Question 1
Buyya, Yeo, Venugopal, Broberg & Brandic (2009) suggest that when an organization's strategy calls for the use of SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS, the It department should answer the following questions: is your cloud provider has security technologies that meet the needs of your organization; is your cloud provider offering you sustainable access to all the relevant data methods and data objects; and whether you can safeguard your data and assets if you choose to migrate to another provider.
The first question is all about security. Usually, cloud computing service providers claim they are can be more dependable than physical data centers when it comes to the security of your data and assets. Since protection of assets and expertise is crucial and a key requirement for any organization, the cloud applications used should have the capacity to secure the data whenever it is transferred from one point to the other over the internet. Such security calls or encryption of both stored data and transmission data. Organizations can look out for certificates such as ISO 27001 and others as they serve as good indicators for high-security measures. Also, it is important that the organization be aware of the physical location and available security features of your data.
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The second question is about integration. Typically applications rely on other applications to get data. It would be a worst case scenario if an organization have separate pools of data that lack synchronization. In such a scenario, inconsistencies and redundancy will be experienced across applications. In order to handle transformation and connectivity, complex interfaces would require a tool that would also handle future challenges. Use of data formats such as the XML makes handling easy and comfortable.
The third question is about migration. When considering the use of SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS it is important that an organization will be able to migrate effectively with minimal challenges in case their current provider closes business or for other reasons. As an organization continues to use a cloud service, it makes the assets developed to become more valuable and important. Having a migration strategy keeps you flexible to embrace future innovations and other changes in the market.
Question 2
On-premises solutions have higher costs than cloud computing solutions majorly because on-premise solutions require bigger upfront financial investment for the hardware and software requirements. Rather than the initial expenditure required for the on-premise solution, during subsequent years, on-premise costs remain higher compared to those of cloud solution because the IT resources needed to update and manage the infrastructure of on-premise solution and applications are also very high ( Han, 2011) . On top of having infrastructural costs for databases, operating system software and hardware, on-premise solutions require IT personnel with the expertise of database and system administration in charge of managing and maintaining them. IT personnel means additional expense in terms of salaries.
Question 3
Theoretically, as more organizations are shifting towards cloud computing solutions, then the need for IT support personnel will reduce. The areas that will be most affected include sysadmins, database admins, support personnel and in some cases some developers will be affected as there will be less demand as cloud computing enters maturity. However, cloud-related jobs, storage, and data-warehousing jobs will increase in bigger companies which are very few compared to small IT firms and therefore, will only absorb a small fraction of the IT personnel's
Question 4
The organization's management should be aware of application customization requirement, consider the benefits provided by a third-party VAR or SI and consider pricing discounts for multi-year contracts. The management should determine whether the customization they require offers them benefits that outweigh the cost of that customization. The majority of cloud software vendors give buyers the choice to directly purchase solutions as well as support services from them or through SI or VAR partners. The management should be advised that SI and VAR are the better choices as they offer industry-specific customizations, integration with their existing applications as well as migration from those applications, services that cloud vendors do not offer to customers. Management demand for price calculators from vendors to avoid hidden or unseen expenditure. In order to reduce TCO and increase ROI, management should consider available pricing discounts for long-term contracts ( Han, 2011) . Paying upfront or long-term commitments offers increased savings on the TCO than on promise long-term contracts. This is because the multi-year contracts for cloud include discounts to every service and paid a subscription. On the contrary, the on-premise solutions will add maintenance costs on top of subscriptions.
Question 5
Sabahi (2011, May) suggests that the major security risks in cloud infrastructure include shadow-IT, vulnerabilities, and misconfiguration. Cloud customers several options for security configuration. In most scenarios, customers find these options as being complicated and cumbersome especially for new customers who have just enrolled to cloud computing. Deploying data and applications in the cloud does not guarantee customers safety from weaknesses and vulnerabilities in data and applications. However, it is not the responsibility of the cloud provider for that workload security. Orphan storage risk data leakage, ghost workloads or virtual servers can act as points of vulnerabilities in the cloud infrastructure.
Sources
Buyya, R., Yeo, C. S., Venugopal, S., Broberg, J., & Brandic, I. (2009). Cloud computing and emerging IT platforms: Vision, hype, and reality for delivering computing as the 5th utility. Future Generation computer systems , 25(6), 599-616. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167739x08001957
Han, Y. (2011). Cloud computing: case studies and total cost of ownership. Information technology and libraries , 30 (4), 198-206. http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ital/article/view/1871
Sabahi, F. (2011, May). Cloud computing security threats and responses. In Communication Software and Networks (ICCSN), 2011 IEEE 3rd International Conference on (pp. 245-249). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6014715/
