Our main strategic focus in this project has been how companies can use cloud computing to reap from their market and improve on business processes. Information Technology has been the main driving force in the industry. Many companies are setting up their systems to make sure that they tap into this new computing technology. It has the potential to bring transformation in a large of computing industry this trend is making software even more attractive as a service and has really been instrumental in shaping the way IT hardware is designed and purchased. Those innovative technologists who have new ideas for new Internet services no longer require expensive hardware or even human expense to operate it. Companies have been saved the concern of over-provisioning for a service which does not meet their predictions, in the end wasting resources, or on the other hand under-provisioning for a service which becomes very important in the long run thus making them underutilize the potential of the service. In addition to this, companies which have large tasks to be performed get results very fast because their programs can scale due to the reason that using a server for 1000 hours is costs the same as using 1000 servers for 1 hour. This type of elasticity in IT has not been experienced in history. Cloud computing refers to applications being offered as a service and hardware in the data centers that provide cloud computing services.
When a major technology arrives in information technology, there is anxiety as it is not so clear what the effects will be positive or negative. It is due to this anxiety that big organizations will take the wait-and-see attitude towards new technologies for fear of ruining their businesses or being left by their competition if they ignore the said new technology. There are occasions where the shift will offer cost benefits and will bring improvements to operations. It may even bring new ways of tackling business problems that offer important strategic advantage. The higher the benefits the higher likelihood of a company to quickly embrace them.
Cloud computing, and by extension Web 2.0 applications at large, is developing very fast and is shaping businesses. The technology is showing both considerable interest and momentum in the space.
There are some benefits though, of cloud computing which by far outweigh the risks and challenges. These benefits will be to those companies which are proactive in managing the down-size that may come with cloud computing. These benefits will include the availability of an easier change management of the information technology infrastructure which includes upgrades and maintenance. The economics of scale will also be achieved because with a private cloud, the many clients in a company will be able to access the application software that is installed on the server machines without the need to buy individual software for the many client machines in the company.
The good side of new technologies, more so cloud computing, is that innovative companies will have the opportunity to come up with solutions that were hitherto impossible to come up with. It will offer small opportunities for companies to enjoy the economies of scale that come up with this new technology. What is more, business ideas which required more computing power, scale, or new business models like Global Service oriented architecture but could not be effected because of technical bottlenecks can now be achieved. Every improvement that is directed towards storage, processing speed, or technology were hard to be achieved at initially but cloud computing has made this achievable. It is only smart companies who will notice this irresistible move.
There is a new awareness and leverage of the greater Internet particularly Web 2.0. The Web has advanced especially with the introduction of Web 2.0. The challenges in scale, and performance has created solutions for businesses, both large and small, and has come up with infrastructures that can address challenges in a powerful and economical ways that many companies have found no equal. The employment of SaaS, non-relational databases will in the end serve companies well in the new company cloud. This will enable companies to gain new skills and perspectives that are needed to compete well in the 21st century.
Cloud computing has been a good match of SOA. With cloud computing, SOA will be improved and changed for the better. Web Oriented Architecture has been found to fit well with cloud technologies which are based on the Web. Traditional SOA will not suffice with the development of cloud computing because it will be moved to a place where new business and technical requirements with faster rate of changes will be achieved. It will be common to see the phasing out of traditional SOA and the emergence of new technologies that will bring more efficiency to businesses.
More on the business, there will be advantages to businesses when they adopt cloud computing because more users will not require IT personnel in order to get the service. There will be more self-service IT from the business side. There will be less and less involvement of the IT department because it is more about Software-as-a-Service. Many business users will be in a position to adopt future cloud computing by the use of self-service.
With new technologies like cloud computing and particularly private cloud, there will be more tolerance for innovation and a lot of experimentation form businesses. There will be fewer barriers to creating new ways of doing businesses. It will pave way for prototyping and market validation of new approaches in a much faster and less expensive than before. The other sectors of the organization like branding, legal, and compliance will struggle to keep up the pace with the other sectors and thus the gradual change of the organization will be seen as cloud computing bring business possibilities to be possible in the world of cloud computing. Although this will not fix broken innovation mechanisms in businesses, but on the other side, cloud computing is accessible which enables new internal entrepreneurs to use the cloud computing tools to create new solutions anyway.
The firms which are slow in adopting new technologies will find it hard to compete with the fast-adopters. The failure to adopt cloud computing does not bring immediate fall to these companies but it will instead pile onto the more recent advancements and make it even harder to compete in the fast-moving technology world. In the end, the slow adopters will face serious and growing economic and business disadvantages.
The investigative approach that we undertook is to look at the current working system of the companies that we were interested in analysis their weaknesses, their strengths and their potential in the market. Each of the companies that we investigated portrayed the potential of making better in their areas of expertise in that they had a lot that could be done better with the use of information technology. Kinderworld, for example has the potential to offer uniform examinations throughout all their campuses. With cloud computing, the vision and mission of the establishment will be well catered for. The fact that this organization believes in offering western education with Eastern values is reason enough to embrace the use of information technology for this goal. The use of cloud computing will enable them to achieve their dream. This is true because with this technology, applications used for education in the Western countries will be accessed throughout the world for all and sundry to have a look at. The era where developers from the Western countries were to be hired in order to come up with those solutions is no longer there. With tools now readily available thanks to cloud computing, developing of systems to be used will be easier. Good systems of education used in the West will be readily available with low cost. It is becoming clear that good systems used in schools can have a positive impact on the students and will add more value to time for the teachers. Teachers will find more time than before by doing some other tasks instead of doing tasks that could be easily achieved through the use of the computing. The teaching materials can be archived in some folder in the system and this material can be accessed throughout all the campuses. This is better than the traditional way where teachers had to make this material year in year out. There is now more time to do other things.
DSL on the other hand saw the opportunity in cloud computing and offered this service to their clients. The response from the clients was overwhelming because many clients are warming up to this new service. This is a sign that cloud computing is offering food services to most of the companies around the world. Most clients of DSL are warming up to this new technology due to the fact it is cheaper in its implementation and reduces costs in the companies which are implementing it. There is also improved network reliability. This is because the network is outsourced to some third party entity which will be concerned with network management. There is also reduced dependence on geography and arbitration of labor. This is because cloud computing can be implemented from anywhere without a bias on any location. As long as there is reliable Internet connectivity, companies that are using this technology are assured of ripping from this technology. The time taken to recover from a disaster is also reduced. This is because the confidential information for any company will be stored in an offshore location. The security will also be improved as this will be handled by the professionals in the offshore location. The monitoring of the whole process will also be improved.
The case of Yaoting Company is no different from the other companies. This is a food company that deals with food and is widening its market to include other countries like China, and Philippines. Sake Japanese food has a very conservative management who has no confidence at in putting confidential information to a cloud as a way of offsite backup. This is posing a challenge to the implementation of cloud computing in this organization.
With the evolution of the software as a service model, Sake Japanese Food has switched its office productivity software to Google Suite to be used by the outlet staff so they might use the word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software and additional licenses are not required. The outlet staff often uses the software when their outlet is closed and they have to write the daily sales report and weekly sales presentation.
Vijay presents another example of a company which we did our research on. Prestines system is a market leader in networking and cloud computing is just about the best move they can make. This is because they have a network of clients who are present in many locations. There is therefore a need to have cloud computing in this company so that all the branches can have a common abstracted view of the resources within the network.
The key findings which became evident in all our groups is that cloud computing is the way to go for companies to remain strategically ahead of the competition. Cloud computing technology will help the companies with licenses of their software because they no longer need to purchase many licenses for all the computers in the network. They will be required to purchase the license which will be installed in the remote server.
In conclusion, cloud computing will be the next big investment that companies will consider putting their effort to because of the potential it has for them. It will soon be history for large purchase of licenses for the reason of installing them on many client machines. Technology has been proved to bring profitability to businesses. The use of it has seen companies gain competitive edge above their competition. As companies shift towards the use of new technologies factors such as security should be looked into before jumping into the boat. For organizations which are slow in technology adoption, they will find goal posts shifted.
Strategic focus of our project
Our project is about cloud computing and how it can be applied to business processes to effect change in companies and organizations. We strive to look at the various ways in which cloud computing can be utilized in this fast-moving technological world to bring out good returns and to improve the business processes.
Companies are positioning themselves in this fast-moving world to get the best of technology for the better leverage of their businesses. Organizations have shifted to the use of technology platforms to compete and not the availability of new markets anymore. Clients are looking for companies which use state-of-the-art technologies. The world over, it is clear that the use of advanced technologies is the main source of competitive advantage for many growing manufacturing and service industries. Although this is a fact, many companies, especially small to medium sized enterprises often miss out on pretty good opportunities for advancement because they dont have good systems and structures coupled with the fact that they dont have the right people to monitor and follow every step of the moving technology that is available.
It has been argued out that the companies which are slow in adopting new technologies will pile their lack of tapping into the benefits of new technologies and they will, in the end, be disadvantaged and miss out on great opportunities. It is not expected that they will fall immediately but they will add on to their past failures.
Cloud computing is one of the latest technologies that is the buzzword in the technology sector today. Many companies are bracing themselves for the use of this technology to leverage their operations and come up with cheaper storage solutions for their businesses. Companies have gone a notch higher to set up their own clouds and thus the coming up of private clouds in companies. The following sections will look into the structure of private cloud as compared with other cloud computing systems like the public cloud and hybrid cloud. It will also look into how companies are using this technology to leverage their businesses for more profitability.
Our strategic focus is how the use of cloud computing can be used to reduce costs in organizations and how the use of cloud computing has improved on the security of companies. Security has been left for experts to manage it.
Significantinteresting part of the project
One of the interesting parts of the projects is the fact that applications are no longer required to be installed in each individual machine. It is interesting how applications access the server application that is installed in the server and still function very well just like desktop applications. It is interesting to see where this technology will be developed up to. When services are offered as a service, it is interesting and forms one of the milestones in the development of the future computer systems. It will be interesting to see how proprietary will come out of this madness. Open source companies are taking this opportunity to make sure that they get more clients who will use their product. It is significant to carry out this research because the findings will be used to improve the services that are being provided in the companies that we are looking at. This research could not have come at a better time such as this because companies are now downsizing and the use of cloud computing to cut down on cost is the surest way to cut down costs for most business.
Real-world motivations
Cloud computing is interesting and fun to research on. There are some applications and companies that have really been instrumental in this research. First on the list are the popular Google applications. You can now work on a Microsoft Word document on your computer even if you dont have office installed, thanks to Google apps. Google has cut its name as a search engine and is the leader in this field. It has the applications like presentation and MS Excel application which are located in documents link in either Gmail or search engine interface. Google has an option for their clients to integrate their own on-premise applications. A client can develop an application and upload to the server. The technology used in Google is Python. It is highly portable and very much reliable. It has security policies which have been set up in place that will ensure maximum security.
Microsoft offers the Microsoft Azure as the cloud computing technology which uses the Windows Live platform. The framework used is the Microsoft .NET framework. It promises high reliability. For security, it uses SDL technology to protect their clients. It also has other technologies that ensure security like Forefront and Morro.
Sales force offers the force.com platform for cloud computing. It does not allow the integration of on-premises applications by their clients because they are developing their cloud computing into purely cloud applications. They use the technology of APEX to build their applications. It is not portable and is reliable. They enforce their security measures by ensuring that their clients observe security measures that are generally accepted.
Objectives
The objectives of this research include the following.
To find out the challenges that organizations face in their business models and how cloud computing can be used to solve.
To look into ways in which organizations can employ cloud computing to improve business processes.
To look into ways that costs can be reduced with the use of cloud computing.
To explore the methods that security can be achieved when organizations fully move to cloud computing.
Organizations in the study
The organizations that are involved in this study include Kinderworld group of schools, Vijays Pristine systems, Yaoting company and DSL Company. Each is described in detail below.
Kinderworld group of schools
Kinderworld group of schools is an academic organization which is tasked with offering education to pupils from Kindergarten to offering pre-university programs. This organization is located in Australia but has extended its tentacles to Hong Kong, and the neighboring countries. This organization believes in offering western education with Eastern values is reason enough to embrace the use of information technology for this goal. The use of cloud computing will enable them to achieve their dream. This is true because with this technology, applications used for education in the Western countries will be accessed throughout the world for all and sundry to have a look at. The era where developers from the Western countries were to be hired in order to come up with those solutions is no longer there. With tools now readily available thanks to cloud computing, developing of systems to be used will be easier. Good systems of education used in the West will be readily available with low cost. It is becoming clear that good systems used in schools can have a positive impact on the students and will add more value to time for the teachers. Teachers will find more time than before by doing some other tasks instead of doing tasks that could be easily achieved through the use of the computing. The teaching materials can be archived in some folder in the system and this material can be accessed throughout all the campuses. This is better than the traditional way where teachers had to make this material year in year out. There is now more time to do other things.
Datacom Systsems Ltd. (DSL)
DSL is a company that is concerned with communications and offering solutions to companies. The solutions that it offers are DSL on the other hand saw the opportunity in cloud computing and offered this service to their clients. The response from the clients was overwhelming because many clients are warming up to this new service. This is a sign that cloud computing is offering food services to most of the companies around the world. Most clients of DSL are warming up to this new technology due to the fact it is cheaper in its implementation and reduces costs in the companies which are implementing it. There is also improved network reliability. This is because the network is outsourced to some third party entity which will be concerned with network management. There is also reduced dependence on geography and arbitration of labor. This is because cloud computing can be implemented from anywhere without a bias on any location. As long as there is reliable Internet connectivity, companies that are using this technology are assured of ripping from this technology. The time taken to recover from a disaster is also reduced. This is because the confidential information for any company will be stored in an offshore location. The security will also be improved as this will be handled by the professionals in the offshore location. The monitoring of the whole process will also be improved.
Yaoting Company
This is a food company that deals with food and is widening its market to include other countries like China, and Philippines. Sake Japanese food has a very conservative management who has no confidence at in putting confidential information to a cloud as a way of offsite backup. This is posing a challenge to the implementation of cloud computing in this organization. With the evolution of the software as a service model, Sake Japanese Food has switched its office productivity software to Google Suite to be used by the outlet staff so they might use the word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software and additional licenses are not required. The outlet staff often uses the software when their outlet is closed and they have to write the daily sales report and weekly sales presentation.
Vijay Prestine System
Prestines system is a market leader in networking and cloud computing is just about the best move they can make. This is because they have a network of clients who are present in many locations. There is therefore a need to have cloud computing in this company so that all the branches can have a common abstracted view of the resources within the network.
Approach taken
The approach that we took includes visiting the organization and looking at the systems that are already in place. The systems that are in place are then looked at into critically to find out what they are lacking. This approach is effective because with the knowledge of the existing systems, it is easier to know where one will start when bringing changes and solutions to a particular organization.
Specific plans for each organization
Kinderworld Group of Schools
The plans that we took for this organization is that we tried exploring the collaboration systems that has been put in place for communication. Most of the reports that we got from this organization were from email that we sent to the teachers and the administrators asking them the questionnaires. We then analyzed the reports that we got from the various respondents. The plans that specific to this organization was to get the views from both the staff and the administration. The administration was to give their views on the various ways they faced challenges especially now that they were going international. We managed to get these views through the communication departments where the email addresses of the concerned respondents were acquired. This exercise was made easier with the cooperation of the administrators and the management of the organization.
Yaoting Organization
This is a company that deals with food. It is based in Australia but it has extended its operations so that it now operates even in Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, China, and the US. Given that this company is not willing to invest in information technology, there has been a lot to be done to get the management invest in technologies like cloud computing. The method we used to do the research is action research. We have had to have meeting with the management and all the minutes from all the meeting are well documented and all the interviews were stored as confidential data by the company. Most of the data that was collected cannot be presented here because of the nature of the agreement we made with the management. The data that was collected was meant to be confidential to the two entities involved. We collaborated with the information technology department of the company so that we could get all the issues that relate with IT that needed to be implemented.
Datacom Systems Ltd (DSL)
This company is concerned with providing IT solutions to client companies. Our work was supported by the management here because they have been looking for ways of reducing costs in their organization. They have set up cloud computing architecture that they are using it for their in-house purposes. They were exploring other ways of optimizing the use of cloud computing to further simplify their business processes. We discussed with the management some of these ways so that at the end of the discussion we reached a conclusion to look for them some ways in which they can outsource most of the tasks to public cloud because of the pool of expertise that is available with the use of public cloud.
Vijays organization
This is an organization which is the leader in networking. They have developed cloud computing and have been striving to provide the best services in to their clients through the use of information technology. The specific plan that we had for this company is that we were to get history of how cloud computing has been developed from ashes up to the present state. The company started with virtualization which, though proved to be very important, but posed some challenges in backup system. Cloud computing is the real solution to backup especially offsite backup where confidential and sensitive data can be sent to the remote site.
Stakeholders involved
The stakeholders that were involved in this project involved the management of the various companies that we visited. They are discussed in the sections that follow.
Kinderworld Group of Schools
The stakeholders that were involved in this organization include the administration of the institution. The principals of the various campuses were very cooperative in the whole process. The IT departments from all the campuses in all the branches were also involved and instrumental in the whole process. It is them who suggested the ways that information technology can be used to improve the academic performance of the schools and the management.
Vijays organization management
The management of this organization was also very instrumental in the project. They gave a lot of insights into how information technology can be used to improve the processes of the company.
DSL and Santosh information technology departments were very instrumental in this project. They gave suggestions and also discussed with us the ways that we could improve the information technology departments in both organizations.
Resources used
The resources that were used in this research include the following.
Laptop computers these were used for data collection from the companies and organization that we visited. Every member of our team had to have a laptop so that they could collect information easily from the respondents.
Printing papers these were used to print out the questionnaires that were sent to companies that we managed to visit their premises. The questionnaires were instrumental in getting the required information from the users.
Printers and printer cartridges we have had to have at least one printer so that we can do our paperwork from.
Findings in the organizations
Kinderworld Group of Schools
The findings that we found in this organization is that cloud computing can be used to improve the certification programs. Student details can be stored in the cloud so that they are secure. Most of the applications that have been running in the various campuses have been running in the client machines. This has been costly to the finance department because currently, the cost of application licenses is still unmanageable for an organization like this. The use of cloud computing has been the best solution for this organization. We found out, together with the administration, that cloud computing will pave way for online applications like online learning. Cloud computing in this institution will become handy in the implementation of online exam system.
Vijays Organization
This organization was the most interesting to do research on. We found out that cloud computing was the best solution to the various challenges that have been encountered in the implementation of workable systems in the premise. With this organization having tried out the various information technology solutions starting from virtualization, there have been wide ranges of experience that have been achieved. It is now evident that cloud computing provides better solutions to the problems that are associated with optimization of information technology resources.
Yaoting Organization
This organization initially used old and archaic ways of business processes. There has been a lot of rebellion from the management because they do not agree on any investment that will involve technology. They have not been willing to invest on building better infrastructure. We found out that the use of cloud computing will solve the software costs on the management. The main reason why there has been rejection of new technologies in this organization is that the management fears the effects of having technologies which are hard to manage and which could cause havoc to the IT department just in case there is a disaster. We found out that by investing in a public cloud, the management of the organization can have confidence in this technology. We therefore advised the management towards the implementation of this technology and they were receptive of the idea.
Santosh Organization
We found out that because this company provides solutions for ERP management, they can integrated well with cloud computing. This is because the implementation of cloud computing is the surest way of reducing costs for the clients who are keen on improving the infrastructure of their systems without necessarily causing financial constraints of finances. We found out that enterprise tools can all be located in the cloud so that they could be accessed from any place and thus reducing license costs.
Significance of the findings
The findings from the research were important because it shows how cloud computing can be used to add value to companies in all sectors. Different cloud computing are configured in different setups. We found out that Kinderworld Group of Schools for example needed private could setups because of the nature of their work. They needed this because the exams needed to be confidential and that they were to be managed by the teachers and tutors who are located in the various campuses. The solutions for applications that are ERP in nature need another way of configuring them. This is true with DSL Company where we found out that ERP applications needed to be configured privately in the cloud.
All in all we found out that cloud computing offers companies better way of managing their networks. What is more, security is improved because the management of the network and the servers is now left for information technology experts. This is a very crucial area because with the current rise in insecurity, it is becoming imperative that companies be very sensitive with their security on the network (Miller, 2008).
Key challenges
The key challenges that we experienced were mainly human in nature. This is because some of the organization like Yaoting were not willing to discuss the information technology because they were risk averse and feared the worst will happen with the introduction of complicated systems in the system.
Accessing the real information for better decision making was also a problem. This is because many of the administrators and managers were not willing to let go of the confidential information. It was therefore hard in getting the real data that was needed for the research to be complete.
Limitations in the research
One of the limitations in the research was the fact that most of the things that we researched on were mainly theoretical. It hard had to do practical experiments. This is because the systems were live and they could not be switched off because of the systems that were running in them. More so, it could take more time in setting up the system if we were allowed to, not to mention the lack of finances that are required to set up cloud computing.
Another challenge that is associated with cloud computing is the fact that most of the material that is used in this new technology have not been well developed. Cloud computing is still a new technology and there is less that can be acquired form the resource centers. It was therefore difficult getting all the information that we could use in convincing Yaoting management on shifting to it. There were sometime when we were asked about the specific security measures that we were suppose to give after this system is installed and we were not able to give them a comprehensive report because the information on the internet is scanty.
Another limitation is that standards have not been set that are to be followed when implementing private clouds. Currently there are many companies which include Google, Salesforce, IBM, Microsoft, and Dell who are offering cloud computing services. With this technology gaining popularity, there is bound to be chaos in the management of these providers because there are no standards that have been put in place. The lack of standards is causing proving to be hard on new implementations because there are no standards that the providers are following. Every provider follow their own standards and this is posing compatibility issues with the different platforms (Miller, 2008). Open source platform are clashing with those of proprietary platforms. There should be a universal standard being set to manage this.
When a major technology arrives in information technology, there is anxiety as it is not so clear what the effects will be positive or negative. It is due to this anxiety that big organizations will take the wait-and-see attitude towards new technologies for fear of ruining their businesses or being left by their competition if they ignore the said new technology. There are occasions where the shift will offer cost benefits and will bring improvements to operations. It may even bring new ways of tackling business problems that offer important strategic advantage. The higher the benefits the higher likelihood of a company to quickly embrace them.
Cloud computing, and by extension Web 2.0 applications at large, is developing very fast and is shaping businesses. The technology is showing both considerable interest and momentum in the space.
There are some benefits though, of cloud computing which by far outweigh the risks and challenges. These benefits will be to those companies which are proactive in managing the down-size that may come with cloud computing. These benefits will include the availability of an easier change management of the information technology infrastructure which includes upgrades and maintenance. The economics of scale will also be achieved because with a private cloud, the many clients in a company will be able to access the application software that is installed on the server machines without the need to buy individual software for the many client machines in the company.
The good side of new technologies, more so cloud computing, is that innovative companies will have the opportunity to come up with solutions that were hitherto impossible to come up with. It will offer small opportunities for companies to enjoy the economies of scale that come up with this new technology. What is more, business ideas which required more computing power, scale, or new business models like Global Service oriented architecture but could not be effected because of technical bottlenecks can now be achieved. Every improvement that is directed towards storage, processing speed, or technology were hard to be achieved at initially but cloud computing has made this achievable. It is only smart companies who will notice this irresistible move.
There is a new awareness and leverage of the greater Internet particularly Web 2.0. The Web has advanced especially with the introduction of Web 2.0. The challenges in scale, and performance has created solutions for businesses, both large and small, and has come up with infrastructures that can address challenges in a powerful and economical ways that many companies have found no equal. The employment of SaaS, non-relational databases will in the end serve companies well in the new company cloud. This will enable companies to gain new skills and perspectives that are needed to compete well in the 21st century.
Cloud computing has been a good match of SOA. With cloud computing, SOA will be improved and changed for the better. Web Oriented Architecture has been found to fit well with cloud technologies which are based on the Web. Traditional SOA will not suffice with the development of cloud computing because it will be moved to a place where new business and technical requirements with faster rate of changes will be achieved. It will be common to see the phasing out of traditional SOA and the emergence of new technologies that will bring more efficiency to businesses.
More on the business, there will be advantages to businesses when they adopt cloud computing because more users will not require IT personnel in order to get the service. There will be more self-service IT from the business side. There will be less and less involvement of the IT department because it is more about Software-as-a-Service. Many business users will be in a position to adopt future cloud computing by the use of self-service.
With new technologies like cloud computing and particularly private cloud, there will be more tolerance for innovation and a lot of experimentation form businesses. There will be fewer barriers to creating new ways of doing businesses. It will pave way for prototyping and market validation of new approaches in a much faster and less expensive than before. The other sectors of the organization like branding, legal, and compliance will struggle to keep up the pace with the other sectors and thus the gradual change of the organization will be seen as cloud computing bring business possibilities to be possible in the world of cloud computing. Although this will not fix broken innovation mechanisms in businesses, but on the other side, cloud computing is accessible which enables new internal entrepreneurs to use the cloud computing tools to create new solutions anyway.
The firms which are slow in adopting new technologies will find it hard to compete with the fast-adopters. The failure to adopt cloud computing does not bring immediate fall to these companies but it will instead pile onto the more recent advancements and make it even harder to compete in the fast-moving technology world. In the end, the slow adopters will face serious and growing economic and business disadvantages.
The investigative approach that we undertook is to look at the current working system of the companies that we were interested in analysis their weaknesses, their strengths and their potential in the market. Each of the companies that we investigated portrayed the potential of making better in their areas of expertise in that they had a lot that could be done better with the use of information technology. Kinderworld, for example has the potential to offer uniform examinations throughout all their campuses. With cloud computing, the vision and mission of the establishment will be well catered for. The fact that this organization believes in offering western education with Eastern values is reason enough to embrace the use of information technology for this goal. The use of cloud computing will enable them to achieve their dream. This is true because with this technology, applications used for education in the Western countries will be accessed throughout the world for all and sundry to have a look at. The era where developers from the Western countries were to be hired in order to come up with those solutions is no longer there. With tools now readily available thanks to cloud computing, developing of systems to be used will be easier. Good systems of education used in the West will be readily available with low cost. It is becoming clear that good systems used in schools can have a positive impact on the students and will add more value to time for the teachers. Teachers will find more time than before by doing some other tasks instead of doing tasks that could be easily achieved through the use of the computing. The teaching materials can be archived in some folder in the system and this material can be accessed throughout all the campuses. This is better than the traditional way where teachers had to make this material year in year out. There is now more time to do other things.
DSL on the other hand saw the opportunity in cloud computing and offered this service to their clients. The response from the clients was overwhelming because many clients are warming up to this new service. This is a sign that cloud computing is offering food services to most of the companies around the world. Most clients of DSL are warming up to this new technology due to the fact it is cheaper in its implementation and reduces costs in the companies which are implementing it. There is also improved network reliability. This is because the network is outsourced to some third party entity which will be concerned with network management. There is also reduced dependence on geography and arbitration of labor. This is because cloud computing can be implemented from anywhere without a bias on any location. As long as there is reliable Internet connectivity, companies that are using this technology are assured of ripping from this technology. The time taken to recover from a disaster is also reduced. This is because the confidential information for any company will be stored in an offshore location. The security will also be improved as this will be handled by the professionals in the offshore location. The monitoring of the whole process will also be improved.
The case of Yaoting Company is no different from the other companies. This is a food company that deals with food and is widening its market to include other countries like China, and Philippines. Sake Japanese food has a very conservative management who has no confidence at in putting confidential information to a cloud as a way of offsite backup. This is posing a challenge to the implementation of cloud computing in this organization.
With the evolution of the software as a service model, Sake Japanese Food has switched its office productivity software to Google Suite to be used by the outlet staff so they might use the word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software and additional licenses are not required. The outlet staff often uses the software when their outlet is closed and they have to write the daily sales report and weekly sales presentation.
Vijay presents another example of a company which we did our research on. Prestines system is a market leader in networking and cloud computing is just about the best move they can make. This is because they have a network of clients who are present in many locations. There is therefore a need to have cloud computing in this company so that all the branches can have a common abstracted view of the resources within the network.
The key findings which became evident in all our groups is that cloud computing is the way to go for companies to remain strategically ahead of the competition. Cloud computing technology will help the companies with licenses of their software because they no longer need to purchase many licenses for all the computers in the network. They will be required to purchase the license which will be installed in the remote server.
In conclusion, cloud computing will be the next big investment that companies will consider putting their effort to because of the potential it has for them. It will soon be history for large purchase of licenses for the reason of installing them on many client machines. Technology has been proved to bring profitability to businesses. The use of it has seen companies gain competitive edge above their competition. As companies shift towards the use of new technologies factors such as security should be looked into before jumping into the boat. For organizations which are slow in technology adoption, they will find goal posts shifted.
Strategic focus of our project
Our project is about cloud computing and how it can be applied to business processes to effect change in companies and organizations. We strive to look at the various ways in which cloud computing can be utilized in this fast-moving technological world to bring out good returns and to improve the business processes.
Companies are positioning themselves in this fast-moving world to get the best of technology for the better leverage of their businesses. Organizations have shifted to the use of technology platforms to compete and not the availability of new markets anymore. Clients are looking for companies which use state-of-the-art technologies. The world over, it is clear that the use of advanced technologies is the main source of competitive advantage for many growing manufacturing and service industries. Although this is a fact, many companies, especially small to medium sized enterprises often miss out on pretty good opportunities for advancement because they dont have good systems and structures coupled with the fact that they dont have the right people to monitor and follow every step of the moving technology that is available.
It has been argued out that the companies which are slow in adopting new technologies will pile their lack of tapping into the benefits of new technologies and they will, in the end, be disadvantaged and miss out on great opportunities. It is not expected that they will fall immediately but they will add on to their past failures.
Cloud computing is one of the latest technologies that is the buzzword in the technology sector today. Many companies are bracing themselves for the use of this technology to leverage their operations and come up with cheaper storage solutions for their businesses. Companies have gone a notch higher to set up their own clouds and thus the coming up of private clouds in companies. The following sections will look into the structure of private cloud as compared with other cloud computing systems like the public cloud and hybrid cloud. It will also look into how companies are using this technology to leverage their businesses for more profitability.
Our strategic focus is how the use of cloud computing can be used to reduce costs in organizations and how the use of cloud computing has improved on the security of companies. Security has been left for experts to manage it.
Significantinteresting part of the project
One of the interesting parts of the projects is the fact that applications are no longer required to be installed in each individual machine. It is interesting how applications access the server application that is installed in the server and still function very well just like desktop applications. It is interesting to see where this technology will be developed up to. When services are offered as a service, it is interesting and forms one of the milestones in the development of the future computer systems. It will be interesting to see how proprietary will come out of this madness. Open source companies are taking this opportunity to make sure that they get more clients who will use their product. It is significant to carry out this research because the findings will be used to improve the services that are being provided in the companies that we are looking at. This research could not have come at a better time such as this because companies are now downsizing and the use of cloud computing to cut down on cost is the surest way to cut down costs for most business.
Real-world motivations
Cloud computing is interesting and fun to research on. There are some applications and companies that have really been instrumental in this research. First on the list are the popular Google applications. You can now work on a Microsoft Word document on your computer even if you dont have office installed, thanks to Google apps. Google has cut its name as a search engine and is the leader in this field. It has the applications like presentation and MS Excel application which are located in documents link in either Gmail or search engine interface. Google has an option for their clients to integrate their own on-premise applications. A client can develop an application and upload to the server. The technology used in Google is Python. It is highly portable and very much reliable. It has security policies which have been set up in place that will ensure maximum security.
Microsoft offers the Microsoft Azure as the cloud computing technology which uses the Windows Live platform. The framework used is the Microsoft .NET framework. It promises high reliability. For security, it uses SDL technology to protect their clients. It also has other technologies that ensure security like Forefront and Morro.
Sales force offers the force.com platform for cloud computing. It does not allow the integration of on-premises applications by their clients because they are developing their cloud computing into purely cloud applications. They use the technology of APEX to build their applications. It is not portable and is reliable. They enforce their security measures by ensuring that their clients observe security measures that are generally accepted.
Objectives
The objectives of this research include the following.
To find out the challenges that organizations face in their business models and how cloud computing can be used to solve.
To look into ways in which organizations can employ cloud computing to improve business processes.
To look into ways that costs can be reduced with the use of cloud computing.
To explore the methods that security can be achieved when organizations fully move to cloud computing.
Organizations in the study
The organizations that are involved in this study include Kinderworld group of schools, Vijays Pristine systems, Yaoting company and DSL Company. Each is described in detail below.
Kinderworld group of schools
Kinderworld group of schools is an academic organization which is tasked with offering education to pupils from Kindergarten to offering pre-university programs. This organization is located in Australia but has extended its tentacles to Hong Kong, and the neighboring countries. This organization believes in offering western education with Eastern values is reason enough to embrace the use of information technology for this goal. The use of cloud computing will enable them to achieve their dream. This is true because with this technology, applications used for education in the Western countries will be accessed throughout the world for all and sundry to have a look at. The era where developers from the Western countries were to be hired in order to come up with those solutions is no longer there. With tools now readily available thanks to cloud computing, developing of systems to be used will be easier. Good systems of education used in the West will be readily available with low cost. It is becoming clear that good systems used in schools can have a positive impact on the students and will add more value to time for the teachers. Teachers will find more time than before by doing some other tasks instead of doing tasks that could be easily achieved through the use of the computing. The teaching materials can be archived in some folder in the system and this material can be accessed throughout all the campuses. This is better than the traditional way where teachers had to make this material year in year out. There is now more time to do other things.
Datacom Systsems Ltd. (DSL)
DSL is a company that is concerned with communications and offering solutions to companies. The solutions that it offers are DSL on the other hand saw the opportunity in cloud computing and offered this service to their clients. The response from the clients was overwhelming because many clients are warming up to this new service. This is a sign that cloud computing is offering food services to most of the companies around the world. Most clients of DSL are warming up to this new technology due to the fact it is cheaper in its implementation and reduces costs in the companies which are implementing it. There is also improved network reliability. This is because the network is outsourced to some third party entity which will be concerned with network management. There is also reduced dependence on geography and arbitration of labor. This is because cloud computing can be implemented from anywhere without a bias on any location. As long as there is reliable Internet connectivity, companies that are using this technology are assured of ripping from this technology. The time taken to recover from a disaster is also reduced. This is because the confidential information for any company will be stored in an offshore location. The security will also be improved as this will be handled by the professionals in the offshore location. The monitoring of the whole process will also be improved.
Yaoting Company
This is a food company that deals with food and is widening its market to include other countries like China, and Philippines. Sake Japanese food has a very conservative management who has no confidence at in putting confidential information to a cloud as a way of offsite backup. This is posing a challenge to the implementation of cloud computing in this organization. With the evolution of the software as a service model, Sake Japanese Food has switched its office productivity software to Google Suite to be used by the outlet staff so they might use the word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software and additional licenses are not required. The outlet staff often uses the software when their outlet is closed and they have to write the daily sales report and weekly sales presentation.
Vijay Prestine System
Prestines system is a market leader in networking and cloud computing is just about the best move they can make. This is because they have a network of clients who are present in many locations. There is therefore a need to have cloud computing in this company so that all the branches can have a common abstracted view of the resources within the network.
Approach taken
The approach that we took includes visiting the organization and looking at the systems that are already in place. The systems that are in place are then looked at into critically to find out what they are lacking. This approach is effective because with the knowledge of the existing systems, it is easier to know where one will start when bringing changes and solutions to a particular organization.
Specific plans for each organization
Kinderworld Group of Schools
The plans that we took for this organization is that we tried exploring the collaboration systems that has been put in place for communication. Most of the reports that we got from this organization were from email that we sent to the teachers and the administrators asking them the questionnaires. We then analyzed the reports that we got from the various respondents. The plans that specific to this organization was to get the views from both the staff and the administration. The administration was to give their views on the various ways they faced challenges especially now that they were going international. We managed to get these views through the communication departments where the email addresses of the concerned respondents were acquired. This exercise was made easier with the cooperation of the administrators and the management of the organization.
Yaoting Organization
This is a company that deals with food. It is based in Australia but it has extended its operations so that it now operates even in Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, China, and the US. Given that this company is not willing to invest in information technology, there has been a lot to be done to get the management invest in technologies like cloud computing. The method we used to do the research is action research. We have had to have meeting with the management and all the minutes from all the meeting are well documented and all the interviews were stored as confidential data by the company. Most of the data that was collected cannot be presented here because of the nature of the agreement we made with the management. The data that was collected was meant to be confidential to the two entities involved. We collaborated with the information technology department of the company so that we could get all the issues that relate with IT that needed to be implemented.
Datacom Systems Ltd (DSL)
This company is concerned with providing IT solutions to client companies. Our work was supported by the management here because they have been looking for ways of reducing costs in their organization. They have set up cloud computing architecture that they are using it for their in-house purposes. They were exploring other ways of optimizing the use of cloud computing to further simplify their business processes. We discussed with the management some of these ways so that at the end of the discussion we reached a conclusion to look for them some ways in which they can outsource most of the tasks to public cloud because of the pool of expertise that is available with the use of public cloud.
Vijays organization
This is an organization which is the leader in networking. They have developed cloud computing and have been striving to provide the best services in to their clients through the use of information technology. The specific plan that we had for this company is that we were to get history of how cloud computing has been developed from ashes up to the present state. The company started with virtualization which, though proved to be very important, but posed some challenges in backup system. Cloud computing is the real solution to backup especially offsite backup where confidential and sensitive data can be sent to the remote site.
Stakeholders involved
The stakeholders that were involved in this project involved the management of the various companies that we visited. They are discussed in the sections that follow.
Kinderworld Group of Schools
The stakeholders that were involved in this organization include the administration of the institution. The principals of the various campuses were very cooperative in the whole process. The IT departments from all the campuses in all the branches were also involved and instrumental in the whole process. It is them who suggested the ways that information technology can be used to improve the academic performance of the schools and the management.
Vijays organization management
The management of this organization was also very instrumental in the project. They gave a lot of insights into how information technology can be used to improve the processes of the company.
DSL and Santosh information technology departments were very instrumental in this project. They gave suggestions and also discussed with us the ways that we could improve the information technology departments in both organizations.
Resources used
The resources that were used in this research include the following.
Laptop computers these were used for data collection from the companies and organization that we visited. Every member of our team had to have a laptop so that they could collect information easily from the respondents.
Printing papers these were used to print out the questionnaires that were sent to companies that we managed to visit their premises. The questionnaires were instrumental in getting the required information from the users.
Printers and printer cartridges we have had to have at least one printer so that we can do our paperwork from.
Findings in the organizations
Kinderworld Group of Schools
The findings that we found in this organization is that cloud computing can be used to improve the certification programs. Student details can be stored in the cloud so that they are secure. Most of the applications that have been running in the various campuses have been running in the client machines. This has been costly to the finance department because currently, the cost of application licenses is still unmanageable for an organization like this. The use of cloud computing has been the best solution for this organization. We found out, together with the administration, that cloud computing will pave way for online applications like online learning. Cloud computing in this institution will become handy in the implementation of online exam system.
Vijays Organization
This organization was the most interesting to do research on. We found out that cloud computing was the best solution to the various challenges that have been encountered in the implementation of workable systems in the premise. With this organization having tried out the various information technology solutions starting from virtualization, there have been wide ranges of experience that have been achieved. It is now evident that cloud computing provides better solutions to the problems that are associated with optimization of information technology resources.
Yaoting Organization
This organization initially used old and archaic ways of business processes. There has been a lot of rebellion from the management because they do not agree on any investment that will involve technology. They have not been willing to invest on building better infrastructure. We found out that the use of cloud computing will solve the software costs on the management. The main reason why there has been rejection of new technologies in this organization is that the management fears the effects of having technologies which are hard to manage and which could cause havoc to the IT department just in case there is a disaster. We found out that by investing in a public cloud, the management of the organization can have confidence in this technology. We therefore advised the management towards the implementation of this technology and they were receptive of the idea.
Santosh Organization
We found out that because this company provides solutions for ERP management, they can integrated well with cloud computing. This is because the implementation of cloud computing is the surest way of reducing costs for the clients who are keen on improving the infrastructure of their systems without necessarily causing financial constraints of finances. We found out that enterprise tools can all be located in the cloud so that they could be accessed from any place and thus reducing license costs.
Significance of the findings
The findings from the research were important because it shows how cloud computing can be used to add value to companies in all sectors. Different cloud computing are configured in different setups. We found out that Kinderworld Group of Schools for example needed private could setups because of the nature of their work. They needed this because the exams needed to be confidential and that they were to be managed by the teachers and tutors who are located in the various campuses. The solutions for applications that are ERP in nature need another way of configuring them. This is true with DSL Company where we found out that ERP applications needed to be configured privately in the cloud.
All in all we found out that cloud computing offers companies better way of managing their networks. What is more, security is improved because the management of the network and the servers is now left for information technology experts. This is a very crucial area because with the current rise in insecurity, it is becoming imperative that companies be very sensitive with their security on the network (Miller, 2008).
Key challenges
The key challenges that we experienced were mainly human in nature. This is because some of the organization like Yaoting were not willing to discuss the information technology because they were risk averse and feared the worst will happen with the introduction of complicated systems in the system.
Accessing the real information for better decision making was also a problem. This is because many of the administrators and managers were not willing to let go of the confidential information. It was therefore hard in getting the real data that was needed for the research to be complete.
Limitations in the research
One of the limitations in the research was the fact that most of the things that we researched on were mainly theoretical. It hard had to do practical experiments. This is because the systems were live and they could not be switched off because of the systems that were running in them. More so, it could take more time in setting up the system if we were allowed to, not to mention the lack of finances that are required to set up cloud computing.
Another challenge that is associated with cloud computing is the fact that most of the material that is used in this new technology have not been well developed. Cloud computing is still a new technology and there is less that can be acquired form the resource centers. It was therefore difficult getting all the information that we could use in convincing Yaoting management on shifting to it. There were sometime when we were asked about the specific security measures that we were suppose to give after this system is installed and we were not able to give them a comprehensive report because the information on the internet is scanty.
Another limitation is that standards have not been set that are to be followed when implementing private clouds. Currently there are many companies which include Google, Salesforce, IBM, Microsoft, and Dell who are offering cloud computing services. With this technology gaining popularity, there is bound to be chaos in the management of these providers because there are no standards that have been put in place. The lack of standards is causing proving to be hard on new implementations because there are no standards that the providers are following. Every provider follow their own standards and this is posing compatibility issues with the different platforms (Miller, 2008). Open source platform are clashing with those of proprietary platforms. There should be a universal standard being set to manage this.
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