From Desktop to Cloud an Evolution How Early Adopters Are Using PDF in the Cloud - Literature review Example

Literature Review Name: University: Date: Table of Contents Literature Review 1 Table of Contents 2 From Desktop to Cloud an Evolution How Early Adopters Are Using PDF in the Cloud 3 Introduction 3 Early adopters 4 Early adopters according to Agarwal et al. (1998) are adventurous, inquisitive consumers who acquire a technology first and disseminate the word to others concerning the benefits and shortcomings of the technology they have purchased. According to Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory, early adopters constitute almost 13.5% of the total population. As stated by Khan and Shahzadi (2009), early adopters even though they are ready to explore novel technological options, they are not very daring and always avoid taking risks. The risk takers as mentioned by Rogers are the innovators who make up 2.5% of the total population. Different from early adopters, innovators are individuals who are more inclined to imagine as well as develop new technologies and methodologies (Dorf, 1998). So, early adopters are considered to be a more integrated within the local social system as compared to the innovators.  Early adopters according to Muchineripi et al. (2013) are localities while innovators are cosmopolites.  This is the reason why early adopters have the greatest opinion leadership level in the majority of the social systems. It is for this reason that potential adopters seek information as well as advice from the early adopters concerning the innovation.  Many see early adopter as the person to consult prior to utilizing a novel idea.  Moreover, early adopters are sought by change agents so as to become the local campaigner to fast track the process of diffusion.  Given that in innovativeness early adopters are close to the average individual, they act as role model for scores of other social system members.  Furthermore, early adopters are respected by their peers, and they are the epitome of discrete as well as the successful use of novel ideas.  Therefore, early adopter role is to reduce the uncertainty concerning a novel idea by adopting the idea, and later communicating the innovation subjective evaluation to their peers through interpersonal networks (Conrad & Poole, 2012). 4 Reason why Early Adopters Moved From Desktop to Cloud 5 Different Technologies used by Early Adopters to Move from Desktop to Cloud 7 Using PDF in the Cloud 9 Challenges 10 The Future 12 Conclusion 13 References 14 From Desktop to Cloud an Evolution How Early Adopters Are Using PDF in the Cloud Introduction Applications of scientific computing normally require enormous amounts of computational power (Laganà, 2004). In this case, the cloud offers fascinating high-performance computing solutions with resources that are virtually unbounded.  Still, moving from desktop to the cloud as well as recreating software environment on the operating system supplied by the vendors is normally a strenuous undertaking. Nowadays, business leaders as well as CIOs across the globe are experiencing challenges to remain competitive as well as meet their business objectives. So, alignment of the enterprise IT model together with that of the business model, managing costs as well as remaining innovative are very critical (Saat et al., 2010). Early adopters of cloud have already comprehended the significance of the cloud computing: it cuts the IT labour cost, reduces provisioning cycle times of the applications as well as servers, improves quality, and reduces the software defects. With the increasing migration from the desktop to the cloud, the number of vendors offering cloud has increased tremendously. Such providers range from well-known IT industry leaders such as IBM to software as a service (SaaS) vendors such as Salesforce.com to other players like Cisco, Google, Amazon, and VMware (IBM, 2011). The Literature review provides a comprehensive analysis concerning how Early Adopters are using PDF in the cloud. Early adopters Early adopters according to Agarwal et al. (1998) are adventurous, inquisitive consumers who acquire a technology first and disseminate the word to others concerning the benefits and shortcomings of the technology they have purchased. According to Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory, early adopters constitute almost 13.5% of the total population. As stated by Khan and Shahzadi (2009), early adopters even though they are ready to explore novel technological options, they are not very daring and always avoid taking risks. The risk takers as mentioned by Rogers are the innovators who make up 2.5% of the total population. Different from early adopters, innovators are individuals who are more inclined to imagine as well as develop new technologies and methodologies (Dorf, 1998). So, early adopters are considered to be a more integrated within the local social system as compared to the innovators.  Early adopters according to Muchineripi et al. (2013) are localities while innovators are cosmopolites.  This is the reason why early adopters have the greatest opinion leadership level in the majority of the social systems. It is for this reason that potential adopters seek information as well as advice from the early adopters concerning the innovation.  Many see early adopter as the person to consult prior to utilizing a novel idea.  Moreover, early adopters are sought by change agents so as to become the local campaigner to fast track the process of diffusion.  Given that in innovativeness early adopters are close to the average individual, they act as role model for scores of other social system members.  Furthermore, early adopters are respected by their peers, and they are the epitome of discrete as well as the successful use of novel ideas.  Therefore, early adopter role is to reduce the uncertainty concerning a novel idea by adopting the idea, and later communicating the innovation subjective evaluation to their peers through interpersonal networks (Conrad & Poole, 2012). Reason why Early Adopters Moved From Desktop to Cloud According to Salvador (2013), early adopters of cloud include the large companies as well as federal government while a number of scientific, high-tech and pharmaceutical entities have adopted hybrid approach where cloud is utilised for applications that are not critical like email as well as prescription fulfilment. Scores of the early adopters, particularly the federal government have numerous data centres spread out all over the country; so, they see the cloud as a way of consolidating devoid of huge capital expense (CAPEX). In so doing, they have moved their budget to operating expense (OPEX). The reason why early adopters moved to the cloud; to get better visibility as well as insights considering that  the cloud offers improved services cheaply with flexible scalability. According to Grolinger, Higashino, Tiwari, and Capretz (2013), cloud offered the early adopted a highly scalable, low-cost environment that can handle the massive velocity, variety as well as volume of data so as to offer visibility as well as insights for key decisions. Another reason why early adopters moved to the cloud is because of the collaboration brought about by the cloud; cloud delivered analytics at the impact point, accelerated innovation, as well as allowed collaboration by linking as well as creating networks (Messier, 2014). Moreover, cloud supports various needs, so early adopters moved to the cloud to build a dynamic, integrated service chain to achieve as well as succeed innovative results. Others adopted cloud to speed up innovation as well as improve the efficiency of their data-center, and also to realize their sought after outcomes by enhancing their IT infrastructure responsiveness devoid of increasing cost or risk. As indicated in VMware (2014) white paper, desktop are no longer effective in the corporate world since they are exceedingly expensive, insecure, and are unable to successfully support the changing landscape of information technology. The ground-swell migration strategies of Windows 7, the increasing virtual workforce, increased mobile devices acceptance, and high demand for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) support have all created the need for re-evaluating desktop strategies. Early adopters realised that by moving from desktops to the cloud, they could easily achieve all the needed virtual desktops benefits such as enhanced data security, centralized management as well as simplified deployment with no inflated cost, difficulties of managing it themselves. Moving from desktop to cloud has been a milestone for many early adopters who now see desktop as a burden because they consume a lot of time, they are complex and costly to secure and manage (VMware, 2014). Besides that, the desktop is turning out to be more and more frustrating since they lack capabilities as well as flexibility that are offered by the cloud. So, early adopters moved to the cloud to gain flexibility and to take advantage of the cost savings delivered by the cloud. Another reason was the flexibility since the cloud eliminated the worries concerning which technologies related to virtual desktop should be selected, reduced implementation of technologies that could turn out to be obsolete, or being limited to certain vendor roadmaps (Bharadwaj & Lal, 2012). Besides that, the cloud enabled the early adopters to hastily scale up or down through the removal or addition of virtual desktops to the once-a-month subscription in minutes. This enabled them to deliver on various demanding forms of projects (both long- and short-term), like rapidly deploying office desktops in new markets. Furthermore, the cloud offered geographic agility so footprints of data centres failed to limit deployments of the virtual desktop. Furthermore, desktops that were hosted in the could be deployed with global scale; thus, enabling early adopters to access their virtual desktop ubiquitously while it also enabled businesses to expand to other countries where they could easily source talent given that they were no longer restricted to internal infrastructure as well as corporate offices. Still, the cloud was easy to buy as well as try since it required no software or infrastructure to be deployed (Berg, 2015). Different Technologies used by Early Adopters to Move from Desktop to Cloud In 1995, the first remote Windows desktop known as WinFrame was created by Citrix, and two years afterwards, Microsoft and Citrix cross-licensed the code; so, they collaboratively generated the Windows Terminal Server Edition, a variant of Windows NT 4.0 (Vaughan-Nichols, 2013). Currently, Windows Server 2012 Remote Desktop Services (RDS) is the successor of that product, and has been espoused by numerous enterprises so as to deliver VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) Windows desktops through their LANs (local area networks). The cloud has also enabled Microsoft to utilise the RDS so as to deliver the traditional Windows applications as well as desktop to devices, like Surface RT, which cannot be supported natively. Certainly, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure session-based desktops offer the only means of getting the experience of full Windows on most Smartphones as well as tablets. A number of early adopter utilised Data as a Service (DaaS) such as VMware Horizon DaaS to move their virtual desktops into the cloud (VMware, 2014). For instance, VMware Horizon DaaS offers a cloud-hosted virtual desktop that is affordable and easy to deploy, and allows for the virtual desktop delivery that can be accessed anywhere and from any device. The technology as mentioned by VMware (2014) has standard packaging sizes, which can be configured so as to meet the performance requirements of the users, with variables such as operating system, Random-access memory, central processing unit as well as disk space. With only three steps needed to set up the implementation of DaaS, VMware (2014) exhibits that virtual desktops may run continuously for days. In this case, the virtual desktops management was simplified by means of a single, intuitive, web-based interface. Some of the cloud-hosted desktops used by early adopters acted and looked like a part of the IT environment in the corporate world, although they were functioning at a remote data centre that was secure. This was for the reason that desktops were initially connected to an IT environment by means of a private network connection while accessing desktops was based on the obtainable Active Directory. The cloud enabled early adopter to quickly modify, remove, or add desktops as required through a browser and from any location (VMware, 2014). The cloud offered the early adopters an instant ‘on’ experience whereby they could seamlessly continue their work from where they in a different location and on a different system (Vaughan, 2013). Mobile technology enabled early adopters to access their desktop or applications through Chromebooks, Smartphones or Tablets. The cloud capability allowed for desktop flexibility, whereby desktops could be set up for various users’ groups easily and quickly.to be able to move the desktop data to the cloud server, the early adopters had encrypt the files in order that when it is stolen, the third parties will access it as a trash. So, encryption was the only means of ensuring that data moved to the cloud is not snooped (Winder, 2015). A number of easy-to-implement as well as well-established technologies exist to encrypt data for security purposes, like the HTTPS protocol used to encrypt websites. Importantly, they offer security as a service; therefore, by using such technologies early adopters succeeded to move their desktop to the cloud securely (Bhopale, 2013). Using PDF in the Cloud As indicated in the VMware (2014) whitepaper, the complexities related to the design, implementation as well as support of the virtual desktops are no longer existent since, moving to the cloud has become easier and cheaper. Besides, the provider physical infrastructure can be accessed easily enabling users to outsource all operations as well as deployment. What motivated early adopters to move their desktop applications into the cloud is that the technology was cheap and required no maintenance cost such as that required by physical desktop, and also reduced the technical expertise that was required to leverage the virtual desktops. Besides that, since the delivery of desktops takes place over a secure network as well as backed by a Service Level Agreement (SLA), NaviSite (2014) claims that early adopters anticipated the cloud to offer a better availability to access their desktops applications such as PDFs as compared to that delivered by physical desktops. Early adopters appear to support the novel form of document automation as compared to using PDFs through traditional means of physical desktop since the cloud provides more benefits like multimedia and e-signature. Since its introduction in the early 1990s, Nuance (2012) indicates that the PDF format has turned out to be electronic documents de facto standard. Whereas printers, publishers and engineers were amongst the earliest adopters of PDF and introduced new rich 3-D content as well as media to the PDF format, the application is currently utilised extensively particularly in the offices. So as to benefit from the cloud technology, early adopters used PDF solutions to connect their documents to the cloud by saving the documents in the cloud services like Dropbox as well as Evernote. Thanks to cloud technology, early adopters were able to access their PDF documents through the mobile devices or web; thus, improved their productivity, enabled easy access to critical information, as well as fast-tracked the overall speed of their activities. Besides that, Microsoft data centres enabled the early adopters to maintain the chain of custody for more than twenty different document formats such as PDF, XML Paper Specification (XPS), as well as Open Document Format (ODF) (Nuance, 2012). When such documents are moved from desktop to the cloud services, Nuance (2012) posits that the document’ fidelity and format are retained. Generally, conventional, on-premises computing solutions offered users total control of their assets, but the cloud model needs the users to surrender some control as well as possibly share their assets in return for rapid deployment, superior scalability, as well as reduced costs. Challenges Even though there are numerous benefits brought about by moving from desktop to the cloud, Bhopale (2013) posits that security risks as well as challenges are unavoidable during the migration. The first challenges is data sensitivity; every business organization or private entity use data that they share or store with their authorized third parties or respective clients to run their operations. Therefore, when they move their desktop to the cloud platform, through a process termed by Bhopale (2013) as migration, the data that is moved to the cloud server can be stolen by the malicious attackers. Security must be taken into account when moving documents from desktop to the cloud since if the data is leaked during the process of migration it can lead to unsustainable damage to the organization or company in terms of reputation or monetarily (Bhopale, 2013). So, moving data from desktop to the cloud server is an exceedingly challenging task than needs sufficient skill to manage as well as handle things. Another challenge is that the Microsoft programs licensing deters their programs from running on a shared hardware or virtual machine. In consequence, this thwarts unsubscribed users from accessing the programs in the cloud platform. So, as observed by (Dilkie, 2014) this connotes that the service provider desiring to run virtual desktops must have dedicated hardware for all his clients on the virtual machine. Besides, the service provider will be unable to offer Microsoft licenses; thus, creating the need for the customers to get their own licenses. For an organization seeking to set up cloud-hosted virtual desktop for its workers will experience challenges if they utilize numerous Microsoft programs, unless they pay the needed additional licensing fees. In addition, setting up a cloud-hosted virtual desktop has been very challenging for organization seeking to facilitate their employees to access a large data center. According to Dilkie (2014), the data center in the cloud desktop environment is all the time remotely location. That is to say, the data may be stored in a cloud data center that is far from the employee, maybe in Singapore or Dublin. So, for users to easily access the cloud data centers they will have to do some programming. As luck would have it, leading virtualization as well as cloud companies provides services for handling this task. Moreover, there are programs accessible for assisting with the transition; this includes programs like Citrix CloudGateways as well as Riverbed (Dilkie, 2014). Even though this is achievable, it is complicated as well as time-consuming. Scores of users desiring to use desktop as a service always try to make their devices act and look similarly to the way it was before moving it to the cloud. Regrettably, it is very challenging to make the cloud-hosted virtual desktop turn out to be an exact copy of the previous system. Much has to be done to make sure all the desktop applications have been successfully installed in the cloud as well as in sync. Scores of users prefer to retain their user profiles when they move to cloud as to maintain their personal settings, but this needs some programming. The Future The future of the cloud computing is very promising, but the present challenge of supporting various mobile devices, tablets, laptops and desktops for workers will persist in the future. This will in the future be a considerable overhead with regard to cost, resource and time. In the future, physical desktops will be very cheap, but very insecure and costly to maintain, so it cannot fit a workforce that is increasingly demanding and mobile. Many organisations will adopt the cloud computing technology and expansion of the virtual workforce will be prevalent, and mobile technology will render physical desktop useless. Even though virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) are the best option for managing mobiles and physical desktops, they will in the future become too complex as well as costly for scores of companies that will trying to successfully implement it (Vahie, 2015). Moreover, the cloud services will help mitigate scores of challenges attributed to the implementations of the traditional VDI bearing in mind that benefits will be delivered by cloud based virtual desktops in terms of simplified deployment as well as centralized management. By moving from desktop to the cloud instead of deploying and managing VDI solution internally in the data centre, users will in the future achieve all benefits associated with virtual desktops such as improved data security as well as cheap and simplified deployment. The cloud technology as indicated by Smith (2014) will offer mobility, collaborative tools, as well as capability to work remotely, which by far will surpass the hybrid tools integrated with remote desktop. Conclusion In summary, it has been mentioned that the desktop technology is ready for change. The need to revaluate the desktop strategy has been attributed mainly to Windows 7 migrations, the essence of reducing desktop Total cost of ownership (TCO), novel flexible business models as well as the increased demand for mobile device support. This has further been intensified by the increased adoption of the cloud technologies. As indicated in the literature review, moving from desktops to the cloud is exceedingly beneficial because it removes the adoption barriers and offers every VDI benefit with no upfront investment. The cloud-enabled early adopters to eliminate the complexity as well as cost of managing and deploying desktops; thus, providing the needed flexibility. 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