Methodology for Adopting Cloud Computing - Essay Example

The network of servers is the cloud (Canonical, 2009).

Methodology for Adopting Cloud Computing
Switching to cloud computing comes with a lot of responsibilities. These responsibilities are embedded in the methodology for adopting cloud computing. The methodological procedure for adopting cloud computing for a global company would come in three major sections. The first is to identify the type of cloud computing system that would best suit the company. This decision is informed by what the company does and what it wants to achieve. There are three major areas or types of the system to choose from. These are Software as a Service (SaaS), utility computing, and web services computing. The decision as to which type of cloud computing if not well taken would result in a situation whereby the company would not get value for money because it would be giving its customers something they do not need. So what goes into choosing a cloud computing type? Just know what each type represents and relate it to what you do then you can best make an informed choice.

Software as a service (SaaS) “means delivering business applications, including collaboration software and line-of-business applications, to companies that require them to run their business” (Parallels, 2011). It is the commonest type of cloud computing used because it meets the needs of many companies it presents customers the opportunity to assess useful software that they would not have installed on their computers directly. Utility Computing is “a business model for computing in which resources (CPU power, storage space, etc.) are made available to the user on an as-needed basis” (Oracle, 2010). Utility computing ensures minimized user cost because it eventually maximizes the prudent use of computing resources in that users choose only the resource they need. With web service computing, there are “modular applications that perform a specific business task and conform to a particular technical format. The technical format ensures each of these self-contained business services is an application that will easily integrate with other services to create a complete business process” (Zhang, 2002).

After identifying the best choice of cloud computing to adopt, the company would then seek the services of a specialist service provider to set up the cloud computing for the company. These are experts who would channel all necessary software applications from a common server to the virtual desktop of the user or in this case, the customer. There are many of these experts in town including Canonical, Infosys, IBM, and many others. What these service providers would do involve three major phases. The first of these phases is networking, whereby it connects the company to its existing network of users spanning a wide area of the intranet.

Next, the provider would do the installation. At this phase, most service providers like when a company chooses to use the Eucalyptus open cloud platform would “manually download the packages required and host it on a local Apache server and make the installation point to our server instead of the internet” (Infosys, 2011). Finally, it would do a configuration. The configuration involves technical processes of adding nodes and giving the company’s system the authority to belong to the service provider’s existing blogs.

The best thing to do after a setup is not just to allow the service provider to go to his office and call him whenever a little technical challenge arises. It is prudent to engage the service provider to train personnel within the company to understand and even become experts in managing the cloud computing system. This action, though may be costly at the initial stage would save the company a lot of money in the nearest future. This is because the company shall have its experts, whom the company would not have to pay every time they attend to a fault. After all, they will be on a regular salary. As part of the duty of the personnel to be trained, they must take oversight responsibility for ensuring the functioning of the cloud computing system. They must monitor the system closely to be sure that the company is having the best out of it.

Taking the bold step to switch to cloud computing is a guaranteed way to improve the services of any global company and to ensure that the net worth of the company increases eventually. This is reflected in a statement by IBM Cloud Computing saying “The cloud equation adds in the flexibility to scale bandwidth up or down at will and the affordability of pay-as-you-go service, and subtracts energy-devouring hardware from your local environment” (IBM, 2010). Kumar (2011), also argues that with cloud computing, consumers pay only for the resources they use. Read More