Transforming IT And Business With Cloud Computing

Benefits of Migrating to Cloud Computing

Question:

Discuss About The Cloud Compute Transforming IT And Business?

The Aztec organization wants to transform their working tactics with new and advanced features which helps in enhancing their turnover of the company. The senior executives of the enterprise has decided to transform their working curriculum with the deployment of any one of the recent technology into their enterprise such s bring your own device, migration to cloud computing, changing techniques with IPv6, and other. We as a project consultant recommended the Aztec organization to change their business functionality with the migration of business operation to the external cloud hosting solution.

The changing of the traditional working style with the new innovative concepts is complied with many risks and challenges. The adoption of cloud computing platform increases the risks associated with the traditional physical infrastructure (Hogmen, 2012). The renovation of the existing devices can be easily done with the inclusion of cloud environment with minimum cost.

The follow up of the standard are used for data security to manage the financial security procedures. The analysis of the financial data is measured in terms of government norms. It has been seen that the ethical code of conduct should be deprived in the curriculum of the Aztec organization to improve the financial services by managing good and clear relationship with the banking sector. The customers are provided with the unique banking codes for carrying out effective transaction. The planning of the financial services helps in developing cost effective plan (Chauhan, 2014). The operational policies of the Aztec organization should focuses on deploying insurance service architecture. The budget of the enterprise can be reduced by managing resources availability according to the demand of the user. The capability of the financial sector can be improved with the deployment of cloud software as a service model for effectively managing functions with suppliers, dealers, and customers, and etc. (Dhammeratchi, 2012). The electronic trading services are used for managing the financial services of the Aztec enterprise. The legislation plays an important role in captivating insurance services provided to the financial department with regard to safety, security, integrity, and reliability of the financial processes. It is significantly important for managing rules and regulations associated with the implication of financial market. The legislations which are used for providing financial insurance services to the Aztec organization are categorised as consumer and competition act 2010, law implied for Australian consumers, act passed for corporation 2001, amendment act 2012 for corporations, financial act 2006 passed for counter terrorism and anti-money laundering schemes, and protection act 2010 passed for national consumer. The key legislation which are used for providing efficient financial services for taking authorised decision for business activity, for providing general legislation, legislation used for superannuation policies and standards, and society life insurance. The licence and permits are used for providing insurance to the financial services in the discipline of general ledger, provision developed for providing credit schemes, services related with deposits and custody, and products affiliated to the financial sector of the Aztec organization. The enterprise is moving towards the new and advanced technology for enhancing the advice related to the financial productivity. The financial products can be efficiently taken under consideration with the implication of legislation law in using cloud environment. The market policies of the underlying product changed with the cloud technology for increasing the market ability of the enterprise. It helps in remaining ahead of the competitors in the financial sector by reducing the cost incurred on the resources and other operational functions. The skills of the working employees can be enhanced with the effective management of training and development program for fulfilling the requirement of global demand due to the changing trends of new technology. The owner of the company is working on reducing financial risks associated with the deployment of cloud environment in the traditional working of the company. The financial risks can be reduced by the following procedures:

Challenges and Risks Associated with Cloud Computing Migration

Implication of Goods and service tax: The good and service tax associated with the productivity should be taken under consideration for achieving the accuracy in the optimization of the product. The GST credits can be claimed by the Aztec organization in the later cases.

Policies related with reinsurance pool corporation: These policies help in administrating and monitoring of the cyber-terrorism activities which focuses on providing facilities to the primary insurers for resolving the issues related with the insurance policies implied on commercial properties harmed by the cyber-terrorism.

The insurance packages used for providing supports to the practitioners of medical market for achieving sustainability of the enterprise. The policies should be developed for financial claims because the decision making capability of the owner can be enhanced by focusing on the potential losses associated with failure of the business operations. The funding activities associated with enterprise helps in levying the charges associated with financial activities.

The capability of the financial services helps in improving the productivity of the organization which creates the environment of innovation by providing open platform for exchanging of vision, thoughts, and business advice. The skills and knowledge of the employees should be improved according to the requirement of management policies for cloud environment. The business strategies should be focused on the health and safety requirement for improving the working standards of the employees. The transformation of traditional working structure with the cloud computing infrastructure can affect the legal compliance with government policies. The working employees should be provided with the standard equipment. The insurance is required for providing general liability to provide financial services to the employees at the time of personal injuries. The superannuation liability helps in developing laws for overcoming the breaches. The financial insurance policies are used for providing financial covers for theft, resource utilization, and others.  The operational policies of the Aztec organization should focuses on deploying insurance service architecture. The budget of the enterprise can be reduced by managing resources availability according to the demand of the user.

It has been seen that the traditional working of the enterprise have older version devices which are placed with the help of wires and cables. USB and CD drives are used for storing the data of the organization. The IT department is working on legacy system with the incorporation of adequate security policies. The InfoSec security model is used for securing the traditional processes and application of the Aztec organization. Now it is recommended that with the changing digital technology, the company has to transform their working to the cloud environment. The cloud environment is capable of resolving all the issues of the company which exist with the continuation of the business application. The renovation of the existing devices can be easily done with the inclusion of cloud environment with minimum cost. The data storage capability of the organization can be improved with the management of data on the cloud using Hadoop file system. The Hadoop file system can efficiently maintains the big data of the enterprise for easy retrieval of information. The most important step is to develop a security architecture for the Aztec organization to overcome the problem of risks and challenges. The services provided to the end user can be made secure by organizing a token system. The implementation of the virtual private network helps in managing services of the cloud environment. The framework of the security model depends on the implementation of the following components:

• Accumulation of client
• Secured portal provided to the end user
• Sign on single level security
• Configuration of the service management
• Gateways used for providing secured services
• Controlling procedure for security model
• Security management policies and standard
• Monitoring of cloud services
• Trust management

Financial Services and Cloud Computing

The adoption of cloud computing environment helps in dealing with network management, deployment of the operating system and the databases, inclusion of resource scheduling plan, management of the transactional processing, management of the concurrency control, and planning of memory management. The changing of the traditional working style with the new innovative concepts is complied with many risks and challenges which are categorised as security to the infrastructure, performance of the business activities, data availability on demand, difficulty in the integration of in-house activities, customization support is not applicable, more cost incurred than demand, difficulty in managing back up data which can create a big scenario of complexity at the time of system failure, and others. The following graph shows the statistical representation of risks and challenges associated with the transformation of traditional working system with the cloud computing working system.

The impact of changing the traditional working with the cloud computing for carrying over business activities are comprised of following security concern which are describe below:

• Security concern 1: It has been reviewed that the implementation of cloud computing model raises the security concern for physical security associate with the data and information because the technology of cloud computing involves the sharing of resources between different participating units.
• Security concern 2:The violation of government laws can take place
• Security concern 3:Incompatibility of the suppliers with the new technology
• Security concern 4: Focus should be given on the authorised person who is responsible for performing the action of encryption and decryption associated with the working capabilities of the organization (Zhao, 2015).
• Security concern 5: The methodology responsible for performing actions related with data integrity, data transfer, data retrieval, and data storage. The authorised transaction should be ensured for managing the integrity of the data.
• Security concern 6: The follow up of the standard used for data security to manage the financial security procedures (Greenwood, 2014).
• Security concern 7: The updated information should be provided for upgrading the traditional applications according requirement of cloud computing environment.
• Security concern 8: The analysis of the financial data to be measured in terms of government norms.
• Security concern 9: The fluidity of the virtual machine should be taken into consideration for maintaining the security consistency (Garg, 2013).
• Security concern 10: The violation of the private rights should be taken under consideration for managing the services provided by the cloud.

The management of risks is the basic criteria for managing the cloud computing activities. The analysis of the security should be done with the help of qualitative and quantitative research methodology. The research methodology was designed to analyse the risks associated with the migration to cloud computing environment.

• Questionnaire: The arrangement of questionnaire with the top executives of the enterprise helps in generating ideas, opinions, thoughts, and vision in adopting new technology for increasing the efficiency of the business operation. We analysed that the top executives are satisfied with the services provided by the cloud computing environment than the traditional way of working. The questions are organized to analyse the benefits of cloud computing environment and the security concern associated with the migration of traditional platform.
• Data collection techniques: The data are collected from different sources to evaluate the measurement of strategic decision to transform their working tactics. It has been analysed that the cloud computing environment play a vital role in overcoming the flaws of the traditional system.
• Literature review: The documentation of the organization which are enrolling on the principles of cloud computing should be reviewed to analyse the actual situation and benefits and risks associated with this working platform.

The migration process is equipped with threats and vulnerabilities because the implementation of the new architecture involves the change management program of the traditional working architecture (Samad, 2014). The migration towards the adoption of cloud is equipped with some major threats which are classified as insecurity associated with the application programming interfaces, inclusion of malicious and virus attacks, vulnerabilities associated with the shared technologies, data leakages, hijacking of user account, and inclusion of risk profile. The Aztec organization is recommended to consider some of the major potential risks which are assimilated with the inclusion of cloud architecture in the working curriculum of the enterprise.

• The implementation of the interoperable operation issues related with the deployment of the communication network between participating units. The compatibility of managing the cloud devices is the major concern area in the deployment of cloud architecture.
• It is difficult to port all the application on the cloud environment. The portability of the application should be taken into consideration (Bhopale, 2013).
• Migration to the cloud environment involves changes in the new environment required the setting of goal, funding sources, required skilled staff, and others.
• The financial management of required resources involves the estimation of cost required to purchase resources. The failure of estimation can affect the budget of the organization.
• Organization of service level agreement involves clear specification of goals, mission, and services provided by the cloud providers. It helps in specifying the distribution of roles and responsibilities between the customers and stakeholders. It is difficult to prepare the metric for the deliverables of the project in the initial phases of the migration of activities to the cloud environment. The failure of service level agreement can affect the working operation of the enterprise.
• The encryption and decryption of files can affect the confidentiality of the information stored on the third party cloud environment.
• Failure of managing backups can result into the development of big complex scenario at the time of network failure.
• The expectation of high skilled employees can be failure in determining right person for the right job. It leads to inefficiency in the completion of business activities.
• It is difficult in tracking of the potential risks associated with the projects because the migration to the cloud environment changes the risks associated with the project.
• Threats associated with the migration of business activities to the platform of cloud computing architecture
• It is difficult to estimate the cost associated with the flow of data transfer.
• It is not guaranteed that the services level agreement determinants will be completely fulfilled or not (Kushwah, 2013).

Identification of risks	Explanation	Consequences
Theft of data associated with cloud services	The unauthenticated person can access the data from the internet	Physical security of the cloud infrastructure get affected
Inclusion of DOS attack	The supply and demand of the resources is not met	Adverse impact on cloud network
Scheduling the history of resources used
XML signatures are used getting unauthorised accessing of data from the cloud etwork
Attack of viruses and malware	Leaking of confidential information of the user login Data leakages The change in behaviour of the cloud services	The infrastructure of the cloud is get affected
The implementation of the virtual system	Data loss	Cloud  physical infrastructure
Resources used
Process of memory sharing	Resources are leaked on the external environment	Cloud physical infrastructure
User credentials are leaked
Direct attack of malware and viruses
Adverse effect of phishing process	Accessing of user credentials	Cloud network and cloud physical infrastructure
Installation of the malicious codes and viruses
Change in the behaviour of cloud services
Unavailability of the information to the requested client
Installation of the botnets	Unauthorised accessing of the cloud resource from the external parties	Cloud network and cloud physical infrastructure
	Changing behaviour of the cloud services
	Hacking of confidential and private data
Stenography Attack	Unauthorised accessing of the cloud resource from the external parties (Marston, 2011)	Changing behaviour of the cloud services
The information stored on the user account get deleted
Data loss
Virtual System Rollback	Inclusion of brute force attack Unauthorised accessing of the cloud resource from the external parties	Cloud network and cloud physical infrastructure
Changes in security policies	The risks associated with the transfer of security policies associated with the traditional infrastructure	Interface used for developing cloud applications
Accessing of services on demand	The resources are not available for use at the time of demand placed	Inefficiency in the planning processes
Technical risks	The technical risks are not available for use at the time of demand placed	The technical risks associated with the free flow sharing of resources
Techniques used for interpreting the data	Data interpretation for decrypting the associated data	Resource scalability
Distributed denial of service attack	Inefficiency in providing cloud services	Physical infrastructure of the cloud
Risks associated with the legal process	The transformation of traditional working structure with the cloud computing infrastructure can affect the legal compliance with government policies	Physical infrastructure of the cloud
Inefficiency of the planning process	The transformation of traditional working structure with the cloud computing infrastructure can affect the legal compliance with government policies (Kaisler, 2012)	Physical infrastructure of the cloud
Government security policies are not properly managed	The consideration is not given to the government policies may result into inefficiency in government compliance	Providers of the cloud services
Risks associated with the lock in platforms	Data leakages due to the sharing of information (Jayachandran, 2013)	Confidentiality, accuracy, and integrity of the information get lost
No isolation in the multi-tenancy platform	Mismanagement in the isolation of multi-tenancy platform	Cloud network
Data protection and security	Data leakages due to the sharing of information	Confidentiality, accuracy, and integrity of the information get lost
Internet connectivity portfolio	Inefficiency in managing many devices on the same cloud	Failure f connectivity
Estimating occurrence of risks	It is difficult in estimating the risks before its occurrence
Cloud services are unavailable	Inadequacy in controlling of cloud services	Cloud services
Inadequacy in the management of internal risks security program	Inefficiency in controlling internal processing	Internal cloud infrastructure
Inadequacy in the management of External risks security program	Inefficiency in controlling external  processing	External cloud infrastructure
Threats associated with the differential analysis	The arrival of the new threats can deform the security code of the traditional environment
Repudiation attack	It can affect the validity of the messages send by the sender
Man in the middle attack	It can affect the communication channel placed between the participating units.

It has been seen that availability and reliability of the application can be increased with the deployment of the application on the cloud. It is difficult to manage the availability of the resources according to the rising demand of the different applications. The security and privacy are the two major issues associated with the cloud computing environment due to the open sharing of the resources and the information. It has been seen that the third party is capable of performing critical operations.  The data lock in problem associated with the deployment of activities on the cloud platform. The government compliance procedures should be used for managing the integrity of the legal document. It has been reviewed that the implementation of cloud computing model raises the security concern for physical security associate with the data and information because the technology of cloud computing involves the sharing of resources between different participating units. The contractor should focus on achieving all the activities and requirement mentioned in the service level agreement. The traditional architecture should be integrated with the new system for managing component level services deployed by the cloud supporting applications. The strategic decision should be taken for managing the availability of the resources approved by the vendor (Murray, 2013).

Security Considerations for Cloud Computing

The private cloud environment is used for deploying the business activities of the Aztec enterprise. The inclusion of processes is used for providing privacy and security to the data. It is comprised of four phases which are categorised as pre-virtualization, virtualization, standardization, and automation phase. The pre-virtualization phase is used for developing strategies to increase the efficiency for the effective utilization of the resources. The phase of virtualization is working on managing virtual machine pool on the server. The public key infrastructure is used for managing cryptographic procedures for securing the confidentiality, integrity, and accuracy of the information. The optimization of the resources can helps in developing the cost effective techniques for the enterprise. The availability of the cloud environment helps in developing the resilience network to simplify the operational activities to enhance the cloud infrastructure. The phase of standardization is used for leveraging the diversification of information and application which are deployed on the cloud environment. The phase of automation is used for providing resources to the end user on their demand which helps in improving the working capability of business activities. The following diagram shows the implementation of the four processes to deploy the private cloud environment:

The traditional platform of security infrastructure deployed in the Aztec enterprise required to enhance security the following areas which are classified as:

• Data storage security: The security architecture of the Aztec enterprise can be enhanced with the use of verification code. The proposed security architecture helps in providing security to the dynamic interchange of the data.
• Validity to the user credential: The authentication and authorisation should be given to the user by validating the credentials of the user by using the verification procedures.
• Interoperability: The security procedures should be used for managing the data loss occurred due to the occurrence of interoperable operations between the participating units.

It is recommended that the Aztec organization should migrate their business processes to cloud computing environment. It is required for the enterprise to develop risk quantification for securing the project from the occurrence of project vulnerabilities. The security of the Aztec organization depends upon resources security for the efficient working of the business processes. The access control mechanism should be used for managing the procedures of resources to be utilized in the effective manner. The provision should be used for deploying the application on the cloud environment (Betcher, 2010). The governance compliance procedures should be used for auditing the vulnerabilities and threats associated with the deployment of procedures and activities. The verification and validation procedures are used for testing the cloud activities which are performed on the cloud environment.  It is required for the organization to deploy the security architecture which is given below:

It is recommended for the Aztec organization to deploy the risks mitigation plan in the working curriculum of the enterprise to improve the performance and enhance the business operation. The security procedure plan should be deployed according to the requirement of cloud computing environment. The risks mitigation plan is used for controlling the security architecture of the enterprise (Murray, 2013). The functional unit of the business should be verified and validated at each phase of the business plan. The two based authentication is the recommended protocol which should be used for providing authentication for accessing of the required information from the cloud. The public key infrastructure is used for   managing cryptographic procedures for securing the confidentiality, integrity, and accuracy of the information. The processes are effectively managed with the help of auditing procedures and authenticated policies (Oredo, 2014).

Conclusion:

It is concluded that the private cloud environment is used for deploying the business activities of the Aztec enterprise. The adoption of cloud computing platform increases the risks associated with the traditional physical infrastructure. The security of the Aztec organization depends upon resources security for the efficient working of the business processes. The access control mechanism should be used for managing the procedures of resources to be utilized in the effective manner. The security procedures should be used for managing the data loss occurred due to the occurrence of interoperable operations between the participating units.

References:

Betcher, T. (2010). Cloud computing: IT related risks. Retrieved from https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/10207/Betcher-2010.pdf

Bhopale, S. (2013). Cloud Migration Benefits and its challenges issues. Retrieved from https://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jce/papers/sicete-volume1/8.pdf

Samad, S. (2014). Mitigating risks in the cloud. Retrieved from https://webobjects.cdw.com/webobjects/media/pdf/Solutions/Cloud-Computing/151383-Mitigating-Risk-in-the-Cloud.pdf

Chauhan, M. (2014). Towards process support for migrating application to cloud computing. Retrieved from https://pure.itu.dk/ws/files/78453849/PID2535147.pdf

Dhammeratchi, D. (2012). Reinventing business with cloud computing. Retrieved from https://www-01.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp033.nsf/vLookupPDFs/CWHK_Cloud_User_Guide_IBM_May_2012/$file/CWHK_Cloud_User_Guide_IBM_May_2012.pdf

Garg, A. (2013). Cloud computing for the financial services industry. Retrieved from https://www.sapient.com/content/dam/sapient/sapientglobalmarkets/pdf/thought-leadership/GM_Cloud_Computing.pdf

Greenwood, D. (2014). Cloud migration: A case study of migrating an enterprise IT system to IAAS. Retrieved from https://www.aspiresys.com/WhitePapers/Cloud-Migration-Methodology.pdf

Hogmen, G. (2012). Benefits, risks, and recommendation for information security. Retrieved from https://resilience.enisa.europa.eu/cloud-security-and-resilience/publications/cloud-computing-benefits-risks-and-recommendations-for-information-security

Jayachandran, J. (2013). Cloud migration methodology. Retrieved from https://www.aspiresys.com/WhitePapers/Cloud-Migration-Methodology.pdf

Kaisler, S. (2012). A decision framework for cloud computing. Retrieved from https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/hicss/2012/4525/00/4525b553.pdf

Kushwah, V. (2013). A security approach for data migration in cloud computing. Retrieved from https://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jce/papers/sicete-volume1/8.pdf

Marston, S. (2011). Cloud computing the business perspective. Retrieved from https://www.keencomputer.com/images/KEENCOMP/CLOUD/cloud-computing-business-perspective.pdf

Murray, P. (2013). Common risks of using business apps in the cloud. Retrieved from https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/using-cloud-apps-for-business.pdf

Oredo, J. (2014). Challenges of cloud computing in business. Retrieved from https://www.ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol_5_No_3_March_2014/18.pdf

Patron, C. (2012). Cloud computing: Transforming IT and business. Retrieved from https://www-01.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp033.nsf/vLookupPDFs/CWHK_Cloud_User_Guide_IBM_May_2012/$file/CWHK_Cloud_User_Guide_IBM_May_2012.pdf

Zhao, J. (2015). Strategies and methods for cloud migration, ”International Journal of automation and computing”, Vol. 11. No (2.)