Cloud Computing: Evaluating Cloud-Based Organizations' Services

This report provides a comparative analysis of cloud computing vendors, focusing on their primary functions, service models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), deployment models (public, private, hybrid), and security features. The report examines five key providers: Apple iCloud, Amazon Web Services, Google Docs, Windows Azure, and Salesforce.com. The analysis highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each provider, considering factors like cost-effectiveness, service automation, and security assurance. The author recommends Microsoft Azure's private deployment model for its enhanced privacy and security. The report emphasizes the importance of aligning cloud vendor choices with an organization's specific needs and security requirements. The document concludes by summarizing the key findings and offering insights into the dynamic landscape of cloud computing services.

Running head: CLOUD COMPUTING 1
Cloud-based Organizations
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Cloud-based Organizations
Nowadays, new companies spring up on a daily basis to provide cloud computing
services. The first step an organization should consider before choosing a cloud provider is to
select an organization whose key competency is based on cloud. This document provides insights
of cloud computing and comparison of different cloud service providers as well as the offerings
they provide to help in making wise decision on selecting the appropriate vendor which is
reliable, secure and has rich services to its subscribers. In this rationale, we will analyze five
vendors including Apple iCloud, Amazon Web Service, Google Docs, Windows Azure and
Salseforce.com after which we will propose the best provider according to the analysis.
Primary cloud functions
To begin with, Apple iCloud is one of the organizations that have garnered a considerable
reputation of late. The company provide a wide ranging products and services to its users with
the key ones including software applications which they only deliver through iTunes Store, Mac
App, iBook Store and App Store. Salesforce.com, on another side, offers CRM applications,
some of their products and services include serviceCloud and salesCloud (Cusumano, 2010).
Unlike Apple iCloud, salseforce.com provide its users with their service demos before the users
are rendered a complete access to their services. On its side, google docs majorly offer cloud
storage. Despite the limited amount of services offered by this cloud based organization, google
is best at service automation, this is due to its artificial intelligence and machine learning
features. Microsoft Azure on the other hand offer a wide ranging services including analytics
Azure Kubernetes, DevOps and block chain services to mention a few. It services are accessed
by many users with most of its customers appreciating them for their services. Amazon,
however, provide its users with access to many services such as media services, satellite services,

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database management, developer tools robotics, storage services among others (Rittinghouse &
Ransome, 2016). In Amazon, storage services may be very cost effective, however, for
individual transaction, it is very expensive. When Amazon is compared against Microsoft Azure,
Microsoft still maintains top ranking in terms cloud based services.
Cloud computing service models
As far as service model is concerned, all of the organization offer the same service model
including Infrastructure as a service IaaS which provide users with the highest level of flexibility
as well as management control over IT infrastructure, Platform as a Service PaaS which enable
users to access system facilities but with some restrictions, and Software as a Service SaaS, this
is majorly used for web applications, this service only render its users capability to manage the
software only but not the operating system, it as well have some restrictions to its users ( Buyya
& Barreto, 2015). Apple iCloud, however takes exception of this, corporate takes cloud
computing beyond the IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS models. Unlike other cloud service providers, Apple
iCloud allow its users to synchronize their IT infrastructures, remote access of services and
storages, free online storage among others.
Deployment model
The organizations have various service deployment models. Salesforce.com and google
cloud provides its users with both public and private deployment models. However, it depends
with the cloud platform of the user. In Amazon, the deployment is offered in three categories
including cloud, hybrid and on premises categories, this also depends with the user’s platform.
Microsoft Azure, on its side deploy their services in terms of classic deployment and Azure
Manager deployment. In Apple iCloud, the deployment does not need any installation of a

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software or hardware, the user just register and that is all (Rashid & Chaturvedi, 2019). The
cloud service provider will only provide a simple web-based admin console for activation and
deployment. Despite the good features that is offered by the organizations, I would recommend
Microsoft Azure’s private deployment model, this is due to the fact that it ensures privacy, and it
also has high level of security that is required for the organization system.
Cloud security
In terms of security, all cloud providers offer security to their clients to a certain level.
The level of security offered will depend on the deployment model (Almorsy Grundy & Müller,
2016). Public models is subject to security issues more than private models. However, business
operating in industries with low security concerns will go for public deployment model to save
cost. Security assurance therefore depends on the deployment model. These features, particularly
private platform are important for the organization as they protect the organization from a
potential security risks.
To conclude, this document has provided an insight into cloud computing, we have
compared five cloud platforms on basis of primary functions, their service models, deployment
model and lastly security. It can be seen that various cloud organizations provide various
services and have different features. It is the demands of an organization that dictate the best
cloud vendor for the organization.

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References
Cusumano, M. A. (2010). Cloud computing and SaaS as new computing platforms. Commun.
ACM, 53(4), 27-29.
Rashid, A., & Chaturvedi, A. (2019). Cloud Computing Characteristics and Services: A Brief
Review.
Rittinghouse, J. W., & Ransome, J. F. (2016). Cloud computing: implementation, management,
and security. CRC press.
Almorsy, M., Grundy, J., & Müller, I. (2016). An analysis of the cloud computing security
problem. arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01107.
Buyya, R., & Barreto, D. (2015, December). Multi-cloud resource provisioning with aneka: A
unified and integrated utilisation of microsoft azure and amazon EC2 instances. In 2015
International Conference on Computing and Network Communications (CoCoNet) (pp.
216-229). IEEE.