Virtualizations and Cloud Computing

Question: Discuss about the DSI implementation of cloud computing in their organization. Answer: Introduction This study discusses about DSI implementation of cloud computing in their organization. SLA and Technical Management are those two assessments that need to be done for Department of Spatial Information. The report consists of an evaluation of SLA management and other management requirements which will be provided to the DSI executive management. The document explains about various aspects of the required service level agreement management, remote administration, and resource management. The report that has been presented here tells about why backup plan and disaster recovery is important and what their needs are in cloud computing. The presented document also discusses about the SLA assessment based on Erls guidelines, their need in an organization or with the service provider and their impact on them. Detailed discussion on the requirements of Resource Management, SLA Management, and Remote Administration Resource Management: Once the information technology reaches constant success with RM (Resource Management), then it enhances their processes and tools and extends their advantages across other organizations. In general, we can understand that a resource management is defined as a process to utilize the company resources in the best possible way or we can say that RM (Resource Management) is an effective and efficient development of a firm's resources whenever they are needed (Manvi Shyam, 2014). The main objective of the RM (Resource management) is to manage and customize the available resource that is required. In a big firm or organization, they usually have a pre defined Corporate RM (Resource Management) process which ensures that a resource is not overloaded with allotments across some tasks. An effective resource management is always the highest priority for all the individual service executives those who are looking to improve their customer satisfaction level, enhance the billable utilization and optimizing the profits margins. Resource management deals with the estimation of cost and effective and active utilization of resources in an organization (Lee Zomaya, 2012). It is required to gain control and visibility, to improve the productivity and efficiency. Moreover, it is required for both dealing with resource contention and prevention of a released resource when a process or task has completed using it. Remote Administration: The Remote Administration refers to a system process that gives us a user-interface and right tools for outer cloud resource administrators to administer and configure cloud based information technology resources (Bhatt Choksi, 2013). It provides the Department of Spatial information with a user-interface where they can access to various management and administration features of different underlying systems which include billing management systems, service level agreement, and resource management. Figure 1: Remote Administration System (Source: Ramachandran et al., 2015, pp. 76) With remote administration system we can create two major types of portals that are: Usage and Administration: It is a general portal that is used for the purpose of control the various cloud based information technology resources and can provide reports of their usages. Self Service Portal: It is a kind of self help portal where users need to update their list of IT resources and cloud services which are available from a cloud service provider. To clear the described concept of self-service portal a figure has been included below. Figure 2: Remote administrator using a Self-service portal (Source: Baucke et al., 2015, pp. 43) Once the remote administration system is implemented then DSI can access and control some administrative tools. Remote administration is not a new concept in information technology; various organizations have looked to develop remote administration for troubleshooting various issues using it. It is a support multiple platforms. It provides different APIs and tools through which the selected vendors can customize and develop many online portals (Hernacki et al., 2012). The main goal is to provide a better service experiences to their customers. There are some tools that can be operated by DSI once the implementation of RMS (remote administration system) is completed. Service Level Agreement Management: The SLA management is a documented contract that refers to specific terms and conditions which are presented in a paper format between the service buyer and service provider. The document itself explains that of what kind of service will the vendor provide and what will be the action taken for the service provider in case if he fails to deliver what they promise (Wu Buyya, 2012). The service level agreement will increase the customer trust towards the vendor regarding capabilities and reliability. The SLA is required to define the responsibilities between the vendor and customer. The vendor service can be terminated if in a case of violation of SLS guarantees. The discounting policies and service costing will be applied when the service is not satisfied as discussed in the service level agreement (Marudhadevi et al., 2014). The SLA should support the service level agreement life cycle. The SLA management needs interactions among various processes. Figure 3: Service Level Management (Source: Torkashvan Haghighi, 2012, pp. 580) Department of Spatial information has chosen a Hybrid cloud based computing solution, and the vendor needs to meet and maintain the service level agreement while implementing the cloud solution in their organization. The SLA provides extra protection into the process of data hosting services and traditional computing. The main purpose of having the service level agreement is to ensure that the service provider provides the high quality product or service or as mentioned in the contract document to an organization (Pasala et al., 2014). The SLA guidelines need to be crystal clear as it can come into handy after many years if any issue arises between the service provider and the customer. Everything has to be updated in the guidelines before a final contract is made between made. Discussion on Considering Disaster Recovery, Data Backup, and Resilience Disaster Recovery and Data Backup: The purpose of disaster recovery is to protection or security plan to protect Department of Spatial information from any threats. It does involve a set of procedure and policies which help the organization to recover from various disasters such as human-induced and natural disaster. The disaster recovery completely focuses on the information technology a system that supports significant business functionalities by keeping the required business functionalities and removing the threats from the system. DSI needs to check if their service provider has a good disaster recovery plan or not because it is very much essential for DSI in the case of any serious failure in the system (Nicolini et al., 2015). Figure 4: General Disaster Recovery Design (Source: Sahebjamnia et al., 2015, pp. 265) Data backup is a process where it copies and archives the data of a system. It is also used for restoring the original file or data. The data backup is a significant aspect of a cloud computing process; for an example if a user needs to work on their next project and suddenly the hard disk got crashed then it becomes hard to perform the next task. The Data backup service is really important as they cover various functionalities such as data protection, availability of remote data, security and compliance, server performance, etc. The data backup plan or strategy always begins with DR (Data repository) model. It is important that DSI needs to check with the service provider if they have a proven data backup plan. The data backup is much faster and better when compare to disaster recovery. As data backup has a high data retention period, compare to disaster recovery. There are some key objectives that need to be considered to reduce the risks of losing data or another kind of disasters in the system. It decreases the delay of risk, do a right time data back up and securing the data even before the disaster happens. Resilience: Resiliency refers to an ability of a storage system, server, a whole data center or network that helps to recover faster. It has become a most important part of an organization. The main aspect of resilience is that it does operate when there is a power outage, system failure or other disruption. The organization, in this case, DSI should address the resilience methods before they implement the Hybrid cloud based solution in their organization (Diez Silva, 2014). The resilience is obtained by using inner components or system or by enabling the data center. The resilience procedures that are obtained in a data center can change with the significant of the respective load of work. When the planning is presented, it should propose and include the resiliency to link up an emergency plan and the data center for DR (Disaster Recovery). Erls SLA guidelines to assess the Service Level Agreement Department of spatial information has chosen IaaS based solution to implement the Hybrid cloud model in their organization. The service level agreement is a contract that is documented between the service provider and DSI. There are various journals and articles that do not agree that SLAs is much important. The service level agreement serves Department of spatial information with both guarantee and outline for distributed cloud computing. The SLA helps DSI to improve their service quality to manage their nonviolent techniques and infrastructure of the BRM (Business Relationship Management). The service level guidelines has to be updated on regular bases as soon as any changes are implemented, and the service provider is responsible to updated it before having a contract with DSI. Cloud computing is implemented in many organization because it is easy to access and operate the data using a same cloud computing network from any location in this world. In the guidelines, the new terms f or technology need to be introduced, so that is no more confusion at the time of final contract. The SLA has to be understood clearly by both the parties to avoid any future disruptions between them. Conclusion The report discusses management and technical assessments of service level agreement for DSI The cloud computing has been the latest technology that most of the organizations are looking to implement. DSI has also selected IaaS method to implement the Hybrid cloud based solution in their organization. The report describes about disaster recovery, data backup and resilience and its various characteristics in information technology system. The reports discuss importance of service level agreement and why it is so important for both DSI and the service provider. 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