Evaluation Of Cloud Vendors And SDLC Approach For My Health Record System

Features of Microsoft Cloud Vendor

Discuss about the Importance of Testing and Quality Assurance.

The “My Health Record” project is considering a cloud based solution that is needed to be investigated. The various issues associated with the use of cloud such as data security, maintaining the confidentiality of the data and maintenance of data privacy can be addressed by making an accurate choice of the vendor that will be providing a cloud solution. The choice of the vendors mainly depends on the features and the requirements of the system in which the cloud solution is to be deployed (Sen, 2015). The features of three cloud vendors are evaluated in order to understand which cloud solution will be appropriate to choose from. The top three cloud vendor across the world is Microsoft, Amazon and IBM. The features of each of the cloud vendors are to be evaluated in order to understand which cloud vendor can be chosen for the project. These features provide an idea why these cloud vendors will be suitable for consideration.

Microsoft is one of the top cloud vendors across the world as it supports all the three layers of cloud that is IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. This cloud vendor provides an excellent and unmatched commitment for developing and deploying different application in cloud. Six features of Microsoft cloud vendor that make it one of the top cloud vendors of the world are as follows (Microsoft, 2018)-

1. One of the major benefits of making use of Microsoft cloud Vendor is its completeness in offering the different cloud services, which are Infrastructure as a service, Platform as a service and software as a service. It can be termed as a powerhouse of all the three layers and therefore it increases customers’ satisfaction.
2. The Microsoft cloud vendor provides cloud solution to a number of products starting from IoT sensors, mobile devices to a number of critical servers. This indicates that Microsoft is easily able to understand and address the needs of the customers.
3. The cloud solution that is provided by Microsoft is easily scalable that streamlines the process of operations and maintenance. The scalability is one of the significant feature cloud solution that is provided by Microsoft.
4. Microsoft cloud vendor adopts or make use of advanced technologies that helps the customers in driving the digital transformation. The Microsoft makes use of a coherent strategy in order to evaluate the needs of the customers that in turn give this vendor a competitive advantage.
5. The cloud solution that is provided by Microsoft is able to perform across a wide range of industries. Microsoft is further pushing its vast and fully integrated cloud capabilities in running the workloads of some of the biggest corporations of the world.
6. The use of Artificial Intelligence is shaping the digital transformation. The cloud solution that is offered by Microsoft can be used by AI applications as well, which is one of the significant benefits of Microsoft.

Amazon is another top cloud vendor across the world. Amazon web service is a cloud based platform that provides integrated web service to the different business across the world. Amazon web service provided by the Amazon vendor offers infrastructure as a service cloud environment to the business. The features of Amazon cloud vendor is discussed below (Amazon Web Services 2018)-

1. The AWS provided cloud solution cover a broad range of business needs. It provides web services to help a business in integrating with the IoT services, similarly to the cloud solutions offered by Microsoft (Garg, Versteeg & Buyya, 2013).
2. This cloud vendor provides mobile friendly access and services for better access and management of the cloud services provided.
3. The cloud services offered by Amazon are quite secure. This is because it addresses the different security issues that are associated with the use of cloud.
4. Amazon offers a variety of services that are designed to deliver a single set of functionality. This is tailored according to the need of the customers and therefore, it is adopted by a number of business organization.
5. The vendor offers an on demand use and pay service model and therefore this model of cloud can be implemented in a very low cost. Furthermore, the services used or provided by this vendor can be easily tracked and therefore, it offers a cost effective solution to the customers.
6. The services offered by Amazon are very robust and has proper plans of disaster recovery and therefore it is one of the most widely used cloud vendors.

IBM is one of the most successful cloud vendors that are providing on premises technology to cloud. Like Microsoft, IBM cloud offers solution such as software as service platform as service and infrastructure as service. The features of IBM cloud are as follows (IBM Cloud services, 2018)-

1. It provides a cost effective solution to the customers. The services provided by IBM cloud are tailored according to the needs of the customers.
2. Scalability is another important feature of IBM cloud as it offers a single storage system for managing and storing the data of a system.
3. It offers a robust security structure that incorporates the capability of retaining the privacy and confidentiality of the data in cloud.
4. Reliability and availability of the information that is stored in the cloud system is another key characteristic of IBM cloud.
5. This cloud vendor provides the option of easy manageability of the data stored in the cloud. IBM cloud enables the administrators in handling the large storage capacity.
6. The IBM cloud software requires no specific hardware and therefore, it provides the customers with the benefits of using any standard hardware system. Flexibility is therefore the key feature of using IBM cloud.

There are mainly three cloud environments, which are public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud. It is essential to evaluate which cloud environment will be appropriate for consideration of My Health Record System. The use of public cloud will not be suitable as maintenance of data security is essential in this system. Since in public cloud, the data can be accessed by public, it is very difficult to maintain the privacy and the confidentiality of the data. The security is stronger in private cloud but it cannot be considered as its implementation cost is high and it will restrict the number of people that can access the system (Zheng et al., 2013). Therefore it is recommended for the government of Australia to make use of hybrid cloud. Hybrid cloud environment can be defined as a cloud computing environment that uses a mix of public and private cloud to offer tailored services that suits the needs of the customers (Li et al., 2015). In hybrid cloud environment, a combination of both public and private cloud allows the data and applications to be shared between them. The strength and weakness of the hybrid cloud environment are discussed below.

Features of Amazon Cloud Vendor

The strengths of using a hybrid cloud environment are discussed below-

1. One of the major strengths of using a hybrid cloud environment is increase in security (Wang, & Jia, 2012). This is because it is a mix of both public and private cloud that provides the benefits of data access as provided by public cloud and security benefits that are provided by the private cloud.
2. The use of hybrid cloud environment provides greater accessibility to the business critical applications which is one of the major advantages of hybrid cloud environment (Jadeja & Modi, 2012). This is needed for accessing the data that is stored in My Health Record system.
3. It is a cost effective solution that reduces that total cost of ownership to match the demands of the customers. Therefore, it is one of the strengths of hybrid cloud.

The weaknesses of hybrid cloud are as follows-

1. The cost of implementation of hybrid cloud is considerably more than that of public cloud.
2. Certain security issues are faced while switching between the public and the private environment (Li et al., 2015).
3. Infrastructure dependence is another weakness associated with the use of hybrid cloud environment.

These are the major strengths and weaknesses of using hybrid cloud environment for My Health record system.

It is to be decided whether a predictive SDLC approach will be chosen for the project implementation or an adaptive SDLC approach. For that, the pros and cons of predictive and adaptive SDLC are needed to be evaluated.

There are a number of advantages associated with the use of a predictive SDLC approach which are listed below-

1. The use of predictive SDLC approach helps in clearly defining the objective of the project. A clear project goal is needed to be identified for making use of a predictive SDLC (Mahalakshmi & Sundararajan, 2013).
2. A sequential process of project implementation is followed predictive SDLC approach and therefore the chances of error are very less (Balaji & Murugaiyan, 2012).
3. The use of predictive SDLC helps in ascertaining a stable requirement of the project.
4. The project risks are considerably less since it follows a steady requirement throughout the project implementation phase.

1. Change in scope or scope modifications are not permitted and therefore it fails to respond to the changes.
2. It has no feedback path as backward tracking of the project is not possible.

Pros

1. The change in project process and requirements is possible in adaptive SDLC and therefore changing the project requirements and adapting to the changes becomes easier adaptive SDLC.
2. The presence of feedback path makes it easier to correct the errors in every stage of project implementation (Tuteja & Dubey, 2012). Since testing is done at each phases of the project, it becomes easier to detect the errors associated with the project.
3. The customers’ feedback is considered very essential in this SDLC approach. This helps in improvising the project even after its development.

Cons

1. The implementation time for the project following this approach is quite high.
2. A continuous project supervision is needed for following this SDLC approach.

A predictive SDLC approach will be appropriate for the project since the requirements of the project are quite clear and the project is needed to be implemented in scheduled time. Furthermore, the use of predictive SDLC eliminates the chances of change in project scope thereby reducing the risks associated with the project. Therefore the choice of adaptive SDLC is appropriate for the project “My health Record” by Commonwealth Government of Australia.

References

Balaji, S., & Murugaiyan, M. S. (2012). Waterfall vs. V-Model vs. Agile: A comparative study on SDLC. International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management, 2(1), 26-30.

Cloud Solutions – Amazon Web Services (AWS). (2018). Retrieved from https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/?nc2=h_ql_s&awsm=ql-2

Garg, S. K., Versteeg, S., & Buyya, R. (2013). A framework for ranking of cloud computing services. Future Generation Computer Systems, 29(4), 1012-1023.

IBM Cloud services. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.ibm.com/cloud/services

Jadeja, Y., & Modi, K. (2012, March). Cloud computing-concepts, architecture and challenges. In Computing, Electronics and Electrical Technologies (ICCEET), 2012 International Conference on (pp. 877-880). IEEE.

Li, J., Li, Y. K., Chen, X., Lee, P. P., & Lou, W. (2015). A hybrid cloud approach for secure authorized deduplication. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 26(5), 1206-1216.

Li, Q., Wang, Z. Y., Li, W. H., Li, J., Wang, C., & Du, R. Y. (2013). Applications integration in a hybrid cloud computing environment: Modelling and platform. Enterprise Information Systems, 7(3), 237-271.

Mahalakshmi, M., & Sundararajan, M. (2013). Traditional SDLC Vs Scrum Methodology–A Comparative Study. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering, 3(6), 192-196.

Microsoft Azure Cloud Computing Platform and Services. (2018). Retrieved from https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/

Sen, J. (2015). Security and privacy issues in cloud computing. In Cloud Technology: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 1585-1630). IGI Global.

Tuteja, M., & Dubey, G. (2012). A research study on importance of testing and quality assurance in software development life cycle (SDLC) models. International Journal of Soft Computing and Engineering (IJSCE), 2(3), 251-257.

Wang, J. K., & Jia, X. (2012, November). Data Security and Authentication in hybrid cloud computing model. In Global High Tech Congress on Electronics (GHTCE), 2012 IEEE (pp. 117-120). IEEE.

Zheng, Z., Wu, X., Zhang, Y., Lyu, M. R., & Wang, J. (2013). QoS ranking prediction for cloud services. IEEE transactions on parallel and distributed systems, 24(6), 1213-1222.