Migration plan - Identify cloud provider

Amazon Web Service

AWS have provide more than 200 different types of cloud services. 

Example if those specific set up for particular purpose

-Database

-Message queue manager

-containerization service. 

Flexible pricing

Three payment models in the AWS pricing structure.

1. Pay-As-You-Go -easily adapt to changing business needs

without overcommitting budgets and improving your responsiveness to changes.

2. Save when you commit -allows you to reserve cloud instances with upfront payment at much lower rates.

3. Pay less by using more-volume based discounts (more usage more discount) Assist to complete out-of-the-box solutions and innovative offerings for your business.

High availability

Amazon’s 81 availability zones create a global presence and ensure 99.99%

availability at any time in any place. The availability zones guarantee sufficient

redundancy and resilience to withstand eventual outages and maintain uninterrupted

service.

Benefit of cloud implementation

Flexibility

There is a high level of flexibility provided to companies who invest in cloud-based services. Remote cloud servers offer almost unlimited bandwidth and storage space, which allows businesses to instantly scale up and down their capacities to support growth and cope when website traffic increases.

This removes the need to purchase and install equipment and upgrades on site. Cloud computing also allows for improved workplace flexibility, as employees can access applications and data on a remote server off-site, anywhere and at any time, as long as internet connection is available.

Cost Efficiency

Perhaps the most significant advantage of cloud computing is the IT operational cost savings. Using remote servers removes the need for in-house storage equipment and application requirements, as well as overhead costs such as software updates, management and data storage. Cloud-based services are also much cheaper to use, as they are typically deployed on a pay-per-use basis, which means businesses can rent exactly what they need and guarantee a return on investment. Many small and medium-sized businesses with limited budgets are recognizing the benefits of cloud computing.

Business Continuity

By investing in cloud computing, businesses can guarantee reliable disaster recovery and backup solutions without the hassle of setting them up on a physical device. For many businesses investing in complex disaster recovery plans can be a costly venture and backing up data is time-consuming. The cloud itself is designed in such a way that data stored in it is mirrored across the servers, so that if one fails, data is instantly backed up. Being able to access data again quickly after a failure minimize website downtime and loss of productivity.

Scalability and Performance

Cloud technology is designed to be scaled to meet business’s changing IT requirements. As a company grows, it is inevitable that more storage space and bandwidth will be required to cope with increasing traffic to the website. Cloud servers can be deployed automatically to help businesses scale up and down and ensure optimum performance under heavy loads. Cloud technology also improves website speed and minimize downtime.

Cloud services and deployment(s)-Cloud

 Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

Infrastructure as a service or IaaS is almost synonymous with cloud computing platforms. These solutions allow businesses to deploy, host, and scale web-based applications. Virtual machines enable almost limitless scaling of server capacity.Rather than a set monthly fee, the pricing model is often pay-as-you-go.

Examples: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace.

Cloud services and deployment(s)-Cloud services

 Software as a service (SaaS)

Software as a service (or SaaS) is a way of delivering applications over the Internet—as a service. Instead of installing and maintaining software, you simply access it via the Internet, freeing yourself from complex software and hardware management. SaaS examples: BigCommerce, Google Apps, Salesforce, Dropbox, MailChimp, ZenDesk, DocuSign, Slack, Hubspot

Cloud services and deployment(s)- Cloud Deployment Model

 Public Cloud

Public cloud is a cloud deployment model where computing resources are owned and operated by a provider and shared across multiple tenants via the Internet. They may be free or sold on-demand, allowing customers to pay only per usage for the CPU cycles, storage, or bandwidth they consume. 

Private Cloud

Private cloud provides computing services to a private internal network (within the organization) and selected users instead of the general public.

Migration plan - Decide deployment models

The proposed option is to apply the Hybrid cloud model by combining both private and public cloud for double protection on sensitive and important databases such as transaction history and customer accounts. 

Maintaining minimal ownership of local data centers will still provide more freedom and control over cost and data security, also on how to manage it. Cloud bills can quickly go up when we apply more complex computing processes and application setup. 

Another benefit is we may need to adhere to data storage compliance required especially when dealing with customers from big companies. Then they may don’t want to see us storing sensitive info at the location where there is less control.

 

Migration plan - Decide on cloud service required

Infrastructure as a service

We need the server as the platform to run the application. We can rent the server on cloud, fast and easy infrastructure setup. Cloud providers will take care of the underlying infrastructure. So, we can focus on our business rather than managing the IT infrastructure. Let the cloud service provider manage it and we just rent it. One biggest benefit is the cloud is very flexible and scalable, we can adjust the server capacity we rent according to the different needs at different times. We will be able to handle spikes flexibly, spin up and scale down with 1 click. Thus, we only pay for what we use.

Software as a service

To administrate the on-site order and fulfilment application, In our case, to manage distributors’ log in account, process order, arrange and track shipment. We can also search and apply business applications available from AWS marketplace such as ARIA, A SaaS based offering to Automated Purchase Order Processing.

Integration of both IaaS and SaaS cloud service

In conclusion, we suggest applying both IaaS and SaaS cloud service to simplify the computing infrastructure of the company. We will apply AWS EC2 instances to replace physical server, infrastructure as a service. We will also be using the application offered on AWS marketplace for software as a service.

Extending cloud adoption in future - Multi-Cloud

 Multi-Cloud

In multi-cloud, a business uses multiple cloud services of the same type from different cloud platforms.

Partnering with multiple cloud providers enables a business to:

• Use best services for each app and task.

• Eliminate the risk of vendor lock-in.

• Ensure the team relies on the best cloud solution.

• Optimize the spending by choosing the most affordable services.

Most of these multi-cloud setups include a mixture of public cloud providers such as Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM, and Microsoft Azure.

Migration plan - Decide deployment models

 

Alibaba highlights environment, ‘hard tech’ as Singles’ Day sales lose steam

 

Alibaba’s focus on green initiatives and sustainability during Singles’ Day comes amid China’s low carbon push and tightened regulatory environment.

The company said that its data center in Hebei province uses renewable energy and this helped to reduce carbon emissions by more than 26,000 tones. Technologies like cloud computing and robotic vehicles contributed to reducing the environmental impact of the world’s biggest shopping festival, Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding said on Tuesday, even though sales growth for Singles’ Day was the lowest level on record.

Alibaba’s focus on green initiatives and sustainability during the annual online shopping event comes amid China’s low carbon push and tightened regulatory environment.

EG522D THE CLOUD MIGRATION

Hi Team,

As per discussed, created this team blog to discuss about out group project assignment.

Business Case Study (Group – 30%)

 

Future Manufacturing Ltd is an international manufacturer with offices located in US, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Singapore.

The company manufactures thousands of small parts that are required in CNC machines, laser cutting machines, plastic molding machines and stamping machines. In the current order placement and fulfilment system, each distributor must create an account with the company, login to the online ordering portal and place the orders. The orders will automatically be sent to the fulfilment department to package the orders and arrange for the delivery to the distributors. The system will track the order status via the same online ordering portal.

The online ordering portal has 25,000 registered distributors and an average of 50,000 daily orders are received. In recent years, It has also been observed that the ordering patterns spike in Apr, Nov and Dec with at least 50% increase in these months.

The current online ordering portal web application is developed using Microsoft ASP.NET. The system is run on 2 on-premises IBM Lenovo Think Server TS450 Tower Servers, each with 64GB of memory and Intel Xeon E3 (Quad Core) E3-1225 v5 processors. The application uses Microsoft SQL Server 2019 which runs on one IBM Lenovo Think Server while the web application (ASP.NET) runs on the other IBM Lenovo Think Server, forming a 2-tier client-server architecture. The Singapore company subscribes to Starhub fibre broadband of 100MBps for Internet connectivity. 2 full-time IT administrators are employed to maintain and administer the servers while the application is developed and maintained by a 3rd party software vendor.

The current servers are aging with frequent hard disk failures and power outages. It has observed that the servers are having difficulty in processing the incoming orders especially during the ordering spike that happens in Apr, Nov, and Dec period.

CEO Mr. Mark See is introduced to the benefits of migrating some of the IT operations       to the cloud services that will maximize the revenue with significant reduction of total cost of ownership.

You are tasked to study the company operations and propose the cloud solution using Google Slides for the presentation and blog to communicate the proposed solution to the management.

Your study should include but not limited to the following:

1. Identify the components that will be migrated to cloud

2. Describe the cloud services and deployment(s) that will be used in this setup

3. Tabulate an estimated cost and list the benefits for cloud implementation

4. Discuss the migration plan

5. Propose future for extending the cloud adoption

You are to submit the Google Slides and blog link in PolyMall by end of Week 8 (12 Dec 2021).