NMIMS

CLOUD COMPUTING
APPLICABLE FOR JUNE 2022

1. A university wants some advice about deployment of cloud for their online learning
platform as they are not able to maintain their own data center. The university is
evaluating the right choice of the cloud deployment model. Provide a report explaining
pros and cons of each cloud deployment model for the universities online learning
platform.

Answer:

Cloud computing
The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that's often used to represent
the Internet in flowcharts and diagrams. A cloud service has three distinct characteristics
that differentiate it from traditional hosting. It is sold on demand, “typically by the minute or
the hour; it is elastic -- a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any
given time;” and the service is fully managed by the provider (the consumer needs nothing
but a personal computer and an Internet access). Significant innovations in virtualization
and distributed computing, as well as improved access to high-speed Internet and a weak
economy, have accelerated interest in cloud computing.

The Cloud in terms of computer networks and its associated technology supports delivering
resources such as computing and storage to customers on demand. Rather than being a new
technology in itself, the cloud is a new business model wrapped around new technologies
such as server virtualization that take advantage of economies of scale and multi-tenancy to
reduce the cost of using information technology resources.

Cloud deployment models

Private cloud: There is a confusion to understand the concept of private cloud it is defined
as “When we say private cloud, we mean a highly virtualized cloud data centre located
inside your company’s firewall”. It may also be a private space dedicated to your company
within a cloud vendor data centre designed to handle your company’s workloads”. It allows
the compute capability and services to the internal users in a self-service manner and
supports automation of business and calculates cost only for the service which has
consumed.

Pros and cons of private cloud:

Pros
Better performance: Private clouds are performed way better than public clouds because
there is no need to share between other users, there is always a significant rate of transfer.
Therefore, Private cloud provides greater level of performance. Apart from this, private
cloud is right behind firewall so you may have less internet security risks.

Better security: Private cloud ensures complete security of your precious data by the
outsourcing agency. Private cloud ensures extra level of security making it ideal for large
organizations with sensitive and confidential information.

Easy availability of the service: Private cloud is known for their unique infrastructure which
helps the user to control delivery and ensure their maximum availability. Private clouds are
better controlled and flexible as well.

Resources: Most of the Private cloud service providers make use of their virtualization
technology. Instead of real resources, virtual servers and securities are being used.
Therefore, overall cost of IT spending is significantly reduced which redirects you to invest
more in business.

Cons:
Higher price: As compared to other models, private cloud is much more expensive and the
main reason behind this is hardware expenses such as servers, network infrastructures, data
centres and software licenses. Besides that; you need to hire a separate on-site staff to look
after and maintain the cloud.

High maintenance cost: A Private cloud not only needs an investment in hardware, it
requires continuous maintenance which can be time consuming.

Tough deployment: Private cloud requires many resources and time consuming so its
deployment is quite difficult.

Public cloud: Public clouds are hosted, maintained as well as managed by cloud service
providers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. In this type of cloud, service providers
charge the cloud users according to their usage. When or on situation an organisation
decided to go for the public cloud are listed below

 When lots of people used your standardized workload for applications. Email is the
best example.
 You need to test and develop application code.
 You have SaaS (Software as a Service) applications from a vendor who has a well-
implemented security strategy.
 You need incremental capacity (to add compute capacity for peak times).

Pros and cons of public cloud

Pros
Better scalability: Using public cloud, business operations would be much faster as the
division of resources between customers is done dynamically.

Effective disaster recovery plan: In the current technological world, data is very much
precious and businesses need disaster recovery plan at place. Public cloud has minimal risk
of losing data as most of the cloud service providers will have multiple back-up
infrastructures.
Reliable and flexible: Using public cloud, it is easy to adapt to peak loads and adding and
deleting resources can also be done so this model is reliable and flexible.

Cons
Security issues: The protection and privacy of data hosted by cloud providers remain the
top two concerns of any major business. Public cloud services offered by any leading
vendors are secure but the real difficulty is to use them in a secure way.

Lack of customization and support: It is not actually possible to make big customization in
public cloud and support is also not good enough.

Hybrid cloud: A hybrid cloud is the combination of one or more public and private clouds. A
hybrid cloud is typically offered in either one of the following ways
 Vendor has a private cloud and forms a partnership with a public cloud provider.
 Public cloud provider forms a partnership with a vendor that provides private cloud
platforms.

Pros and cons of hybrid model

Pros:

Flexibility: Hybrid model is quite flexible as it allows the firm to direct its resources to
private and public cloud computing environments quickly, it becomes easier to evaluate
how to best structure a set of IT solutions that are based on cloud computing.

Scalability and deployment: Hybrid model ensure better scalability and easy deployment of
the cloud services.

Increased data security: Hybrid cloud enhances system security and reliability by allowing
sensitive information to be stored in a private environment.
Cons
Implementation issues: It is not easy to implement hybrid cloud and afterwards maintaining
it.

Security issues: There is no risk of intrusion between neighbours on a public network, but
misuse of the infrastructure contracted by another company can put yours at risk as a
successful attack on the main server.

I have mentioned above all the cloud deployment models and as per my view, University
should use private cloud for the operations. University is an institution where students study
for degrees and where academic research is done and also; they get facility of training and
placement so basically; university works privately for its students only. In this scenario, I
would choose private cloud for the university.

2. A software development company based in Goa has decided to implement cloud for its
customer support department. As the company is working on insurance related product
development, they process personal and sensitive data. So, the company is concerned
about the security of the data over the cloud. Provide a report to this company about
security and other technical challenges of using the cloud.

Answer:

The key to cloud computing is the “cloud” a massive network of servers or even individual
PCs interconnected in a grid. These computers run in parallel, combining the resources of
each to generate supercomputing like power. What, exactly, is the “cloud”? Put simply, the
cloud is a collection of computers and servers that are publicly accessible via the Internet.
This hardware is typically owned and operated by a third party on a consolidated basis in
one or more data centre locations. The machines can run any combination of operating
systems; it’s the processing power of the machines that matter, not what their desktops
look like.
The set of computers in the cloud computing technology are put together so that any
applications can take any resource it wishes to take and also use up the complete power as
it usually does if it functions on one single machine. Cloud computing also provides scope
for flexibility that is the number of resources being consumed can vary depending on the
task at hand, which means that the resources can either decrease or increase according to
the job.

Economic challenges in cloud computing:

Cost reduction: Investments in cloud computing will be dominated by a cost perspective,

using cloud-based services to drive efficiencies and cost reductions. As time goes on,
however, developers as well as users will be inevitably moving toward benefits that are not
only about costs but also about innovation. Because of the increased automation across the
organization, it is important to have trend toward well managed cloud services. This may
include the software embedded in entirely from manufacturing systems to radiofrequency
identification tags that track inventory. Cost reduction includes scalability of the system and
pay per use billing model for services or information.

Return of investment: It is an important thing to consider in developing or adopting cloud

systems for all investors to make the system commercially feasible. However, it cannot be
guaranteed. In some cases, cloud systems fail to achieve this imperative consideration.
Thus, outsourcing the resources against increasing the local infrastructure and identifying
the cut-off points is needed.

Effective billing model: Cloud environment is beneficial for all the employees of any
organization as there are variety of data and applications available for different users. In this
scenario, it is really important to have good billing model so that consumers find it feasible
and economical. Pay per use is the ideal billing model which is already using by many
companies in cloud environment.

Delay in services: In this competitive world, you need to be best when it comes to providing
service to your customers. You should be prompt in your service and always avoid
unnecessary delays. This is more important for small and medium size organizations where
they cannot afford to lose their customers. In this situation, cloud environment can support
business organisations by offering proper infrastructure and capabilities to market and sell
services without any delay or difficulty.

Compliance issues: With economic feasibility, legislation and compliance of services are also
important factors in any cloud system as they include a variety of data, applications and
services on different locations worldwide. Thus, the cloud system must follow the rules and
legislations of countries where the resources of a particular system are physically stored.

Technical& security challenges related to cloud adoption:

Virtualization issues: “Cloud computing and virtualization technologies are making it easier,
cheaper and faster to deliver scalable web applications. However, this has made the job of
managing these web applications significantly harder. Administrators who are used to
managing anywhere from 15 to 50 servers in a single data-center can now be responsible
for 500 or more servers sprawled across their data center and beyond the firewall.
Challenges arise with the improvement in virtualisation techniques like scaling of the system
horizontally and vertically, interoperability, and managing and monitoring resources. To
manage them, alteration in data and service behavior must be reflected by the original
resources.

Multi-tenancy issues: The Cloud in terms of computer networks and its associated
technology supports delivering resources such as computing and storage to customer son
demand. Rather than being a new technology in itself, the cloud is a new business model
wrapped around new technologies such as server virtualization that take advantage of
economies of scale and multi-tenancy to reduce the cost of using information technology
resources.

Data management issues: It is an integral part of storage clouds to ensure that data is
distributed across multiple resources and made available to users. Data management
includes data consistency over a distributed environment of replicated data. It also includes
making system aware of data location at the time of replicating data from one location to
another, considering changes and handling workloads.

Security: There is a number of security issues/concerns associated with cloud computing,

since a third party stores your data. But these issues fall into two broad categories: Security
issues faced by cloud providers and security issues faced by their customers. In most cases,
the provider must ensure that their infrastructure is secure and that their clients’ data and
applications are protected whereas the customer must ensure that the provider has taken
the proper security measures to protect their information. It’s up to the cloud provider to
provide adequate security. After all, can your organization afford 24 hours IT security
staffing? The fact of the matter is that your cloud provider might offer more security
features than you had before. The fact that there are many clients paying, allows cloud
providers to have beefier security. Implementing a cloud computing strategy means placing
critical data in the hands of a third party, so ensuring the data remains secure both at rest
(data residing on storage media) as well as when in transit is of paramount importance.

3. A KPO company is planning a new solution for their sales and BDM department. The
company has two options for implementing this solution. On-premises solution developed
by regular IT team and adopting a cloud-based solution.
a. What are the benefits of both the options, On-premises and Cloud-based.
b. Suggest best option for this company considering that the company don’t have a strong
technical team and expertise to handle new solution.

Answer:

a) Benefits of On-premises solution:

Ideal product as per the requirements: All businesses are different and accordingly you
need to develop the products which are ideal for you. If the custom-based product is
developed then it will be as per your requirements and would be quite beneficial for you.
Having a personalized custom based product made for a business helps ensure that the
product contains all of the features and functionalities that the organization needs to
streamline business processes.

Improve productivity: If the product is developed as per the business requirements, it will
help the employees to use it in better way; it will be time saving and productivity will also be
improved. Employees may also be more driven to complete their responsibilities at a
satisfactory level when they have the proper solution to support their job needs. When
employees become more productive and driven, they get more work done in a shorter
amount of time which is beneficial to the company’s bottom line.

Business growth: If the business is using custom based software, business operations can be
performed in effective manner and business can grow rapidly. This means that businesses
can continue using and updating their custom software for many years without having to
purchase new products as off-the-shelf.

Better return on investment: Custom-based solutions can be costly sometimes and this is
the reason many companies do not plan about it but if you see the long-term benefits then
custom based product is very much good for the businesses. Custom software development
is a wise investment for businesses typically saving companies money in the long-run. As the
company develops the product from scratch, it can work on all the important aspects and
ensure good return in future.

Benefits of Cloud-based solution:

Less costly: If you are buying commercially available cloud-based software product then it
will be less costly as compared to developing the custom based solution. Apart from this,
buying the commercially available product is time saving affair because if you develop the
product as per your needs, it can take months or even years but you can easily buy
commercially available software and save time and accordingly start the operations.

Ready-made solutions and easy availability: One of the best benefits of buying
commercially available cloud-based product is the easy availability and the solutions are
ready made and looks best if they are tailored made as per your business requirements to
the certain extent. Cloud-based software helps organizations to make the collaboration
process easy and effective.

Greater flexibility and adaptability: When you are buying readymade software solution, you
will have good flexibility in all respects and ask vendor to make regular changes or update as
per your needs and requirements. Cloud-based applications offer greater flexibility than
local applications. If you need changes in IT infrastructure, then cloud services can quickly
serve this demand.

Better data security: Many businesses are still not comfortable while adopting cloud
computing and the probable reason for that is that they see cyber data crimes as a
significant security issue. But generally speaking, it is evident that cloud-based software
improves data security. Cloud service providers ensure data security by various means.

b)

It is mentioned in the question that a KPO company is planning a new solution for their sales
and BDM department. The company has two options for implementing this solution. On-
premises solution developed by regular IT team and adopting a cloud-based solution. In the
first part of this solution, I discussed the benefits of both the option like if company
develops its custom-made solution or goes for cloud-based solution. Both the options have
certain benefits and one best option should be chosen which suits the requirements for the
organization.

It is also given in the question that, company don’t have a strong technical team and
expertise to handle new solution and if this is the case, it would be really difficult for the IT
and technical team to develop the on-premises solution which can fulfil all the needs and
requirements of KPO and even if it is developed, users may face some difficulties as the
technical team is not so skilled and experienced. In this scenario, I would ask the company
to approach any cloud service provider and implement cloud-based services in the
company. You should approach many vendors before finalizing one and if everything is as
per your choice, there are good chances that you do not face any problems later and you
will be happy to continue with that vendor rather than switching. To smoothen all the
activities, you need to decide to approach any local vendor or any mega vendors.

Enterprises looking to adopt the cloud into their infrastructure will have a lot of cloud
services to manage. From the initial migration to automating business workflows in the
cloud, the applications of cloud computing for enterprises are endless.

Advantages of taking services of mega vendor:

Full fledge services: When you are dealing with any big vendor, you can expect the
professionalism and getting full fledge services without any cut. These vendors have years of
experience and can help you with all the detailed services. You do not have to worry about
the service clauses and other help.

Quality service: Apart from getting full-fledged services, you will also get good quality from
the mega vendors. They are specialist in their field and maintain top quality while dealing
with the clients. You cannot have many complaints once you start dealing with them. They
maintain the same level of quality before and after sales, as its also related to their
reputation.

Professionalism: Skilled and old vendors will always work as per the commitments and
follow the rules and regulations. This level of professionalism will definitely help the
companies in taking other relevant decisions and streamline the whole process.

Ideal for big and growing companies: If the company is growing big and expanding itself, it
may not be good to contact small and local vendors as you cannot take chance with your
important activities and operations. In this scenario, it is ideal to choose any big vendor who
can take the charge and you can also rely on them without thinking or doubting too much.