Cloud Computing and Agile Methodologies for Cake Franchise System

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of cloud-based solutions for a cake franchise, considering the strengths and weaknesses of cloud computing in the context of the company's operations. It explores the use of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) models. The report compares and contrasts two agile methodologies, Unified Process and Scrum, recommending Unified Process for the development of a cloud-based architecture due to the company's complexity. The report also includes a discussion of the functional and non-functional requirements of the system and the benefits of cloud computing for the cake franchise, including cost-effectiveness, efficiency, data restoration, and scalability. The conclusion highlights the importance of cloud computing and the Unified Process model for improving the franchise's business and customer retention.

Running head: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Discussion:.......................................................................................................................................2
Cloud Based Solution for the Company:.....................................................................................2
Agile methodologies in use:........................................................................................................4
Differences between unified process and scrum:........................................................................4
Recommended process:...............................................................................................................5
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................5
References:......................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction:
The past few decades have shown a huge development in the technology. With more
technologies in line waiting for implementation in the main stream, Cloud Computing plays an
important role in the industry. As most of the information are accessed with the help of internet,
storing them on cloud is the most efficient solution. There were certain issues that were faced by
the cake franchisors in Australia. It has 300 stores in the Australia and New Zealand itself.
Controlling all these manually was a problem initially. The system which is currently available is
not meant for handling things dynamically. Contemporary dynamic systems are capable of
performing tasks swift and efficiently which reduces costs. To meet the problems faced by the
company, a system has been developed which makes use of the cloud-services. In the report we
will discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of cloud services along with the
methodologies that can be proposed for the systems.
Discussion:
Cloud Based Solution for the Company:
As mentioned earlier, the cloud based solutions are used for the purpose of the
information systems now a days. For the purpose of managing the franchise and the available
information, the combination of the Infrastructure as a Service and Software as a Service
infrastructure is taken into consideration. For the implementation of the cloud based solution in
the company, knowing the strengths and the weakness of the technology is important (Moody,
Siponen & Pahnila, 2018).
Strengths:

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 One of the strongest point of the cloud computing technology is cost
effectiveness. There is no need for investments in the physical hardware for
cloud-computing. The maintenance charges are less as well. Cloud services
providers are responsible for the maintenance of the technology (Rittinghouse &
Ransome, 2017).
 It helps in the development of competitive edge by accessing the latest
applications without any human intervention.
 Cloud services are highly swift and efficient in nature. The process of deployment
take lesser time. The entire system is fast, hence the resources required for the
system are gathered within seconds, which helps in saving time after all.
 Another most important advantage of the cloud is data restoration and back-up
system. Once the data is given as an input in the cloud the availability of the data
increases.
 Cloud services are extremely reliable in nature. Instant updates are always
available for the recent changes that is done to the system (Jose & Christopher,
2019).
 Cloud Computing delivers services on the go. The mobility services of the
technology makes it easy to implement, use and maintain.
 Unlimited capacity of storing data. Cloud is capable of storing huge amount of
data in the system. Expanding the spaces for the storage is easy and charges are
nominal.

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 The other important benefits of using the cloud services includes the usage of On-
demand-services, multi-tenancy, high scalability, online security, independence of
location and devices and many more (Abdalla & Varol, 2019).
Weaknesses:
The weakness of the cloud services includes:
 Performance variations: The performance varies depending upon the flow of
information in the system and distributed denial of attack.
 Technical malfunctioning: The entire system runs with the helps o software
application. Technical issues may hinder the performance of the entire system
along with the business.
 Security threats: the technological advancement has led to the growth of hackers
in the IT environment. The sensitive information of the customer and company
can be under constant threat of loss and misusage (Marinescu, 2017).
 Downtime: power loss or low internet speed can affect the information system
present in the cloud, which again effect the performance.
 Connectivity: without internet facilities, the system is most likely not to work. No
operations on cloud can be done without proper internet access. Thus sudden loss
of the internet can be fatal for the cloud computing services.

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Agile methodologies in use:
Differences between unified process and scrum:
 In the Unified model, the formal cycle is usually of four phases and some of the
workflows are concurrent in the system. In case of Scrum, each iteration is considered to
be one complete cycle (Chaganti, 2016).
 Milestones are set up in the unified modelling process as it is driven by end-date. Scrum
depends upon the current process to determine the next process.
 Unified Model uses predefined scopes before the project is commenced. Scrum uses
project backlogs instead of the scope. The revaluation of the backlog is done after each
iteration is completed.
 The artifacts used for the purpose of Unified Model includes, documents regarding scope,
formal functional requirements, architecture of the system and many more. In case of the
scrum only formal artifact is required for the purpose of the operations (Varghese &
Buyya, 2018).
 Unified model makes a detailed analysis of the system before proceeding with the
operation. The scrum focuses mainly on the upcoming processes of the system.
Recommended process:
As per the case study, Unified model is recommended. This is the model which makes
use of the scopes, visions, requirements, document of the system architecture, and plan for the
development and many more features in order to perform the operations. The cake franchise
company is a medium to high level complex organization which is best fit for using this model
(Islam, et al., 2017). The unified model is an iterative model which is incremental and
architecture centric in nature. This model can effectively identify the risks in the organization

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along with the costs and profits of the organization as well. Hence this model must be used for
the process of the development of cloud based architecture in the cake franchise management.
Conclusion:
For the cake company which was unsatisfied with the performance of the existing system
in the organization it can be concluded that the cloud computing services helps in the
development of the facilities of the organization which will effectively support the dynamic
elements of the organization. For development of the cloud based infrastructure consisting of the
IaaS and SaaS model, suitable agile model has to be considered. For this case the recommended
agile model is the unified process model. This helps in the process of developing the cloud
infrastructure after analysis of the entire scenario. With the application of the cloud computing
architecture and unified process modelling, Australian Cake Franchise will be benefited in the
business as well as retaining customers.

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References:
Abdalla, P. A., & Varol, A. (2019, June). Advantages to Disadvantages of Cloud Computing for
Small-Sized Business. In 2019 7th International Symposium on Digital Forensics and
Security (ISDFS) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Chaganti, A. (2016). Adopting Agile Scrum.
Islam, M. A., Rahman, M. M., Islam, A. T., Siddiquee, M. Z. H., & Muntaheen, A. S. M. (2017).
Architecture of DBMS as Integrated Cloud Service and Its Advantages &
Disadvantages. American Journal of Operations Management and Information
Systems, 2(2), 37-41.
Jose, G. S. S., & Christopher, C. S. (2019). Secure cloud data storage approach in e-learning
systems. Cluster Computing, 22(5), 12857-12862.
Marinescu, D. C. (2017). Cloud computing: theory and practice. Morgan Kaufmann.
Moody, G. D., Siponen, M., & Pahnila, S. (2018). Toward a unified model of information
security policy compliance. MIS quarterly, 42(1).
Rittinghouse, J. W., & Ransome, J. F. (2017). Cloud computing: implementation, management,
and security. CRC press.
Varghese, B., & Buyya, R. (2018). Next generation cloud computing: New trends and research
directions. Future Generation Computer Systems, 79, 849-861.