Report For The Cloud Enterprise Architecture For Data Confidentiality And Portability

Business Problem to Be Solved

Describe about the Report for The Cloud Enterprise Architecture for Data Confidentiality and Portability.

In this particular report, ADInstruments has been considered for evaluating the application of the Cloud Computing for solving business problems.

The ADInstruments is currently facing various restriction in mobility, limited capacity and expensive IT (Information Technology) hardware for the organizational growth. Moreover, the operational agility at ADInstruments is hard to manage due to limited access to latest technology. Various issues in ADInstruments that creates business problems are:

Additional IT costs: The access to the latest technology and managing a huge amount of data within the system significantly increases the financial cost for the IT infrastructure (Gazzar, Hustad & Olsen, 2016). Moreover, the ADInstruments requires continuous disaster recovery and maintenance for the information system requires a huge cost for the procurement and installation of vital resources.

 Mobility Restrictions: Mobility Restriction at ADInstruments is one of the significant issues that has limited the productivity and business operations.

Limited Growth Capacity: With the expansion of business, the primary challenge that ADInstruments face is the tremendous amount of increase in data for storage and manage (Figliola & Fischer, 2015).

Lack of Inter-organization data sharing & collaborations:  The ADInstruments faces various limitation in the exchanging huge amount of information and data between the various location of the company.

Stakeholder	Concerns
Cloud system provider	Responsible for providing PaaS (Platform as a Service), SaaS (Software as a Service) or IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) to the client
Client/ User organization	Buys the enterprise architecture from the vendor
Cloud tool provider	Provide the customized tools that are required for carrying out the business activities (Rouhani et al., 2014)
Cloud architect	The leader of the creation and deployment of the cloud based enterprise architecture
Cloud software engineer	Design and develop the distributed software for integrating with the cloud EA or Enterprise Architecture
Cloud sales	With the assistance of the C-level professionals, drum up outsourced cloud business for the large and mid level organizations
Cloud engineer	Plan and perform activities that are associated with the maintenance and implementation of the enterprise-shared virtualization infrastructure (Figliola & Fischer, 2015)
Cloud services developer	Design, specify and certify technology contents that create the underlying services deployed in the cloud EA or Enterprise Architecture regarding the end users
Cloud systems administrator	Responsible for configuration and maintaining the cloud EA or Enterprise Architecture as well as planning for future cloud capacity
Cloud consultant	Recognizes the business outcome goals and translate those goals into cloud strategy (Rouhani et al., 2014)
Cloud systems engineer	Develops the virtual systems for supporting the organization’s cloud implementation
Cloud network engineer	Impalement, maintain, support and optimize the network software, hardware and communication links
Cloud product manager	Carries out the product planning phase for assisting in keeping the cloud-based offerings adequate

Definition of Cloud Computing:

Bai et al., (2013) defined cloud computing as the computing paradigm used for virtually sharing the infrastructure, software and platform devices. Similarly, Oredo, and Njihia, (2014) illustrated “cloud computing” as computing system based on internet for providing resources and information to the clients on a basis of “pay-as-you-use”. According to National Institute of Standards and Technology | NIST. (2016), the cloud computing technology is defined as model that enables the on-demand, convenient access to network for sharing the computing resources. The services of Cloud computing are categorized in three major services including IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service).

Increase in the capacity of System: As stated above, the capacity of the system to hold enormous amount of data is critical factor. With the cloud, ADInstruments can scale rapidly and productively without included speculation, and undertakings have entry to for all intents and purposes boundless PC (Personal Computer) and capacity assets (Satzger, Hummer & Inzinger, 2013). Many cloud suppliers even offer “burstable” foundation that consequently grows and contracts to meet crest execution periods.

Stakeholders and Their Concerns

Making the application accessible from remote location: The cloud commuting is capable of connecting the system with the users device from anywhere and anytime. The user must have a string internet connection and device that can support the functionality of the application (Wu & Buyya, 2015). This way the user can access the information and do their jobs anytime they want and from anywhere.

Makes the system more reactive to the business: ADInstruments purchase IT products that can assist in the time of high product or service demand. However, when there is not much of service to provide, system’s most of the resources are not being used (Satzger, Hummer & Inzinger, 2013). The cloud enterprise system allows ADInstruments to select the requirement of the resources to be used. This way ADInstruments can make the system highly scalable that can support the business requirement.

Elasticity and Scalability: These two features are two main principles of architecture for an information technology system. The scalability has been described in the above segment. The elasticity is the characteristic of a cloud enterprise architecture that is used for scaling up or down the scalability of a system with the lowest friction possible (Wu & Buyya, 2015).

Moving to Cloud business management aspect: The organizations strategic objectives require the system to be agile, compatible, reliable and cost efficient. The cloud provides all the advantages to the organization.

In contrast to conventional enterprise architecture, the cloud is more responsive to technology. The cloud vendors incorporate the latest technical aspects through installing patches so that the system remain up-to-date (Bhagawat & Kumar, 2014).

Different businesses have different organization objectives. The ADInstruments can choose the technology that needs to be included for creating a EA that can fulfill the business requirement (Alomari & Monowar, 2014). Moreover, installing other facilities, with the modification of the business goals, is a very easy activity.

Business Technical and Organizational Conditions That Make the Company Ready for Such Change:

Business conditions (Readiness for change): Almost all the organization faces lack of resources at some point of when the business grows. Handling huge information creates many errors. Carrying out the processes manually makes the business less competitive as the productivity descries (Oredo & Njihia, 2014). At this time, ADInstruments consider incorporating a enterprise architecture that can fulfill the retirement of conducting all the business activities efficiently and increasing profit.

Technical: Many originations includes the conventional enterprise architecture. However, the biggest drawback of the in-house EA is that it does not provide access to the system when an employee is not using a physically connected device. Recent businesses needs the employee to do their jobs from anywhere.  In terms of eliminating the issue, the organizations consider setting up the cloud EA. Cloud provide many platforms (Alomari & Monowar, 2014). The client consults with the cloud vendor or  appoints a system analyst for understanding whether they need Infrastructure as a Solution, Platform as a Solution or Software as a Solution model.

Cloud Computing

Organization condition: Many big organizations may choose in-house EA for its better security features but not all mid-level organization has the financial condition to setup in-house EA. The cloud is a very cheap technology and can be shared with other organizations. ADInstruments may pay the cost of the services in monthly or weekly installments or as per the resource usage. In addition to that, many organization does not have the proper knowledge of the technology that needs to be includes in the EA (Oredo & Njihia, 2014). For that reason choosing the EA is the solution as incorporating the new modules is easy and cheap task.

Strategic Business Goal: The ADInstruments organization aims at providing analysis and acquisition of data from various industries. The strategic goal for implementing cloud at ADInstruments is to provide flexibility in the operations and reduce the efficiency of cost and increasing the operational performance (Zissis, & Lekkas, 2012). In addition to that, implementation of cloud will allow ADInstruments for providing real-time access to information from all over the locations. ADInstruments deals with data and information; therefore, ADInstruments aims at providing maximum security through the implementation of cloud computing.

Technical Goals: The technical motivation for the implementation of cloud computing at ADInstruments is reducing the financial cost from hardware and software used in various location. Moreover, the cloud computing provides sharing resources and reduces the overall cost (Rittinghouse, & Ransome, 2016). In addition to that, ADInstruments aims at obtaining the real-time access to information through all the location, that is obtained through implementation of could technologies.

Organizational Goal:  The ADInstruments generates huge amount of data relevant to the operations and other scientific information. Through the implementation of cloud computing, ADInstruments will be provided with enhanced automation and storage capacity of the organization.  

ADInstruments needed to move their service, software and infrastructure to cloud for providing efficient process and productivity within their organization. The ADInstruments needs to implement cloud within their organization for sharing the resources between the different locations (Oredo, & Njihia, 2014). Currently, the ADInstruments feels the architectural maturity and evolution in the existing architecture and application used. Moreover, the lack of real-time data sharing has made ADInstruments ready to change and adopt cloud computing.

Champion: The chief technology officer at ADInstruments is the person that can be chosen for putting the responsibility of implementing the cloud EA. This person is responsible for identifying the issues in the technology of the existing system at ADInstruments (Satzger, Hummer & Inzinger, 2013). Moreover, he has the best knowledge about the technical aspects and can suggest the required technology with all the relevant reasons.

The Process of Solving Business Problem with the Use of Cloud Computing

Sponsor: The sponsor is a person who is responsible for identifying the business need of a system of ADInstruments. The sponsor does that by recognizing the gaps in the business process. The business analyst can be the right person for being a sponsor in the cloud EA implementation.

Organization: Hierarchical changes condition the requirement for building another data framework. Four purposes behind an association to put resources into data framework improvement:

1. Business survival – in this unique situation, time is oftentimes the key component of progress;
2. Enhancing proficiency – as a rule, this implies building a framework that will give high quality data required to choice support (Ali & Soar, 2014);
3. Upper hand – fast making of models and client arrangements speak to the techniques that are stressed;
4. Outer variables – considers outside the association’s control.

It is important to stay away from upsetting shocks amid the execution arrange, so it is important to devise an alternate course of action.

Business process: The changes in the business process are the reason of making the implementation and it can be biggest headache for ADInstruments. The business processes becomes more efficient and flexible. The reduced effort of conducting the activities reduces the cost of the business operation (Isom & Holley, 2012). However, the issues with the change are that it makes the employee irritated. These issues can be avoided with a proper training program.

Technical: Those originations that already have a system for running business will see a complete change in the technical aspects of ADInstruments . The collaboration with the other stakeholders gets better with the change. This will surely increase the engagement of the stakeholders (Wu & Buyya, 2015). The employees may find the new features that cloud provide more efficient and effective. Above all the mobility, reliability, data availability, scalability and efficiency of the system increases.

Organizational Approach:

Implementing a cloud system is a project that needs to be done perfectly in the first attempt. The failure in carrying out the project can lead to loss of capital. This is project as the  for ADInstruments the implementation of the Cloud EA or Enterprise Architecture is the complete task that needs to e done and it does not relate to any other project of ADInstruments  (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012).

The CTO (Chief Technical Officer) of ADInstruments becomes the owner of the project. Her/ She appoints a person to be the project manager.  The project manager has the responsibly of tracking and guiding the activities of the project (Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2016). The participants in the project are such as cloud system provider, cloud tool provider, cloud architect, cloud software engineer, cloud sales, cloud engineer, cloud services developer, cloud systems administrator, cloud consultant, cloud systems engineer, cloud network engineer and cloud product manager.

The scalability of the cloud EA or Enterprise Architecture and the capacity of providing profit is the critical success factor. For developing the system will be done in six phases such as requirement gathering, designing, implementing code, testing, deployment and maintenance (Gupta, Seetharaman & Raj, 2013). The time needed for implementing the cloud EA will be six months.

Introducing Cloud Commuting

The implementation of the system cannot be considered as the sole activity. With the implementation, many changes need to be done across the whole organization. Some persons will be employed for designing the training sessions. One technical expert, associated with the project, will train the employee. The approaches to the stakeholders will be for communicating with ADInstruments through the system (Beloglazov, Abawajy & Buyya, 2012). Many aspects of businesses policies needs to be changed. Many new regulations, national and international, will need to be followed by ADInstruments .

Cloud architect, cloud services developer and cloud consultant will be responsible for identifying the principles, policies, vision, mission and organizational entities that needs to be changed.

Taken as an example, the cloud architecture will redefine the existing systems principles for making new system responsive to the business needs (Isom & Holley, 2012). The biggest change in the principle is that the information can leave the system and get into the open internet.

The biggest change that an organization face after implanting the cloud EA is the change in the process behavior. Taken as an example, before the implementation, the suppliers could not communicate with the warehouse or even the communication within ADInstruments  was done in a conventional and inefficient way (Bhagawat & Kumar, 2014). After implementation auto transmission of information will make the processes more efficient.

Conclusion:

The transition of the existing architecture of ADInstruments to the cloud based architecture required the identification of the various areas within ADInstruments for enhancing the productivity and operations. The introduction of the cloud computing will be applicable in the organization with the introduction of the technology for haring the services, platform and architectural resources. In addition to that, the use of the cloud enterprise architecture by ADInstruments has a contribution in the enhancement of the services of the cloud vendors. Adapting the cloud computing technology is a crucial task for ADInstruments, therefore technical, organizational and strategic-business motivation has been analyzed before implementing cloud.  

Incorporating cloud EA is always a critical task and summons many issues during or after implementation. It is suggested to the organization to choose a profound cloud provider and employ professional cloud architecture and system analyst. Though shifting the system of the organization into the cloud is a risky process in terms of cyber security, the organization can achieve more than it can lose. 

References:

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