Cloud Security for AZFashion

This assignment explores the potential security implications of cloud computing for AZFashion, a hypothetical fashion company. It delves into technical security aspects like operating system vulnerabilities and responsibility allocation issues within cloud environments. The analysis emphasizes the importance of mitigating these risks to ensure smooth business operations across all branches. It highlights both the benefits and challenges of cloud computing for businesses like AZFashion.

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Enterprise and cloud systems management
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Instructor's Name:
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1. Issues faced by the company that is considering a move to cloud computing (cc).
AZFashion is a well-established multinational firm with customers from different parts of the
world. The company has more than 150+ shops and it enjoys a turnover of 3 billion Pounds.
Unfortunately, it has seen so many difficulties in pushing business forward. Even though the
company sees many chances for business growth, it is facing technological challenges. Since its
initial days, AZFashion has struggled to cope up with information technologies. What makes
growth difficult for the company would be these issues. Core aspects of the business are
influenced by these problems.
Firstly, the company is unable to manage all its financial activities. The company sees chance for
business almost everywhere. Due to its well-established presence, it doesn’t face any issues
finding customers. However, the company’s financial activities are not handled properly. For
example, its branches are distributed across different parts of the world. It is hard for the
company to collect and tally financial data from all these branches. The main branch is located in
Swindon. The company expects the financial department to work from Swindon with access to
data from all the other branches. This is a complicated network that has to be established with
various factors in mind.
Few important factors that should be considered and not compromised would be:
1) Safety of data
2) Accuracy of data
3) Timeliness of financial data

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Currently, it is impossible for AZFashion’s data center to monitor, use and present its financial
activities efficiently. They are facing serious issues and conflict with respect to actual data
values.
“Maintenance of Systems” is another issue faced by the company. It is interesting to note that the
main development and information technology team is present in Swindon. The distribution
warehouses have support information technology engineers. These engineers are expected to
engage in daily maintenance. Upper management worries about spending a huge amount of
money on the IT maintenance staff. They believe that there are better solutions to maintenance in
the distribution warehouses. Some comments from the upper management revolves around
redundant activities. They believe that all members of the IT staff are doing the same set of tasks
over and over again. They are not interested in investing on redundant tasks. They believe that
certain tasks can be automated and monitored from the main Swindon office. The upper
management is keen in cutting down resources and investing on other areas of development.
They prefer having a central location for managing hardware and software resources. In fact, the
business doesn’t wish to spend extra thousands on additional hardware too!
AZFashion believes in rapid growth. The company claims that its businesses have to expand in
the next few years. Unfortunately, this introduces plenty of data. As the amount of data involved
in the business increases, the company has to change its hardware specs and goals. The current
setup does not support continuous scaling. It doesn’t blend with the company’s ever-changing
requirements. Also, it is not capable of holding huge volumes of data. The information
technologies team at Swindon is experiencing lots of pressure, when it comes to handling
technological improvements at all the branch offices. They are unable to collaborate a seamless
upgrade in all the branches.

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Another major problem faced by AZFashion would be “communication”. As mentioned
previously, the company has branches in different parts of the world. Data has to be transferred,
ideas should be communicated and important documents must be shared. They are unable to
communication between branches seamlessly. Some branches feel left out and obsolete. They
complain of poor inter-organization data collaborations and data sharing. This results in many
misinformed decisions being made (at the branches).
Computers have become extremely powerful in the past few years. The cost per computing has
dropped significantly in the past few years. Companies don’t intend to spend several thousand
dollars on simple computations. Today, information technologies are a big commodity [1][8].
Meanwhile, the process of managing computers is becoming complicated. The whole
infrastructure of information architectures is difficult to manage. Not to forget, the entire
infrastructure is expensive than ever before [2]. Companies like AZFashion require an alternative
solution like “Cloud Computing” to deliver, manage and improve current functionalities. Cloud
Computing at this organization can cut down costs from various routine maintenance and support
activities.
An important technology that conceptualizes cloud environments would be “virtualization”. This
is a technology that covers the physical characteristics of the platform. Users will not be able to
see the actual physical characteristics. In simpler terms, users of cloud computers will work on
an emulated environment. The emulated environment serves like a normal physical system. This
system can be configured easily and replicated without any hassles or tussles. Moreover,
organizations can understand and reuse resources effectively. Better utilization of resources
results in reduced operational charges and upfront costs. “Real estate for data centers” is an
expensive venture for any company. Luckily, cloud computing cuts down on these charges.

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“Multi tenancy” is another important concept in cloud computing. This is where a single instance
of hardware or software can satisfy the requirements of multiple users. This technology provides
better utilization of system resources. For example, memory and data storage can be reused
better. If a system resource has to be duplicated in many environments, cloud computing’s multi
tenancy concept will be very useful. Companies like AZFashion can use this concept to take care
of system resource utilization. For example, the organization can duplicate hardware and
software instances at each branch. A single instance has to be created at the main Swindon
branch. All the other branches would have a copy of this instance. This means, the company
doesn’t have to invest on expensive hardware at all the branches.
With cloud computing, end users see a very different perspective. In most cases, you will come
across several different types of delivery models. These models represent many layers in the
cloud computing architecture.
Well known delivery models would be SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.
1) Software as a Service (SaaS) provides users a platform to use a wide range of products.
Documents can be created using these products and stored online. These documents can
be accessed by authorized users from anywhere and at anytime.
2) Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides users an environment to build, scale and host a
wide range of applications. For example, Microsoft Azure is a platform as a service. It
lets users host applications using Microsoft’s datacenters. Likewise, Google App Engine
is a powerful platform for deploying web applications. These applications will be
launched in systems that present Google’s very own apps.
3) Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides users a complete environment for handling
their businesses. You will be able to compute, store and handle network capacity over the

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cloud environment. Organizations like Rackspace offer IaaS solutions, enabling public,
private and hybrid cloud platforms.
4) Data as a Service (DaaS) is a new component in cloud computing. This can be a public
service that allows users to handle huge datasets. These datasets are often easy to explore,
visualize and link (communicate). A very good example of DaaS would be Xignite
Capital Markets Data.
On the whole, there are four major types of cloud deployment models. Any business should
exploit cloud services and deliver them through one of these deployment models: Public cloud,
private cloud, hybrid cloud and community cloud.
Portfolio of specific applications that the company should consider moving to cloud.
As AZFashion decides to expand its operations, it must give customers many communication
channels. According to recent market trends, customers prefer buying on the go. They use table
computers and mobile devices to make purchases. With the help of cloud computing, AZFashion
can take care of this requirement. They can use SaaS eCommerce platforms to develop
applications that connect customers to the business through all kinds of channels and
contemporary devices. Consequently, clients will go through a seamless experience. This will
increase customer retention policies and help in building long-term brand loyalty. SaaS
eCommerce is a simple way of building digital applications for customers.
The current business relies on online orders. There is so much electronic ordering and delivering
happening in the company. It is quite difficult for all the branches to coordinate activities. With
the help of cloud computing, coordination becomes easier. It will be easier for employees at the
main branch to track details of stocks and orders in all the branches. That is because cloud

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computing would stress on the need for a centrally held online platform. All orders should go
through this platform.
“Electronic marketing” will become easier with cloud computing. It would be wise for
AZFashion to have a centralized database that stores information about sales offices, customer
needs, suppliers and competitors. This database should be protected with the right kind of access
privileges. That means, only authorized users will be able to add, modify and view data. By
maintaining a centralized facility and using minimal devices to access from different parts of the
world, AZFashion will cut down on budget and will be able to focus on new projects. Moving
electronic marketing to the cloud is a smart way of connecting different branches together.
In many branches, the company is unable to get hold of two different electrical energy service
providers. The company is forced to invest on expensive backup energy resources and
generators. This has increased AZFashion’s operational cost in different branches. The same
applies to its networking methods too. Some branches are using multiple network providers and
complicated devices are put in its own infrastructure. Though the company has made lots of
investments, it is unable to reach high availability levels. With the help of cloud computing,
AZFashion can deploy instances of powerful systems at its branch offices. They don’t have to
buy separate devices for each branch. This would cut down costs and ensure sound functionality.
AZFashion believes in scalability. The company wishes to expand in many countries and open
many branches. Additionally, it wishes to improve its produce database too. Adding
infrastructure is a complicated issue. Likewise, the process of replacing equipment is difficult.
To make sure the company can provide for its future demands, it has to venture into cloud
computing. The idea of scalability becomes very easy with cloud infrastructure. And, AZFashion
has the liberty to customize its resources.

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On the whole, the following can be moved to the cloud:
1) Electronic Marketing
2) Infrastructure Management
3) Monitoring of Network Devices
4) Storage of Database and Other Critical Information that has to be shared across branches
5) Electronic Ordering and Delivering
6) Digital Applications
Specific cloud computing companies are identified and their offering discussed with respect
to this company.
1. Amazon
Pioneers in cloud computing would be “Amazon”. They were first to introduce pay as you go
access to data storage and virtual servers. Currently, the company focuses a lot on cloud
computing. Amazon tests its very own solutions in its cloud platform. Indeed, it owns one of the
world’s biggest online operations. Amazon web services is a collection of interesting services
like Simple Storage Service (S3), Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and On demand storage
capacity. Apart from these core offerings, the company provides Simple Queue Service (a
special feature for storing messages), SimpleDB (an efficient database web service) and Cloud
Front.
Here are few ways, Amazon Web Services will help AZFashion:
1) AZFashion’s sales representatives and marketers can Simple Queue Service to store
important messages. These messages can be accessed during their busy travel days.

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2) Simple Storage Service is a smart solution for AZFashion’s storage problems. As the
company wishes to expand its branches and database, they can opt for On Demand
Storage Capacity. These services are cheaper than physical storage devices.
3) CloudFront can help AZFashion deliver its web services (the ecommerce website) and
mobile applications. It would take care of hosting, maintaining and scaling too.
The best thing about Amazon for AZFashion would be its huge databases and web-scale
development capabilities.
2. Google
Google’s App Engine is extremely effective in building and hosting web applications. The App
Engine lets users access and enjoy Google’s powerful cloud based platform. Organizations can
use Google’s premier SaaS to build productivity tools like word processing, email, calendars and
other websites. There are sophisticated tools that can help you build your own website. Here are
few ways Google App Engine can help AZFashion:
1) The company can use Google’s cloud based platform in building web applications and a
responsive e-commerce site.
2) They can ensure high levels of security in all their web products.
3) AZFashion can use Google’s financial cloud for managing its funds in the long haul too.
3. Microsoft
Another giant in the world of cloud computing would be Microsoft. The company’s cloud
environment is known as “Azure”. It is renowned for its PaaS services. The platform offers many
Microsoft services like Microsoft’s Dynamic CRM, .Net, SharePoint and SQL for users. The
cloud environment will help you run a wide range of applications online. You can mix and match

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services based on your requirements. Azure providers users a great platform for trying its own
cloud based applications like Exchange Online.
Here are few ways AZFashion can benefit from Microsoft’s cloud platform:
1) The Exchange Online platform will allow you to run many applications. These
applications can be managed from different branches.
2) Microsoft 365 will let the company handle all its documents, spreadsheets, presentations
and mails from anywhere and at anytime.
Just like Microsoft’s many other products, Azure is a stable platform for experimenting cloud.
The environment is ideal for small businesses.
4. IBM
Cloud from IBM is known as “Blue Cloud”. The cloud environment is built with tools that help
in managing large scale applications and databases. The company takes pride in offering
consulting services to other companies. These services help in integrating their infrastructure
with IBM’s Blue Cloud. Current, the company has partnered with Google to provide cloud
services to universities. These projects are likely to address various issues in cloud applications.
Here are few ways IBM’s Blue Cloud can help AZFashion:
1) The company will receive round the clock assistance while migrating to cloud. IBM has a
powerful consulting and services department to help new clients.
Few other cloud service providers in the market would be: AT&T, Citrix, EMC, Cisco,
Salesforce.com, CapGemini, Enomaly, Rightscale and Vordel. These service providers are
venturing into different aspects of cloud computing. They are here to help business owners use

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cloud environments. Indeed, the cloud is necessary to improve productivity, optimize the usage
of resources and save costs throughout the company. Companies like AZFashion will find the
cloud environment extremely useful.
Thorough discussion of tools and techniques used as a financial analysis of a project of this
kind illustrated by calculations based on estimated figures, perhaps using TCO software
Cloud computing makes use of on-demand pricing strategies. This means, the company has to
compute the overall cost to maintain information technology infrastructure in-house. There are
many sophisticated models for computing costs [3][4]. Total cost of Ownership (TCO) can be
used to analyze the financial aspects of migrating to a cloud environment in a company. TCO
represents the amount of money required to own and manage the information technology
infrastructure [5].
There are nine major components in analyzing the total cost required to migrate to a cloud
environment. This includes the following:
1) Amortization
2) Network cost
3) Software cost
4) Real estate cost
5) Power costs
6) Cooling cost
7) Support cost
8) Maintenance charges
9) Cost of servers

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Amortization is the process of understanding the cost of information technology infrastructure to
the company’s rental structure. The amortization parameter is useful in computing servers and
many other facilities. Amortization helps in identifying a fair attribution cost to many
information technology resources (both hardware and software). Amortization cost gives a clear
picture of monthly depreciation charges of each component in the infrastructure. Depreciation
for components like servers is usually 3 years and the depreciation for real estate is around 10
years. The amortization is an important cost that influences all the other “costs” in cloud
computing migration.
Cost of servers is closely related to the number of servers in the business. Servers are usually
mounted on racks. A company is likely to have many servers with similar specifications. This is
an interesting assumption that makes the process of computing the cost of servers easy. In most
cases, the cost of servers is computed using the following formula: number of servers * cost per
server. The amortizable parameters can be used to identify the total amortized cost of servers
too. The Amortized cost is equivalent to the following: cost of servers * amortizable parameter
for the servers. If there are costs associated with the actual purchase of servers, they must be
computed separately.
Network cost identifies the total cost various network components incur. This includes the cost
to buy networking components like cables, switches, NICs, ports, maintenance and software
packages. The cost of network interface cards is a part of the server cost. And the cost to install a
NIC is a part of the software cost section. Maintenance activities can be a part of the
maintenance and support cost too. This clearly makes network cost the amount of money you
should spend on cables, switches, ports and implementation. Once again, network cost will be an
initial expense that can be amortized to frame the monthly charges.

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The total network cost for any organization like AZFashion would be as follow:
1) Cost of Port = number of ports * cost per port
2) Cost of cable = number of cables * cost per cable
3) Cost of switch = number of switches * cost per switch
4) Cost of network = cost of port + cost of cable + cost of switch + cost to implement the
solution
Power cost is one of the biggest expenditures to be considered. In a project that needs high scale
data centers (just like AZFashion), power charges can be very high. Moreover, this is one of the
fastest growing charges. Information technology infrastructure contributes drastically to power
consumption. Various components add up to this figure. Critical ones would the computing
infrastructure (includes switches and servers), transformers, fans, air conditioners, network
critical physical infrastructure, lighting and pumps. The formula use to compute power costs
would be as follows: Total power cost = size of facility * average power usage * effectiveness of
power usage * cost of power * 24 * 365.
Software cost is required to manage huge data centers. Operating system patches must be
installed to load balance resources. The cost of software is strongly linked to its licensing policy.
There are two important classes in software licensing. Class A software packages deal with
operating systems and class B deals with virtualization and application servers. Class B does not
have any project specific features. These charges can dealt during layer addressing of the project.
The cost of software for a company like AZFashion is represented by: Cost of software =
(number of class A software * cost of class A software) + (number of class B software * cost of
class B software).

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Studies reveal that data centers consume power and the heat generated in data centers is
equivalent to the thermal output equivalency and power rating. Cooling cost estimation makes
use of the “Cooling Load Factor” method described in [6]. The Cooling Load Factor represents
the amount of power consumed using a cooling equivalent for every 1 watt of heat that gets
dissipated. Various other parameters like inefficiency and airflow redundancy constants are used
during the computation. Inefficiency constant represents the total amount of redundant airflow.
The inefficiency constant accounts for humidification. Airflow redundancy constant is used to
identify the amount of airflow that is required to cool the entire data center. Cooling factor is
computed using the following formula: cooling factor = cooling load factor * (1 + airflow
redundancy)/inefficiency constant.
Real estate cost represents the amount of money spent every month on real estate. Data centers
are bound to take lots of space. Real estate cost is an account of this space. There can be huge
variations in real estate cost. It depends on the geographic location. That means, real estate cost
would differ from one AZFashion branch to another. Real estate cost is a factor of many
parameters like square feet per server rack, total number of racks, space used by racks, server
weight and rack weight.
Facility cost represents both intangible and tangible components that are required to ensure
normal functionality of data centers. These components can be wrapped into different racks.
These racks are responsible for holding servers. TCO has to be computed by breaking intangible
and tangible components into separate racks. For cost computation purpose, the prices of
individual racks should be considered. This includes facilities like keyboard, mouse, video,
cables, PDU and more. The formula to computer total facility cost is: total facility cost = number

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of racks * cost per rack. Just like every other component in TCO, the amortized facility should
be computed.
Support and maintenance cost is a part of operational charges. Any enterprise or organization
requires operational staff. These members are expected to be a part of maintenance. In most
cases, the ratio of staff members to servers is 1:100. A lot of performance issues are caused due
to manual error and automation plays a very small role. The actual cost of maintenance in any
company is calculated using the following formula: support and maintenance charges = (number
of administrators * salary for support) + (number of contractors * charge per contractor).
A thorough discussion on the security aspects of moving these applications to the cloud and
other non-financial management considerations.[7]
Though cloud computing has many possibilities for AZFashion, it does come with challenges
too! An important challenge in cloud computing would be “Security”. This is a critical issue that
prevents cloud computing from being exploited exhaustively [7]. Security challenges in cloud
computing are quite vast and dynamic.
Data location is a major factor in cloud computing security principles. Though the technology
offers organizations like AZFashion location transparency, this is a prominent security threat.
Without being aware of where your data storage is located, you cannot create data protection
acts. These acts are not the same across different parts of the world. This means, AZFashion
should have a generalized data protection act. This will severely affect the way personal data is
stored and handled. When it comes to business data security or personal information, cloud
providers work on strategic policies. And, technical security policies are not sufficient for
handling the problem. Instead, “Trust” brings many security concerns into cloud environments.

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Trust is very important in establishing a successful cloud computing environment for any
company. A trust model has to be designed to connect all stakeholders in the cloud environment.
For AZFashion, trust in a cloud environment depends on many factors like processes, human
factors, automation management and policies. Meanwhile, trust in a cloud environment is not a
technical concern. Instead, it is a soft factor that can affect AZFashion’s cloud experience
extensively.
The use of some operating systems is considered as a serious threat in cloud environments. This
means, AZFashion should be careful with the OS it picks to work on. They must make sure there
are no licensing issues, unavailability of services or chances of business discontinuity from the
provider’s end. These are technical security aspects.
Another critical security issue in cloud environments for AZFashion would be the allocation of
responsibilities. Different parties are expected to engage in various activities. Some users are
likely to experience inconsistency. These inconsistencies can eventually result in security
vulnerabilities. Just like many other network environments, the cloud environment is bound to
hand insider attacks too. While building a cloud environment, AZFashion should use many
security tools and software programs to ensure safety.
On the whole, cloud computing lets users focus on their core businesses. It gives organizations
like AZFashion a permanent solution to many problems that are specific to their business. From
amazing storage solutions to sound networking infrastructure to quick hardware failover, cloud
makes sure businesses are able to carry forward without any worries. Cloud computing definitely
comes with many challenges. As potential business owners, AZFashion has to make sure these

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risks are evaluated and mitigated at the earliest. Only when these risks are fixed beforehand, can
the organization see smooth execution at all its branches.

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References:
1. Hackett, S. 2008. Managed Services: An Industry Built on Trust. Framingham, USA: IDC
2. Roehrig, P. 2008. New Market Pressures Will Drive Next-Generation IT Services
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3. Stuer, G., Vanmechelen, K., & Broeckhove, J. 2007. A commodity market algorithm for
pricing substitutable Grid resources. Future Generation Computer Systems, 23(5), 688-
701.
4. Hosanagar, K., Krishnan, R., Smith, M., & Chuang, J. 2004. Optimal pricing of content
delivery network (CDN) services. In the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on
System Sciences, pp. 205-214.
5. Aggarwal, S., & McCabe, L. (nd.) The Compelling TCO Case for Cloud Computing in SMB
and Mid-Market Enterprises. Newton, MA: Hurwitz & Associates.
6. Li, X., Li, Y., Liu, T., Qiu, J., & Wang, F. 2009. The method and tool of cost analysis for
cloud computing. In: IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing, CLOUD'09, pp. 93-
100.
7. FENG Deng-Guo, ZHANG Min+, ZHANG Yan, XU Zhen. (nd.). Study on cloud computing
security. Available at http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTotal-RJXB201101007.htm
[Accessed 14 Apr. 2017].
8. Hamill, J.T., Deckro, R.F., & Kloeber, J.M. 2005. Evaluating information assurance
strategies. Decision Support Systems, vol. 39 (3), pp. 463–484.