources and time so that they create a project which is proof of concept. This will enable S-mart. to realize the tremendous Cisco cloud huge potentials and quickly leverage its strength. Fig 1: phased migration to cloud computing Cloud assessment phase S-mart. need to weigh its financial considerations of migrating to cloud-based infrastructure versus co-locted facilities or operating a data centre. They need to collect all the necessary data required for suitable comparison. The key TCO technique uses company data and user-defined inputs to initial cost of owning, operating and maintaining information infrastructure versus Cisco pay-for-costs. S-mart. needs to conduct technical examination to comprehend the application which is appropriate for cloud architecture. S-mart needs to determine which applications to be migrated to cloud first, which application should remain in-house and which application will be moved later. This is achiever by creating a dependency tree and a classification then perfom a detailed assessment of the logical structure of S-mart enterprise applications and classifies the application basing on the risks, security and compliance requirements and dependencies (TOGRAPH & MORGENS, 2008). Fig 2: Cisco data center architecture Proof of concept phase Once S-mart. has selected the right application to be migrated and produce and estimate of the resources and effort required, it provides a prototype to proof the concept. The objective of this stage is to understand the Cisco and to ensure that its assumptions in regards cloud migration suitability are accurate. This stage can be achieved by migration a few applications to the cloud. Data migration phase In this phase, S-mart enterprise architecture to explore the different storage options available in Cisco cloud, the different relational database management system options, segmentation strategy and the effort required to migrate all its data to cloud. Application migration This phase involves determining how part of the entire system could be moved to the cloud without interruption or disruption of the current day to day services of S-mart. it can implement either hybrid migration or Forklift migration strategy (Kundra, 2011). S-mart needs to look at the disadvantages and advantages of each strategy to assist in deciding the best strategy that fits the company’s application. The decision on which strategy to use is based on the applications the company has decided to migrate. Leveraging the cloud After the company has migrated all the applications, tests are run to ensure that all the application are working well. It is advisable to invest resources and time in order to determine the way of leveraging cloud’s additional benefits. Optimization phase In this phase, the S-mart, needs to focus on how it can optimize its cloud-based application for it to increase cost savings. Since S-mart, is billed for only the resources consumed, it should make efforts to optimize its systems at all means. Often, the company needs to realize optimization value immediately. Research has shown that huge sums of money can be saved through small optimization. References Velte, T., Velte, A., & Elsenpeter, R. (2009). Cloud computing, a practical approach. McGraw-Hill, Inc.. Mell, P., & Grance, T. (2011). The NIST definition of cloud computing. Buyya, R., Yeo, C. S., Venugopal, S., Broberg, J., & Brandic, I. (2009). Cloud computing and emerging IT platforms: Vision, hype, and reality for delivering computing as the 5th utility. Future Generation computer systems, 25(6), 599-616. Foster, I., Zhao, Y., Raicu, I., & Lu, S. (2008, November). Cloud computing and grid computing 360-degree compared. In Grid Computing Environments Workshop, 2008. GCE'08 (pp. 1-10). Ieee. Rodero-Merino, L., Vaquero, L. M., Gil, V., Galán, F., Fontán, J., Montero, R. S., & Llorente, I. M. (2010). From infrastructure delivery to service management in clouds. Future Generation Computer Systems, 26(8), 1226-1240. Read More