Fluent Essays

This week, you will complete your proof of concept and submit the report. This is the final report to management before the actual cloud deployment process begins. Use the Proof-of-Concept Report Template to prepare a report that shows the steps and results for the proof of concept. In the template, you will see specific instructions. Delete the instruction text before you submit the project. Your report should: Be between five to seven pages (plus an appendix for screenshots, cover page, and table of contents) Address the topics listed in the Proof-of-Concept Report Template Include the following screenshots from the "Build a Virtual Private Cloud and Launch a Web Server" activity: Start Lab page AWS Management Console Name with your name visible from user drop-down Task 1: Create Your VPC Task 2: Create Additional Subnets Task 3: Create a VPC Security Group Task 4: Launch a Web Server Instance How Will My Work Be Evaluated? As a cloud professional tasked with developing a proof of concept for the companies cloud adoption, you will prepare a proof of concept report to be submitted to the company owner. By developing a well-structured report of your results and recommendations to management, you are demonstrating how you use your technical knowledge to convey your ideas to others in a professional setting. Your ability to express recommendations to decision makers with the right mix of technical detail in an accepted format is an important workplace and career skill. The following evaluation criteria aligned to the competencies will be used to grade your assignment: 1.1.3: Present ideas in a clear, logical order appropriate to the task. 1.1.4: Explain the relationship between the ideas presented to enhance clarity and comprehension. 2.1.1: Identify the issue or problem under consideration. 2.1.2: Describe the context surrounding the issue or problem. 2.2.3: Explain the assumptions underlying viewpoints, solutions, or conclusions. 2.3.4: Address alternative viewpoints, perspectives, and methods. 11.1.3: Install software. 11.2.1: Configure technology according to stakeholder specifications and requirements. 13.1.1: Create documentation appropriate to the stakeholder. Executive Summary James Murray September 2, 2021 Project Description The project's name is cloud computing system installation and is meant to ensure the company's cost related to the expansion of its operation remains as lower as possible. It involves enabling the company to efficiently deliver its services through the internet much easier and cheaper (Azure, 2019). Statement of Need Currently, the company is looking for ways it can expand its operations in other regions. Therefore, it is struggling with incurring high costs if it decides to acquire additional equipment to support the expansion. One of the significant benefits of shifting the company's operations to the cloud is utilizing software from all devices regardless of being used via browsers or native apps. It makes it possible for users to carry settings and files over to different devices more efficiently (Azure, 2019). It will also help the company save capital and space since cloud space will replace physical equipment, especially storage. Cloud Service Providers Provide an overview of the top three cloud service providers. List the services offered and briefly describe the advantages and disadvantages of each provider. I. Software-as-a-service (SaaS): It involves licensing customers to use a software application over the internet. It operates on a demand model or subscription basis for payment purposes. The advantage of SaaS is that it helps to achieve cost-efficient. For instance, since it is a subscription-based software licensing, a company can comprehend and allocate costs for separate units of its business (Frankenfield and Mansa, 2020). It also offers multiple pricing tiers, allowing organizations to pay lower costs of accessing fewer application features. Nevertheless, the disadvantage of SaaS is that security is not often guaranteed since the publishers are not responsible for data security when using the model. II. Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS): the provider delivers everything, including operating systems, storage, and servers, through the connectivity of IP addresses. The advantage of IaaS is that it can scale up and down more quickly in response to the requirements of an enterprise (Frankenfield and Mansa, 2020). The disadvantage is that it has a multitenant architecture which contributes to issues related to data security. III. Platform-as-a-service (PaaS): PaaS is more like SaaS only that instead of software delivery, it creates the delivered software through the internet. The advantage of PaaS is that it can improve the productivity of a developer. It offers support to the business agility to enable it to develop with more functionality in frequently delivery rapidly (Azure, 2019). The disadvantage is that it does not provide cloud support to all of the business' infrastructures. Recommended Plan The provider that I would recommend is PaaS, as it is the model that can rapidly grow and scale better to save both time and resources/costs for the company. Impact of Recommended Plan In essence, the organizations that use PaaS tend to rapidly scale and grow faster because they do not own any resource that makes the service providers. It is therefore relatively cheaper and efficient for the company's services provision. The potential risk of the provider is that it can lead to data security issues if security needs are not well-considered and scrutinized. References Azure. (2019). What is cloud computing? Retrieved from; https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/overview/what-is-cloud-computing/#benefits Frankenfield J., Mansa J. (2020). Cloud Computing. Retrieved from; https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cloud-computing.asp Cloud Presentation James Murray CMIT 326 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation Company Profile Company History Don & Associates is a virtual financial consulting firm. The company was founded in 2004 by Donyelle, who is the primary shareholder. The company’s inception started when Donyelle, who wanted to capital budgeting services for his startup failed to get a company offering such services in Texas. Spotting an opportunity, Donyelle abandoned her start up and formed Don Consulting in 2004. The company changed its name to Don & Associates in 2006 when Donyelle sold some of her stock to other partners Company Vision Don & Associates’ vision is to inspire and nature the culture of SMEs in the United States 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation 2 Company Profile Mission To continue fostering the sustainability of SMEs through offering customer-centered financial consulting services. Products and Services Capital budgeting Risk management Market analysis Company Values Boldness Customer experience Integrity 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation 3 Company Struggles The company is seeking to expand its operations to other parts of the country, in alignment with its scaling strategy However, the company is facing various challenges since it operates on traditional IT infrastructure model The company’s IT infrastructure is located in a central data centre in Don & Associates premises Therefore, it means that the firm should buy more IT infrastructure in order to scale up, which would lead to high costs. 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation 4 Company Struggles Additionally, the frequent mandatory upgrades on the company’s IT infrastructure are consuming significant company resources. The company owner, Donyelle, wants a solution that will enable her business to expand to diverse locations around the world. Moreover, the company CEO is worried of the costs to be incurred in sourcing additional employees needed to run new data centers. Therefore, the company has decided to migrate its IT infrastructure from its data centre to a cloud computing platform. This document shall analyze the three leading cloud services providers, and recommend the most suitable cloud vendor to the company leadership. 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation 5 Current Infrastructure The current company IT infrastructure uses the traditional IT infrastructure model. In this infrastructure model, all the company's servers are located in the company data centre, located on the firm’s premises. All company employees access business data and enterprise applications through connecting to data centre servers. In this infrastructure model, the company purchases more hardware when scaling up to accommodate more users. The firm uses Microsoft hardware and software solutions 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation 6 Top Three Cloud Vendors The top 3 leading cloud vendors include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure and Google Cloud. This section shall detail a comparative analysis of the three cloud computing platforms on various aspects. Service Models Microsoft Azure offers Iaas, PaaS, SaaS and serverless service models (Bigelow, 2020). On the other hand AWS offers Iaas, PaaS, SaaS service Models. In contrast, Google Cloud offers Iaas, PaaS, and serverless computing services. In this aspect, Microsoft Azure offers more service models than the rest. Services There is no significant differences between the services offered by the three cloud computing services providers. 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation 7 Top Three Cloud Vendors These services include storage, AI, data analytics, machine learning, blockchain, developer tools, data management, security, databases, networking, IoT, and big data. However, Microsoft Azure offers CDN, an services not rendered by Google Cloud or AWS. Pricing All the three cloud service providers user per-second billing mechanism. The pricing of the three cloud service providers shall compared in relation to on-demand costs of running 1 virtual machine (Instance). The three instances include: General Purpose, Compute Optimized and Memory Optimized. 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation 8 Top Three Cloud Vendors Fig. 1: (Chand, 2021) Therefore, Azure has the cheapest raters per second, while Google cloud is the most expensive. Global Infrastructure Availability Zones: AWS: 78, Azure: 140, Google Cloud: 61 Chand, 2021). Geographical Zones: AWS: 25, Azure: 54, Google Cloud: 21. 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation 9 INSTANCE (16 GiB RAM) PRICE AWS AZURE GOOGLE CLOUD General Purpose $0.1997 $0.198 $0.16 Compute Optimized $0.204 $0.212 $0.25 Memory Optimized $0.302 $0.28 $6.3039 Total Cost $0.7057 $0.69 $6.7139 Recommended Cloud Vendor The recommended Cloud Service is Microsoft Azure. The first reason is that the company hardware and software runs on Microsoft products, migration of company IT infrastructure to the Azure cloud computing platform shall be easy due to the compatibility of the two systems. Secondly, Azure offers all four services models (IaaS, SaaS, PaaS and serverless) (Bigelow, 2020). AWS and Google Cloud offer 3 services models. Hence, Azure cloud offers more products, hence shall add more value to the company. Additionally, since the company CEO is worried about costs to be incurred in the cloud migration process, Azure cloud computing model is the most suitable as it is the cheapest among the 3. Since the company is scaling up, Azure cloud platform is the most suitable since it offers data centers in more geographical locations and availability zones than the rest. 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation 10 Conclusion Don & Associates plans to scale up, however, they have a traditional IT infrastructure mode. This makes scaling up a challenge as the company would require to purchase more IT infrastructure to accommodate more users. From the three cloud computing providers (AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud), the company should select Azure. From the comparative analysis, Azure cloud platform is more suitable as it is cheaper, addressing the company’s cost concerns. Additionally, Azure is accessible in more Geographical and Availability zones. This ensures that the firm can expand to more regions, in alignment with its scaling goals. Therefore, the company should select Azure as its cloud services provider as it serves the companies concerns. 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation 11 References Bigelow, S. J. (2020). What is Microsoft Azure and how does it work? SearchCloudComputing. https://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/definition/Windows-Azure Chand, M. (2021). Top 10 cloud service providers in 2021. C# Corner. https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/top-10-cloud-service-providers/ 9/20/21 Cloud Presentation 12