Faculty of Computer Science
CSCI 5100, Fall 2017
Group – 9
Individual Research Project
Standing offer for RedHat Products and Support
For the Department of Internal Services
Date: 1st December 2017
Nikhil Kamath B00779777
Sayna Hajiloo
B00782621
Juhi Pawar
B00782028
Yiwei Zhang
B00779976
Recap:
The Province of Nova Scotia released RFPs on behalf of the Department of Internal Services (IDS) to procure RedHat Products and renew their existing subscription of RedHat. Also, they wanted to train their staff so that they could use the products. After scrutinizing the RFP, we responded by furnishing the project details, deliverables and assigned separate research areas to our group.
Four areas of research were recognized to provide services to the IDS. One of those four areas of research is Adoption of cloud computing. Adoption of Cloud Computing:
Cloud computing permits ubiquitous access to resources and services over the internet. Cloud computing is advantageous because it is cost-effective, easy to use and reliable. Because of these compelling reasons, many organizations have already started adopting cloud computing. However, there are some reasons such as security issues, privacy concerns and maintenance problems that can make an organization not to trust cloud computing.
Since the IDS is a Government organization, to get the lay of the land of cloud computing is extremely crucial. The research on what the current trends in cloud computing are and learning all about its adoption helps in the negotiation process with the IDS.
Research Done:
This section talks about the research papers as well as the research done on adoption of cloud computing. The various different research paper was referred after reading the RFP.
Cloud Computing Adoption: What are the Issues?
Cloud computing is a broad collection of different technologies which can cater the needs of many big and small organizations. Analysts predict a surge in the adoption of cloud computing in the coming years. The major motivation for adopting cloud computing is cost reduction, reliability and ease of installation. Yet, there’s a lot of skepticism in the adoption of cloud because of the security and privacy issues.
For most organizations, cloud computing is still relatively new concept however some marketing executives are making cloud computing top choice (LACHAL, L.,2011,). A survey suggests that the cloud computing market will go grow threefold in coming years (MarketsandMarkets.com, 2010). Still, security is a major concern in cloud computing and a survey result shows that about 87% of the respondents were worried about the privacy and security of their data (GENS, F., et al.: Cloud Computing 2010). Cloud computing can be further divided into three parts: Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Most people adopt SaaS to reduce cost whereas people adopt PaaS and IaaS for the rapid implementation and scalability. Feuerlicht, G., Burkon, L., and Sebesta, M., conducted a survey in the Czech Republic, documented it in their research paper and the results were not surprising. Majority of the respondent said they were a little uncertain to adopt cloud computing because the service provider has the access to the data. Loss of control and legal issues were some other concerns why respondent hesitate to adopt cloud computing.
All the problems associated with the adoption of cloud computing are documented in this research paper and it can be used delve deeper and try to figure out a way to work with IDS. Since IDS is a part of Nova Scotia government, loss of control of data and legal issues are some of the problems that needs to be solved.
In brief, the research paper gives us the idea about the current trends in cloud computing and discusses its adoption by providing survey results taken in Czech Republic. These results shed light on the prominent reasons why most organizations adopt cloud computing and why some organizations are hesitant to adopt it.
Cloud Adoption in Malaysia: Trends, Opportunities, and Challenges
Due to numerous benefits of embracing cloud computing, a lot of organization are already moving their business to cloud. Asia is a big content and a huge market for cloud computing to grow. One of those Asian countries is Malaysia; where the interest in cloud computing is growing steadily.
Many IT companies are adopting cloud computing not just to reduce cost but to leverage the computing power it offers. Asia is a huge market and Malaysia, specifically, has shown a lot of interest in cloud computing. Malaysia ranks 8th amongst the Asian countries when we talk about the readiness to adopt cloud technologies (BSA The Software Alliance, 2013). The Malaysian government has a lot of programs in different sectors that use cloud computing. Despite all that, the adoption rate in Malaysia is slower than expected because of the lack of cloud engineers, lack of domain-specific technologies and data sovereignty.
The research, surveys and the interviews in the paper gave some useful understandings which can be really helpful while providing training to the staff of IDS. One of the major issues mentioned in the paper was the lack of skillful cloud engineers and the inability of Malaysian people to adopt the new cloud technology. Also, while providing services to a government agency, taking all the data security measures is crucial to protect important data stored in the cloud.
All in all, the adoption of cloud computing in the Asian market is slower than expected. In Malaysia, the lack of domain-specific technologies and data sovereignty is causing hiccups in the fast adoption of cloud technologies. Another major issue Malaysian government faced was the lack of expert engineers to manage and maintain the technology. Providing training to the staff of Information, Communication and Technology branch of IDS becomes one of the top priorities of our team.
Cloud computing: A value creation model
There are both benefits and drawbacks of cloud computing. The benefits can compel a organizations to adopt cloud technologies yet the drawbacks can make them think twice. Value is the foundation of any decision-making involved in a business. Since cloud technologies are relatively new in the commercial market, it is necessary for businesses to understand the value cloud computing offers. Hence, the valuation model for cloud computing is proposed in this paper.
Cloud service providers usually offer cloud services on pay-per-use basis and security is managed by the service providers themselves. However, the major concern of any organization would be to guard their data against security breaches. There are many types of cloud setups and those are: community cloud, public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud. Private cloud is most suitable when the privacy and security is given importance. Private cloud is usually implemented in those organizations that do not intend to share their hardware, storage or application to any other organizations. The only downside of creating a private cloud network is its high cost to hire and train staff to maintain the infrastructure and data center.
The “value creation model” explained by David C. Chou (2015) in the research paper helps in understanding the process to make the cloud technology sustainable (p.73). The model talks about awareness, translation, comprehension and value creation in brief. Also, for IDS, private cloud seems suitable because they are not going to share their storage, computational power and server to anyone else outside their own organization.
In a nutshell, organizations which don’t want to share their resources with other organizations and has an expert team to maintain the cloud services can opt private cloud network. It is suitable in situations where data security and privacy is extremely important.
Entrepreneurial and ethical adoption behaviour of cloud computing
Marketing of cloud to promote learning can increase the rate of acceptance of cloud computation. Study of ethical behavior in technology is still an area of research which can help understanding people’s intention to adopt cloud computing or not.
Cloud computing has evolved a lot but it is only recently that it has become commercially available for average users. The service provider has all the access to their private data and any unauthorized attempt to leak the data can endanger the relationship between the user and the service provider. Marketing is one of those things that can boost the adoption of cloud computing and change people’s perception of it.
The paper talks about the role ethics, entrepreneurship, and marketing and how it plays an important role in promoting the acceptance of cloud computation. However, there was nothing practical in this paper that could be used to provide the service IDS needs.
To conclude, the paper talks about the ethics in technology and how marketing can boost the adoption of cloud computing. IDS are a part of Nova Scotian government and private cloud network is the only logical option for them currently since security and flow of data across other branches is their rudimentary need.
Is Cloud Computing Really Ready for Prime Time?
Cloud computing is reshaping the Information and Technology and service providers flaunt the advantages of adopting it. However, despite its benefits, cloud technologies are relatively new and some IT firms are hesitant to adopt it. There are a lot of other issues which can prove as a deal breaker for many organizations which are willing to invest in cloud technology.
While some say that adoption of cloud computing will happen at a fast rate, others believe that this process will experience some major setbacks. Big organizations are utilizing the unused servers to provide cloud-computing services while smaller organizations put their services on those servers. There are still several unforeseen things that can cause problems when switching to cloud services. One of them is latency. Data-intensive work or slow internet connection can cause problems and ultimately lead to termination of the contract with the cloud providers.
Some of the present databases cannot be translated to cloud infrastructure and this is still an area of research. Some of the high-end databases work efficiently on a high-performance server only. All this research helps in providing support and training to the IDS.
To sum it up, cloud technologies can furnish all the needs of the organizations but the caveat here is that it needs a reliable and high bandwidth internet connection. Also, high-end databases don’t work properly on cloud networks and hence it has to be implemented locally to ensure glib access to data across all the departments of Nova Scotia government.
Reference:
Feuerlicht, G., Burkon, L., & Sebesta, M. (2011). Cloud computing adoption: what are the issues. Systémová integrace, (p187-192).
LACHAL, L.: Trends to Watch: Cloud Computing Technology, in Ovum Trends Brief, Ovum 2011
MarketsandMarkets.com. Cloud Computing Market – Global Forecast (2010 -2015). Retrieved from: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/cloud-computing-234.html.
GENS, F., et al.: Cloud Computing 2010: An IDC Update [Presentation slides]. 2009; Available from: http://www.slideshare.net/JorFigOr/cloud-computing-2010-an-idc-update.
Abolfazli, S., Sanaei, Z., Tabassi, A., Rosen, S., Gani, A. and Khan, S. (2015). Cloud Adoption in Malaysia: Trends, Opportunities, and Challenges. IEEE Cloud Computing, 2(1), pp.60-68.
BSA Global Cloud Computing Scorecard, report, BSA The Software Alliance, 2013: http://cloudscorecard.bsa.org/2013/assets/PDFs/BSA_GlobalCloudScorecard2013.pdf
Chou, D. (2015). Cloud computing: A value creation model. Computer Standards & Interfaces, 38, (pp.72-77)
Ratten, V. (2012). Cloud Computing Services. International Journal of Cloud Applications and Computing, 2(2), pp.48-58
Leavitt, N. (2009). Is cloud computing really ready for prime time. Growth, 27(5), 15-20.