Cloud Computing Report: Office Automation for Regional Gardens Ltd.

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of cloud computing solutions for Regional Gardens Ltd., covering various aspects of cloud architecture and migration strategies. The report begins with a PowerPoint presentation outlining cloud computing concepts, the chosen IaaS architecture, and its benefits such as scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with an emphasis on a disaster recovery plan. Part 2 focuses on office automation, evaluating both Ad Hoc and structured approaches, recommending the Ad Hoc approach for its cost-effectiveness. Part 3 delves into the differences between IaaS and PaaS, recommending IaaS for its virtualized architecture. Finally, Part 4 compares IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS models, recommending IaaS and addressing potential issues like vendor dependency and implementation costs with practical solutions. The report concludes by emphasizing the security, lower infrastructure costs, speed, and flexibility offered by the IaaS model for Regional Gardens Ltd.

Running head: CLOUD COMPUTING
Cloud Computing
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Table of Contents
Part 1: PowerPoint Presentation on Cloud Architecture...........................................................2
Part 2: Report on Office Automation for Regional Gardens......................................................7
Ad Hoc Approach with Benefits and Disadvantages..............................................................7
Structured Approach with Benefits and Disadvantages........................................................8
Recommendation about the Approach.................................................................................8
Part 3: Report on Migration to IaaS or PaaS............................................................................10
Differences between IaaS and PaaS.....................................................................................10
Part 4: Report on Recommendation about Cloud Models......................................................12
Differences between IaaS, PaaS and SaaS...........................................................................12
Recommendation about Cloud Model.................................................................................14
Issues with Recommended Model with their Solutions......................................................15
References................................................................................................................................17
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Part 1: PowerPoint Presentation on Cloud Architecture
Slide 1: Title Slide
Slide 2: Introduction
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Slide Note: Regional Gardens Ltd. is a particular gardening company, which sells plant. They
have their data centre and this data is kept there. They are utilizing Linux Servers and the
Windows Server 2008 as the infrastructure.
Slide 3: Cloud Computing Concepts
Slide Note: Cloud computing will be defined as use of various services such as the platforms
of storage, servers as well as software on Internet connection.
The three important characteristics of cloud computing are given below:
i) Controlling application of back end.
ii) Scalability.
iii) Paying for used services.
The major concepts of cloud computing:
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i) Infrastructure as a Service
ii) Platform as a Service
iii) Software as a Service
Slide 4: Chosen Architecture
Slide Note: Regional Gardens Ltd. should choose the architecture of Infrastructure as a
Service or Iaas.
There are various important benefits of the IaaS such as
i) Scalability
ii) Flexibility
iii) Cost Effective
iv) Disaster Recovery Plan
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Slide 5: Cloud Deployment
Slide Note: Regional Gardens Ltd. is utilizing an obsolete infrastructure. This is bringing
significant issues in the organization.
IaaS is the best solution for this. The data loss would be resolved and thus their problem
would be solved.
The most important strategy of this IaaS is the disaster recovery plan.
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Slide 6: Conclusion
Slide Note: Regional Gardens Ltd. will alter the infrastructure to any particular cloud. The
infrastructure has become completely obsolete and hence issues are being faced. They
should select IaaS or Infrastructure as a Service and their problems would be mitigated.
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Part 2: Report on Office Automation for Regional Gardens
The organization of Regional Gardens Ltd. has taken the decision for moving their
respective office automation system to a cloud based model.
Ad Hoc Approach with Benefits and Disadvantages
There are specifically two types of approaches that would be suitable for Regional
Gardens’ office automation of the staffs (Fernando, Loke & Rahayu, 2013). These two
approaches are the Ad Hoc approach and the structured approach. Both of these
approaches have their own benefits and disadvantages.
The three advantages of the ad hoc approaches are as follows:
i) Speed: Ad hoc approach is the fastest approach in comparison to the other
approaches.
ii) Cheap: The ad hoc approach does not incur huge cost and is very cheap.
iii) Simple Application: Ad hoc approach is very simple and easy to implement.
Ad hoc approach also has various disadvantages. Due to these disadvantages, often
many organizations do not opt for this particular approach (Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2016).
The demerits or problems with the ad hoc approach are as follows:
i) Do Not Follow any Procedure: The core demerit of this approach is that it never
follows any procedures and thus can be termed as unstructured.
ii) Cost of Implementation Higher: Although the approach is cheaper, the
implementation cost is bit higher.
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Structured Approach with Benefits and Disadvantages
The second approach for the Regional Gardens Ltd’s office automation would be
structured approach. It is exactly the opposite of ad hoc approach.
The two advantages of the structured approaches are as follows:
i) Always Follows Sequential Process: The most significant advantage of the
structured approach is that it always follows a structured or sequential process to complete
its work.
ii) Easy Implementation: Since it follows a specific sequence, this particular
structured approach is extremely easy to implement (Manvi & Shyam, 2014). Effort that is
required for the implementation is very low.
Several demerits are also present in a structured approach. These demerits are
responsible for the approach to be unacceptable for all types of users. The two demerits are
given below:
i) Imprecise Data: Structured approach often provides imprecise or wrong data to its
users.
ii) Slower: This particular approach, since following processes or steps is extremely
slow in comparison to the others.
Recommendation about the Approach
Regional Gardens Ltd. has two options for their office automation (Fernando, Loke &
Rahayu, 2013). The recommended approach amongst the two is the ad hoc approach.
Although, it does not follow any process, it is cheaper and effective than the other.
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Therefore, Regional Gardens should utilize the approach of ad hoc for the purpose of office
automation.
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Part 3: Report on Migration to IaaS or PaaS
Regional Gardens Ltd. is a famous company that has several enterprises related to
gardening. This particular organization has various vital infrastructures (Almorsy, Grundy &
Müller, 2016). The infrastr6ucture, which they are utilizing have become obsolete and thus,
they have decided to migrate their infrastructure to cloud infrastructure.
Differences between IaaS and PaaS
Regional Gardens has thought of shifting the architecture to either IaaS or PaaS.
Since they are unsure about the selection, they have considered looking at the differences.
The most significant differences between IaaS and PaaS are given below:
Main Factors Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Definition Infrastructure-as-a-Service is
referred to each and every
online service that is giving high
level application programming
interfaces and is used as typical
virtualized infrastructures to
partition the data, secure the
data and even shift the data.
Platform-as-a-Service is a
specific platform based service
that helps the users by
providing any particular online
platform for creation as well as
running and control of all
applications (Hashizume et al.,
2013).
Benefits i) Lower expense of
infrastructure.
ii) Scalability and flexibility
iii) Providing limitless agility.
i) Cost Effective.
ii) higher developing speed
Iii) Easy applications control.
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Issues i) Costly
ii) Only client backups possible.
i) Insecure and lack of
protectiveness.
ii) Cloud providers do not have
any control on platform.
Examples AWS or Amazon Web Services,
Microsoft Azure.
Windows Azure, Google App
Engine.
Taking into consideration of all the above mentioned facts, Regional Gardens Ltd.
should select the IaaS architecture for their organization (Dinh et al., 2013). The migration of
data to cloud is an important step in a business. IaaS is considered as the best migrating
architecture since it provides virtualized architecture.
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Part 4: Report on Recommendation about Cloud Models
Regional Gardens Ltd. has eventually deployed the software of Microsoft SharePoint
2010 as the collaboration and management technique or tool for all the employees. This
particular management and collaboration tool I always run on a specific application (Kavis,
2014). However, there are several complexities due to this tool. For the purpose of
removing all the complexities, they have solely decided for moving their software of
SharePoint 2010 to any particular cloud model.
Differences between IaaS, PaaS and SaaS
They have three options for shifting their SharePoint 2010 software. These three
models are IaaS, PaaS and finally SaaS. There are various differences between them and
they are as follows:
Key Factors Infrastructure-as-a-
Service (IaaS)
Platform-as-a-Service
(PaaS)
Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS)
Definition Infrastructure-as-a-
Service is referred to each
and every online service
that is giving high level
application programming
interfaces and is used as
typical virtualized
infrastructures to
partition the data, secure
the data and even shift
Platform-as-a-Service is a
specific platform based
service that helps the users
by providing any particular
online platform for
creation as well as running
and control of all
applications (Rittinghouse
& Ransome, 2016).
Software as a Service can
be defined as the online
software delivery model
where the software is
being licensed.
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the data.
Benefits i) Lower expense of
infrastructure (Hashizume
et al., 2013).
ii) Scalability and
flexibility
iii) Providing limitless
agility.
i) Cost Effective.
ii) higher developing speed
Iii) Easy applications
control.
i) Cheapest of the three.
ii) Almost zero
complexity.
iii) Flexible as well as
scalable.
iv) Easy accessibility.
Issues i) Costly
ii) Only client backups
possible.
i) Insecure and lack of
protectiveness (Pahl,
2015).
ii) Cloud providers do not
have any control on
platform.
i) Poor performance.
ii) Lack of protectiveness
Examples AWS or Amazon Web
Services, Microsoft Azure
Google App Engine,
Windows Azure
Google Apps, Salesforce
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Figure 1: Difference between IaaS, PaaS and SaaS
(Source: Dinh et al., 2013)
Recommendation about Cloud Model
The recommended model for the infrastructure migration in Regional Gardens Ltd is
the Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS. The benefits of this cloud architecture are as given
below:
i) Safe as well as Secured: The significant advantage of Infrastructure as a Service or
IaaS is its security. A well protected infrastructure that allows all types of data migration
easily and swiftly (Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2016). Moreover, there is very less complexities
present within the architecture. Thus, it would be the best.
ii) Lower Infrastructure Costs: The infrastructure cost is very low and thus can save
up to much more expenses.
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iii) Speed: The third advantage is the speed. It is very fast and can be easily
implemented.
iv) Flexible: The fourth advantage is its flexibility (Hashizume et al., 2013). It is
flexible enough to handle all types of complexities and alterations in the business.
Figure 2: Recommended Cloud Model (IaaS)
(Source: Created by the Author in Ms Visio)
Issues with Recommended Model with their Solutions
However, there are few embedded issues or problems present in the Infrastructure
as a Service. These issues cannot be avoided, although can be solved by specific methods.
The following two are the issues with IaaS and their respective solutions.
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i) Vendor Dependency: The migration of infrastructure is done by the cloud vendors.
All the vendors are not trustworthy and there is always a high chance of data loss (Dinh et
al., 2013). This type of problem could be avoided by only selecting trusted cloud vendors.
ii) Expensive: The next issue in the Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS is its excess
implementation cost. This could be avoided by involving cheaper vendors in the process.
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