Virtualization and Cloud Computing World

Assignment 4: Virtualization and Cloud Computing World

CIS 336

Introduction

Virtualization is a software that separates the physical infrastructure to create dedicated resources. It is the fundamental that controls cloud computing. Virtualization makes it possible to run multiple operating systems and applications on the same server at the same time. This enables businesses to reduce IT costs while increasing efficiency, utilization, and flexibility for the business existing computer hardware. Virtualization is a software that manipulates the physical hardware and cloud computing refers to the actual service that results from the manipulation(Angeles,2014).

SaaS, PaaS, IaaS

Many organizations and enterprises are increasingly considering cloud computing to save businesses funds and increase efficiency. The three (3) items that an organization’s IT / IS department should consider when an organization’s strategy calls for the use are Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). SaaS Providers host an application and make it available to users via the internet, usually a browser-based interface. Users can interact with SaaS applications such as Gmail, Dropbox, salesforce, or Netflix. SaaS users can appreciate the software without having to worry about development, maintenance, support, update, or backups. PaaS is speedily growing in popularity; it appeals to developers who want to spend more time coding, testing, and deploying their applications instead of dealing with hardware oriented tasks such as managing security patches and operating systems updates. Microsoft Azure is a renowned example of PaaS. IaaS providers organize and accomplish pre-configured and virtualized hardware and, enable users to spin up virtual machines or computing power without the labor-intensive server management or hardware investments. Amazon web services is an example of IaaS(Stamey,2017).

Reducing the Total Cost Ownership(TCO) and Increasing Return on Investment(ROI)

Total Cost Ownership (TCO) and Return on Investment(ROI) seem to be alike approaches of verifying costs effectiveness, but they perform in totally different situations. ROI determines the future cost efficiency of an investment while TCO which is focus on potential cost reductions supporting staff options focusing on fewer experienced professionals, maturity of vendors; response time to support calls and professionalism and availability assurances of vendors. Cloud computing strategies such as SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS can easily help organization reduce TCO and increase ROI based on usage, and scalability making expansion very easy while businesses focus on another core competency(dubey,2007).

SAAs, PaaS, and IaaS Architecture Designs

The architectural diagram for SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS is obtainable in the figure below:

Impact to the IT support personnel when an organization embarks on the strategies like SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS.

Organization’s IT support through embarking on these strategies include service providers taking ownership and the responsibility of maintaining the applications; on site deployment with minimum administration and maintenance in case of a software as a service, and the choice of scalability and expansion as needed.

Three (3) Considerations that Organization’s Management should be aware of.

While implementing either of the cloud computing services SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS; there are three main considerations that an organization should be aware of. They are: the need to implement various techniques to protect the data by way of encryption, how to control the flow of data by keeping track of usage, and an extremely substantial risk of security breach(Mell,2009).

Three (3) Security Issues that could arise from these types of the Infrastructures (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS)

The three security issues related to SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS are Insider threat, keeping an audit trial and data loss. Employees can use their authorized access to an organization cloud-based services to misuse or access customer accounts, or financial forms and other sensitive information for malicious intentions. There is a need for organizations to keep up with their financial records to ensure proper use of the system. Data on cloud services can be lost through a malicious attack or wipe away by service providers. It is very important for service provider to have a backup procedure set up as it relate to physical storage locations, access and disasters to secure data in case of any potential attack or disasters(Ma,2015).

Reference

Angeles, S. (2014). Virtualization vs. Cloud Computing: What’s the Difference. Retrieved From: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5791-virtualization-vs-cloud-computing.html

Dubey, A.; Wagle, D. (2007). Delivering Software as a Service. The McKinsey Quarterly.

Ma, J. (2015). Top 10 Security Concerns for Cloud-Based Services. Retrieved From: https://www.incapsula.com/blog/top-10-cloud-security-concerns.html

Mell, P.; Grance, T. (2009). Effectively and Securely using the Cloud Computing Paradigm. NIST-Information Technology Laboratory

Stamey, L. (2017). IaaS vs. PaaS vs. SaaS Cloud Models (Differences & Examples). Retrieved From: http://www.hostingadvice.com/how-to/iaas-vs-paas-vs-saas/