Cloud Approach for Office Automation in Regional Gardens
Discuss about the Data Security And Privacy Protection Issues Cloud.
There are different approaches of providing office automation services that can be considered by the Regional Gardens in implementing office automation. Office automation in regional Gardens will integrate the different office functions to the staffs including email, word processing and spread sheet capabilities and can be accessed by an individual from any place be it home, office or customer’s site. Two approaches of office automation that can be undertaken by Regional Gardens are cloud approach and development of an integrated system.
This is a suggested method for implementation of office automation in Regional Gardens as it is event specific and can be customized for task specific needs. This approach can be a core building block for the different departmental process and improvement initiatives taken for the organization wide connection. Cloud office automation integrates the different workflows within an organization by providing a concrete information management strategy (Xu, 2012). The staffs can access the information stored in the cloud with the help of an internet connection. This approach of office automation will provide the benefits of electronic communication and electronic collaboration of the important information among the staffs of the organization. Therefore, it is one of the suggested approaches of office automation in Regional Gardens.
This is another approach of providing office automation to Regional Gardens. An integrated office automation system is generally designed to considering all the elements between the users, equipments and the services running within an organization. This allows the staffs of the organization in accessing the different files such as email, word processing and spread sheet capabilities. The advantages and disadvantages of using the cloud or integrated approach of providing office automation to Regional Gardens are elaborated in the following section.
The major benefits of implementing a cloud approach of office automation are as follows-
- The cloud platform will integrate all the business operation of Regional Gardens
- It will store a lot of physical space by storing all the vital information in cloud server.
- It is easily accessible by the staffs of Regional Gardens through an internet connection.
The major issues associated with cloud automation are as follows-
- Data security is a major concern in cloud automation (Chen & Zhao, 2012)
- Selection of a trusted vendor is major challenge as well.
The major benefits of integrated approach are that it increases the efficiency of automation process as it can be easily customizable. However the one of the major issue associated with this system is that if the implementation fails, it can prove to be a costly failure in future.
Analyzing the benefits and issues associated with cloud computing it is recommended for Regional Gardens to use a cloud based approach of office automation as the data security issue can be mitigated by implementing proper encryption and access control.
The differences between IaaS and PaaS public cloud infrastructure are as follows-
IaaS Approach |
IaaS or infrastructure as a service provides a virtual platform on which a particular operating environment and application are deployed. |
It provides self service model for accessing, monitoring and managing the remote datacenter infrastructures for storage, networking and computing needs |
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It is mainly used if there is unavailability of infrastructure space. |
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It helps in enforcing proper control over the resources. |
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IaaS providers include Amazon, Azure and so on. |
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PaaS Approach |
PaaS or Platform as a service provides operating environment that includes Windows, .NET and application of choice deployed. |
PaaS are generally used for applications of providing cloud components to a software. This approach makes the process of deployment of the approach even easier (Paraiso et al., 2012). |
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It provides access to the multiple concurrent users and it is one of the major benefits of PaaS. |
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The providers of PaaS include AWS, Apache Stratos and so on. |
- Easier data back and disaster recovery
- Enhanced security (Jadeja & Modi, 2012)
- Provides dynamic scaling and elasticity
- Includes monitoring tools and customized management
- However, it is costly as compared to PaaS
Figure 1: Representing the different Characteristics of IaaS
(Source: Created by the Author using Ms Visio)
- It takes much less time in implementation
- Provides on demand service
- Provides elasticity
- Less costly in comparison to PaaS
Figure 2: Representing the different Characteristics of PaaS
(Source: Created by the Author using Ms Visio)
The major differences between IaaS, PaaS and SaaS are as follows-
Characteristics |
IaaS |
PaaS |
SaaS |
Definition |
IaaS or infrastructure as a cloud provides virtualized cloud computing resources over internet. It provides an instant cloud computing infrastructure that can be managed over internet (Moreno-Vozmediano, Montero & Llorente, 2012). |
Platform as service is a category of cloud computing providing a platform that allows the developers in building an application over internet. The services of PaaS are hosted in cloud and can be accessed by the users through the Web browsers. |
Software as a service is a software licensing delivery model of cloud that acts on a subscription basis (Aghera, Chaudhary & Kumar, 2012). It is hosted centrally and can be accessed by the users via web browser. |
Advantages of using this Approach |
This approach reduces the infrastructure cost and provides virtually limitless scalability and agility in its implementation |
The cost of implementation is low |
Lower upfront cost |
Offers Pay as you go service |
Increases the speed of development and deployment of this platform in business |
Offers scalability and integration of different cloud offerings |
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Supports disaster recovery |
It is easily scalable |
It is easy to use and quick to deploy |
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It mainly Focuses on business growth and Offers strong security |
The client need not handle the complexity of underlying IT infrastructure associated with cloud deployment |
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Disadvantages |
The Clients need to take in charge of the back ups |
The system is associated with security risk (Almorsy, Grundy & Müller, 2016) |
Client has no control over the data |
Customer is responsible for VM management |
It is not as cost effective as SaaS |
Has limited number of software solutions |
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It is most expensive to implement |
It provides a shared platform |
The cloud vendor has full access to customers’ data |
IaaS approach is recommended for Regional Gardens for moving its share point services. This is because the IaaS approach is easily customizable that will be appropriate for providing services to the employees. Although it is a bit expensive it offers a certain advantages in its usage. The advantages of using IaaS platform are as follow (Manvi & Shyam, 2014)-
- It is easily customizable which will be beneficial for Regional Gardens to deploy Microsoft SharePoint 2010 from its existing data center.
- It provides a secure connection that can be used for storing confidential data of the organization.
- It offers scalability and flexibility of customizing the services according needs of the client. Customizable service is a must need for the Regional Gardens for moving its SharePoint 2010 instance to cloud.
The benefits of using and IaaS cloud platform is represented in the image below-
Figure 3: Representing the different advantages of IaaS
(Source: Created by the Author using Ms Visio)
The problems or issues associated with IaaS are as follows (Obrutsky, 2016)-
- The implementation cost of the IaaS is considerably higher in comparison to PaaS and SaaS.
- It offers limited control over the data stored in the system
- Downtime of technical difficulties is considerably high
References
Aghera, P., Chaudhary, S., & Kumar, V. (2012, May). An approach to build multi-tenant SaaS application with monitoring and SLA. In Communication systems and network technologies (csnt), 2012 international conference on (pp. 658-661). IEEE.
Almorsy, M., Grundy, J., & Müller, I. (2016). An analysis of the cloud computing security problem. arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01107.
Chen, D., & Zhao, H. (2012, March). Data security and privacy protection issues in cloud computing. In Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (ICCSEE), 2012 International Conference on (Vol. 1, pp. 647-651). IEEE.
Jadeja, Y., & Modi, K. (2012, March). Cloud computing-concepts, architecture and challenges. In Computing, Electronics and Electrical Technologies (ICCEET), 2012 International Conference on (pp. 877-880). IEEE.
Manvi, S. S., & Shyam, G. K. (2014). Resource management for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) in cloud computing: A survey. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 41, 424-440.
Moreno-Vozmediano, R., Montero, R. S., & Llorente, I. M. (2012). Iaas cloud architecture: From virtualized datacenters to federated cloud infrastructures. Computer, 45(12), 65-72.
Obrutsky, S. (2016). Cloud Storage: Advantages, Disadvantages and Enterprise Solutions for Business.
Paraiso, F., Haderer, N., Merle, P., Rouvoy, R., & Seinturier, L. (2012, June). A federated multi-cloud PaaS infrastructure. In Cloud Computing (CLOUD), 2012 IEEE 5th International Conference on (pp. 392-399). IEEE.
Xu, X. (2012). From cloud computing to cloud manufacturing. Robotics and computer-integrated manufacturing, 28(1), 75-86.
Zissis, D., & Lekkas, D. (2012). Addressing cloud computing security issues. Future Generation computer systems, 28(3), 583-592.