Answer To: Case Study Summary: BallotOnline Co. Currently, BallotOnline Co. is running at full capacity and...
Ali Asgar answered on Aug 16 2021
Introduction
BallotOnline Co has reached the end of its IT capacity and needs to expand its IT infrastructure to accommodate the growing needs. Moving with the modern trend and looking at the future, the company plans to use cloud infrastructure for this extra needs to take advantage of its efficiency and cost effectiveness.
This will definitely reduce the on-premise expansion costs that will be incurred to house the added data center capacity with the cost for added power requirements and the team to deploy and manage the added infrastructure capacity.
This report aims to help the executive leadership understand the the various cloud service models and cloud deployment models. It will highlight the two main aspects of cloud, the cloud compute and cloud storage.
This document will highlight how the various IT policy components align with business objectives and will also show the important considerations that are required for aligning Cloud Adoption strategy with the company’s IT policies.
The report also dives into the industry best practices by analyzing some reports of other companies that have implemented migration to cloud and the deployment strategies and techniques that they have used so as to ensure that BallotOnline will be using the most efficient and cost effective method.
Plan Scope
Overview
In order to deploy the services on a cloud platform, we must be sure about various factors that decide the success of a cloud deployment. Since BallotOnline Co is having an existing on premise physical data center where the current operations are running and need to implement the cloud architecture to enable future growth and scalability, we must make sure that our cloud deployment is compatible with our existing infrastructure.
In order to move an application to cloud, we need to first analyze which is the correct cloud region for us to deploy our application we need to select a region that is nearest to our user base to allow faster access to our application. We need to ensure a high level of security as we must create a secure connection between the cloud system and our own data center so as to make it work seamlessly as if both are at the same location. Apart from this the security must be such that no unauthorized access is given that could compromise either the cloud infrastructure or the on-premise data center.
Here we also need to decide on the cloud deployment model that we need to follow in-order to align our deployment to our business needs and our existing infrastructure for seamless integration. The various types of deployment models being Private Cloud, Community cloud, Public Cloud and hybrid cloud. On top of this we need to select a service model, like Infrastructure as a server (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS).
Cloud Configuration and Deployment Prerequisites
1. Firstly, we need to decide on the cloud deployment model that we must choose in order to be able to implement our services on cloud. The various models to choose from are:
a. Private cloud: In this model, the organization creates a centralized data center in its own premise and all its branch offices are connected to it via the secure internet channel. It is restricted to be used by a single organization only.
b. Community Cloud: In this model, a few large organizations come together to create a common cloud infrastructure so that they share the underlying hardware infrastructure among themselves and can use resources as per their needs and incase a single organization needs to scale up temporarily, it is possible.
c. Public Cloud: In this, a separate Cloud provider sells the cloud services as an entity and the usage of those entities is charged to the user only for the time period the usage was done. This is analogous to Utilities service (like electricity) where we are charged for only whatever we use.
d. Hybrid Cloud: This is a mix of both public and private cloud model. Here an organization may create a cloud infrastructure for their use and may also lease the extra capacity to other companies for a fee and act as a cloud provider also.
2. We also need to decide on the service model that we may require. This is generally applicable in case of a Public Cloud. The various service models are:
a. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): Here a virtual server is provided us and we need to take care of OS installation, service configurations, network configurations etc. It is similar to deploying a physical server in our premises, the difference being that the server is located in the Cloud providers premises and the hardware and everything physical like power, cooling etc is managed by the provider.
b. Platform as a Service (PaaS): In this model, a server is created and made ready for deployment of a particular type of application by the provider and the customer only needs to deploy their application on the server and run the application. All application level configuration, database creation and connection to it handled by the customer, while lower level tasks such as backup configuration, Server and services deployment etc is done by Provider.
c. Software as a Service (SaaS): Here even the applications are hosted by the provider and made available to use to the customers. A customer is allowed only some customizations in the application.
3. After...