Cloud Computing: Factors to Consider for Effective Remote Server Administration

Running Head: CLOUD COMPUTING 1
Cloud Computing
Name
Date

CLOUD COMPUTING 2
Question 5
One of the most important factors the firm will have to consider to achieve effective remote
server administration in its new architecture is to have the right tools for the task, and have a
suitable remote server administration system with secure API’s (Sathyan, Narayanan, Narayan, &
Vallathai, 2012, p. 485. Further they must consider the details of managing the SLA so that it is
effective and meets their needs, rather than the needs of the cloud service provider. The remote
administration mechanism offers tools as well as under interfaces to external administrators of
cloud resources to enable effective configuration and administration. The access portal must also be
a major consideration, especially given the inherent security risks as the portal will be used for
managing resources, billing management, and SLA management (Chapple, Seidl, & John Wiley and
Sons, 2016, p. 437). The cloud provider provides the APIs and tools for a remote administration
system for developing and customizing online portals to enable the client perform various
administration tasks. As such, the firm will have to ensure they have a portal for usage and
administration; this is a general purpose portal to enable centralized control of management of cloud
based resources, and a self-service portal.
Because the server will be administered remotely over networks, the issue of latency must
be given due consideration; latency is an important issue because any connectivity problems with
the server and administrator can result in slow or impaired remote server administration (Shiraz,
Gani, Khokhar, & Buyya, 2013). As such, tools for remote administration ought to be given
priority; such tools can give alerts and warnings that enable the administrator to take intervention
action before there is a server failure. \people and their responses are another important factor to
consider in remote server administration, more than even the remote administration technologies;
hence Regional gardens needs to have robust policies and procedures that are measurable to ensure
server issues are addressed by on site personnel promptly and as soon as various software tools
gives alerts of impending issues (Bigelow, 2017). Regional Gardens also ought to consider
automation tools to, for instance, prevent idle times at off peak hour and ensure unnecessary
resources are turned off when they are not needed. The following checklists will ensure Regional
gardens is able to effective achieve remote server administration; it is based on Morad and
Dalbhanjan’s operational checklists
Security; IAM users, instance security, and nested security groups. There is need to use
identity access management (IAM) to provide user specific credentials instead of shared credentials
when making requests to the cloud infrastructure (Garber, Malik, & Fazio, 2013).
Operational use of the cloud on backed instances, store backed instances, and separate data
volumes as well as dynamic addressing. Regional Gardens must understand the cloud backed

CLOUD COMPUTING 3
instances and what instances are store backed and choose the most appropriate storage type with the
guiding principle being their implications to data backup and persistence as well as data recovery.
Further, the issue of dynamic IP addressing must be taken into consideration to ensure that
applications continue to function seamlessly upon restarting of the application components. There is
need to ensure separate cloud storage volumes are used for applications and databases and separate
ones for the operating system whenever this is possible (Amazon Web Services, 2013) .
Backup and Recover; Regional Gardens must consider how regular backups will be
achieved and this requires the use of a suitable tool for backups. The process for recovery in the
event of a problem must be tested regularly to ensure it is up to scratch. Plans must be made to have
critical applications components in multiple zones of availability with data replicated across these
zones with failure tests done so that there is continuous availability
Considerations for mapping custom names with user account access controlled via the operating
system.
Billing and account governance must be considered, in relation to SLA management with an
approach suitable for Regional gardens; for instance, will multiple accounts be used for billing?
Security and access management concerns must be considered as well with a suitable API and data
access management strategy (Antonopoulos & Gillam, 2017)
There should be an elaborate strategy for identification and tracking of the cloud provisioned
resources under the asset management strategy (Hashimoto, 2015).
How will high availability be ensured for applications and disaster recovery plans?
A method for incident monitoring and management with appropriate tools to use for the
monitoring of cloud provisioned resources.
Regional gardens must have a robust strategy for the configuration and management of
changes for cloud resources based on their needs
The firm must also consider the strategy it will use in integrating application release and
deployment so that it is aligned with its strategy for change management and configuration.
Question Six
Process Steps for E-mail Migration and Possible Issues that may Arise
Migration of the e-mail server to the AWS requires that various factors are given
consideration and then suitable steps followed for successful migration. There must be
consideration for the DNS, internal servers using STMP, how users access their e-mails, default e-
mail policies, and an audit of mobile devices with e-mail access; after this, a defined process should
be followed for successful migration (Hord, Plumley, & Hendrickson, 2018).
An appropriate method for migration must be chosen based on the present e-mail server system for
instance; Exchange Server supports three migration types, namely cutover migration, IMAP