Virtualization and Cloud Computing World

Virtualization and Cloud Computing World

CIS 336: Enterprise Architecture

Introduction

To start with, the last few years have witnessed a significant rise in usage, popularity, significance as well as implementation of concepts such as SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) by a large number of organisations all over the world. This has even significantly impacted the performance and efficiency of IT and the IS departments of the firms. All these services like SaaS, IaaS and PaaS tend to offer a virtual infrastructure, which includes networking capabilities, desktop computing, data storage, mobile computing etc. Likewise, the strategic objective of this paper is to basically highlight the three items that are highly essential for an organization’s IT/ IS department to take into consideration when an organization’s strategy decides to implement and make use of the concepts such as SaaS, PaaS or IaaS. Moving ahead, the paper even evaluates the way IaaS, SaaS and PaaS concepts are used in the organisations to reduce and minimise the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) as well as enhance ROI (Return on Investment). The section after that includes the architectural designs for SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. Furthermore, the paper even analyses the impact upon the organization’s IT support through embarking on the strategies like SaaS, IaaS and PaaS. The next section of the paper focuses upon analysing the considerations that the organization’s management should be aware of while implementing and leveraging SaaS, IaaS and PaaS. Lastly, the examination of the security issues that could arise from such a type of an infrastructure is noted.

Implementing SaaS, PaaS or IaaS in Organizations

Business Model Design – This includes designing and developing a business model for successfully launching the Saas, PaaS and IaaS services and determining the kind of external talent and expertise required (Luo, Jin, Song and Dong, 2011).

Vertical Markets – Organizations should focus more on vertical markets instead of moving to cloud services on standard or horizontal basis (Luo et. al., 2011).

Data Protection – As these services are hosted over the cloud, organizations need to determine data protection and encryption means to protect the organizational data.

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

A number of scholars and research experts have indicated that strategies such as SaaS, IaaS or PaaS easily help reduce the TCO as well as increase the ROI as there is a need to pay only based upon the usage, scalability and expansion is very easy as well as the businesses are able to focus a lot more on the core business activities as time spent on the maintenance activities is significantly reduced (Dubey and Wagle, 2007).

SaaS, PaaS and IaaS Architectural Designs

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

Impact to the Organization’s IT Support through embarking on the Strategies like SaaS, IaaS and PaaS

Some of the main highlights for the Organization’s IT support through embarking on these strategies include:

Service providers take ownership and the responsibility of maintenance of the applications

On-premises deployment with minimum administration and maintenance in case of SaaS

Option of scalability and expand as per the need.

Considerations for the Organization’s Management

The three main considerations that an organization’s management should be aware of while implementing SaaS, IaaS and PaaS include (Mell and Grance, 2009):

Extremely high risk of security breach

Need for keeping a track of usage

Need for implementation of different techniques such as data encryption for protecting data.

Security Issues related to Saas, IaaS and PaaS

Organizations all over the world have now started to invest in cloud technologies like SaaS, PaaS and IaaS but besides benefits, these also are associated with a number of security issues and risks. The main security issues include (Mell and Grance, 2009):

Keeping an Audit Trail – All these are paid-for basis services that mean that the organization’s finance department need to keep a proper record of usage of these services.

Data Security – In case of SaaS, software are centrally hosted as well as licensed through a subscription basis, which can make it easier for hackers to break into the network if appropriate means and encryption techniques are not used to protect data.

Shared Resources – PaaS concept works on the concept of shared resources and eliminates the role of the infrastructure, which further enhance the security concerns and the issue of data breach.

REFERENCES

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

Luo, J. Z., Jin, J. H., Song, A. B. and Dong, F. (2011). Cloud Computing: Architecture and Key Technologies. Journal of China Institute of Computer Science and Engineering.

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