Business Startup Proposal

Business Startup Proposal

[Name]

[Course Title]

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[Lecturer’s Name]

[Date]

Bill’s Business Startup Proposal

Starting a business requires a clear statement of the things that are required and the reasons why the particular equipment is suggested. It is also important to take into consideration the cost benefits of the proposal. Long term usage is also an important factor. Technology is a very dynamic field and therefore it is important to consider solutions that will not get easily depleted from the market. This also brings up training component and the need to ensure that technology users remain relevant in the changing world. (Ciobanu, O. G., & Neamţu, D. M., 2017, July). Another important factor is security. Hackers are everywhere always trying to steal company information for their own gains.

From a technological perspective, I would be proposing a set up that will cover the required equipment as well as security needs. According to my understanding, Bill requires a system that will enable him to carry out his sales transactions fast and efficiently, store the information in a database that can enable him to retrieve ant time, to be able to access what he needs from the system anywhere as well as ensure the security of the information. The needs can be summarized as below:

Fast and easy access to the system

Ability to access it from anywhere

Ability to store and to easily retrieve large volumes of information

Ensured system security.

Proposed Set Up

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a term used to describe the access of information technology services over the internet. This could be from a cloud service provider or a private cloud built specifically for a company. Cloud computing offers flexibility, availability, scalability and cost benefits (Sajjad H., Khalil M., & Mohammad M., 2013). We will be utilizing cloud services from a public cloud service provider to build Bill’s system. Here, we will acquire the needed servers with needed specifications and also set up disaster recovery, backup and hosting services. Through the use of cloud services, Bill will be able to scale up or down whenever need be, access the system from anywhere, cut the costs of buying equipment and worry less about taking care of the infrastructure.

Disaster recovery is a term used to ensure continuity of services whenever there is a system failure, termed as high availability (Andrade, E. & Nogueira, B., 2019). This is mostly implemented for critical services where clients have to be served without delay. Disaster recovery is mostly achieved through having a second set up, called a secondary site, and an automated or manual fail-over occurs whenever the primary site goes down. A mirrored session is configured between the primary and the secondary site to ensure that any transactions done on the primary reflects on the secondary site.

I am proposing to Bill to have two set ups which will have the following devices:

3 windows server 2016. A database server – Above 16GB RAM and above 500 GB Hard disk drive, an Active Directory Server – 4gb RAM and 160 GB HDD and Application server – 4gb RAM, 160GB HDD

Windows 10 computers and laptops to be used by clients.

The database server will run an application such as MySQL depending on the accounting system that will be provided to Bill, whereas the application server will the running the accounting application. The active directory server will be used for authentication purposes for those required to access the DB server. The users will be accessing the system using windows 10 computers or laptops having been allowed access through the AD server. The switch is used to create the local area network and the servers will have private IP addresses.

Cloud Replication

Once the primary site has been set up, the cloud service provider also will set up the secondary site but on a different location from the primary. Mirroring will be configured between the primary and the secondary sites and an automated fail-over set up. This will ensure that Bill will able to run his transactions efficiently and in case of a failure of the primary the secondary site will pick up as the primary until the primary is restored. To ensure data protection while accessing the secondary site, an encrypted link will be set up between the two sites.

Figure 1

Disaster Recovery Setup

Backups.

Other that disaster recovery, we will propose a daily automated backup to store the daily transactions on the cloud storage. The backups will be configured to run at night when all day’s work is completed and this will occur from the database server. Backups will facilitate data recovery in case the local data is lost. The recovery will be done through a backup restore.

Security

The cloud service provider already has in place various security measures to protect the cloud infrastructure. However, we will require that Bill’s severs for both the primary and the secondary sites be be set up in a virtual private cloud (VPC) where the servers will be using private IP addresses and only accessible from the virtual private network (vpn). VPN profiles will the be created to all the users to enable then access the servers.

Virtual Private Networks

Virtual private networks are used to ensure that access of information occurs through an encrypted link, therefore, ensuring data security (Elezi, M., & Raufi, B., 2015). The networks utilizes encapsulation and other packet headers and creates a private tunnel between two end points. For Bill’s set up, VPNs will be used in the mirroring session and also when users are accessing the servers from their computers

Domain hosting and emails

Bill will have a domain name for his business. The domain will be registered and hosted by the cloud service provider who will also provided email hosting using the same domain. This will ensure that Bills client easily identify his emails and it will also help him to access emails anywhere as long as he is connected to the internet.

Suggested Training

Apart from learning about the different operating systems, Bill should also learn the concepts of cloud computing including mirroring and replication, disaster recovery, hosting, cloud backups and restore and virtual private networks, most if which will directly affect his upcoming business. These technological skills are important for the business and every entrepreneur must posses (Ciobanu, O. G., & Neamţu, D. M., 2017, July).

Estimated Costs

Table 1

System Setup Estimated Costs

References

Sajjad H., Khalil M., & Mohammad M., (2013). Using Cloud Computing for E-Government: Challenges and Benefits

Andrade, E. & Nogueira, B., (2019). Performability Evaluation of a Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery Solution for IT Environments.

Elezi, M., & Raufi, B. (2015). Conception of Virtual Private Networks using IPsec suite of protocols, comparative analysis of distributed database queries using different IPsec modes of encryption. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 195, 1938-1948.

Ciobanu, O. G., & Neamţu, D. M. (2017, July). The impact and importance of new technologies in business development in context of economic diversity. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence(Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 698-710).