Office Automation used by SoftArc
Cloud Computing is generally gathering news from all over the world due to its unique features and capabilities, every organization is trying to get their hands on this technology. With this companies can work more efficiently and this also helps in making the work easier and gives some smart decisions which can help the organization to grow (Almorsy, Grundy & Müller 2016). It also helps the users to save their data and access their data from any part of the world. With this people can connect with other people in no real time.
The following report discusses how SoftArc can be useful and how these cloud services and technologies and also highlights the point of what challenges does it face and what are the opportunities that any company will face while implementing this.
a. Different approaches for office automation
- Helps in accessing the files from anywhere and anytime.
- Should integrate with previous solution so that all are safe.
Accessing the files from anywhere and anytime
This feature is really important for SoftArc’s civil engineers as once they made a plan, they can easily upload that and they can access that file from anywhere and share it also. This is really safe as the files in the cloud will not get corrupt nor lost and after making is once, they need not to make it again, only they need to update it. This can also help others as they can also get to know about the work and proceed with the work (Almorsy, Grundy & Müller 2016).
Another important feature is that the office automation should be integrated with previous works so that one can easily know the mistakes that they have made or if they want to make any changes, they can. They need not to draw or map the same thing again and again (Hashizume et al. 2013). Making the projects again and again and by doing so, the time of the project will increase as well as it will put financial pressure over the company.
Cloud Based automation is really important as this can serve a great deal of importance for the civil engineers as with this, they can store all their files and projects over the cloud safely and they can retrieve these files anytime they want. Also their previous works will also be there safe and sound.
a. Difference in Locally Hosted Servers and Cloud Hosted Services
Cloud Hosting Servers can be specifically said as the servers which are managed by some other third party infrastructure often with a collaboration with aNOC whereas in Locally Hosted Servers, these are built on the very premise of the organization and are managed by the officials of the organization. It is built on the local area network and is fully under the provenance of the organization. There are certain differences that sets these two apart from each other like:
- Securityis the biggest and main concern for any organization as they do not want their confidential things to be in wrong hands. To avoid all these. One should go for locally hosted servers as in this, organizations can control the data within and they can also monitor the data know who is viewing these data where as in Cloud Based servers, company has no control over the data as all the data are scattered and is managed by some third party infrastructure so it is not so safe (Alqahtany et al. 2014)).
- Accessibilityis the second thing that every company seeks for and cloud based services are the best option as these are far more superior as they also help in enhancing the data and also try to give the ability to improve the ability to reach out for data (Othman, Madani & Khan 2014). It is also very useful when it comes on collaboration or even when the company need to search for a specific data which may not be available when setting up a local hosted server.
- Costis the next thing that comes as every organization wants to invest less but get a huge advantage and cloud based servers are the best choices for this as all they need is to share it from a third part who will provide all the basic functionalities to the organization but in case of Locally hosted servers, all the setup is to be done from the beginning and the infrastructure needs to changed which will cost heavily to the company (Sanaei et al. 2014). In Cloud hosted services, all things come pre-installed and the company needs to pay nominal fee for that and while in case of Locally hosted servers, if any update comes, the company needs to install that on their own and this would cost again and this would continue every time any update comes (Wei et al. 2014).
b. Critical issues and factors to be taken under consideration by SoftArc
While choosing a cloud service, the company needs to consider various factors based on which they need to make their choice that will help them with IaaS.
- The first is that the company should consider the Locationas this is a very important aspect for the company as they need to deal with various customers and they need to maintain the customer satisfaction (Sadiku, Musa & Momoh 2014). Another advantage of having a service provider whose data center is close to customers is that the latency can be reduced.
- APIis the second factor that they need to consider while choosing the cloud services as these can help the company to control every aspect of the cloud and also having strong API helps the company to treat the whole infrastructure as a code (Sanaei et al. 2014).
- Auto-Scalingis the next thing that needs to be considered as with the help of Auto-Scaling, there will be less fluctuations with the internet connectivity and also the load balance is maintained. It also helps analyzing and monitoring the overall internet to see for any incoming traffics (Sadiku, Musa & Momoh 2014).
- Architectureis another thing that needs to be considered as between the companies, there will be constant communication and it is really important that the company tries to maintain these communications as secure as they can.
a. Difference between IaaS, PaaS and SaaS
Service Providers
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) mainly features the automated and scalable
computer resources which comes pre-installed with the cloud storage and network facility and this is readily available on demand to the users. The main advantage of having is this is that the clients can easily access the servers and storage that is present in the cloud services. It also helps in setting up “Virtual Data Center” which helps the users and this can be set up within the cloud only. The main advantage of having IaaS is that it is very much flexible cloud computing and it is the most prominent features among all three that is it helps in automated deployment of servers, processing power, storage and networking (Arora, Parashar & Transforming 2013). This is mainly used when it comes on deployment of other services like the PaaS, SaaS and also some web applications.
Software as a Service (SaaS) mainly works on the basic principle of old client model of software where all the web browsers are given the access of the servers which are already running on servers. It is the most common form of service that is available to the customers right now in the market. In SaaS, it helps in moving all the software deployment to some other third parties for the services to work with (Di Spaltro, Polvi & Welliver 2016). The main feature of SaaS over others is that it is mainly intended so as to reduce the cost of all the software that includes installation, managing and upgrading of the software. It is also used for licensing the software (Arora, Parashar & Transforming 2013).
Platform as a Service (PaaS) is always considered the lowest of all three. It is basically used when there is a need for software development and deployment. It is mainly used by for the purpose of server side handling and also helps in providing an external environment where both the network and infrastructure is considered. It also helps in virtualizing the technology (Hashem et al. 2015).
The cloud services that will be appropriate for the working of SharePoint would be
most likely the SaaS and PaaS. As SharePoint is a cloud based service, so SaaS would be a great choice as it mainly deals with server side and this gives SaaS the ability to access internet with the web browsers which are already running on the servers. It also helps for the deployment and development of software and helps help in reducing the cost while licensing for the applications (Bahrami & Singhal 2015). PaaS is another great choice as with this developer can develop applications with the help of SharePoint.
There are some problems while availing these services and the first is that users need an internet connection all the time whenever the company is opting for SaaS. So before turning up for any service providers, they should check if they are offering high speed internet or not. The second is that companies may face security issues while choosing the cloud based services as with this, the company has no control over their data and it is like unstructured that is the data is everywhere so it is not safe. Before this, the company should do a background check that they are using the correct software to safeguard the details (Garg, Versteeg & Buyya 2013).). Another issue is that the company should choose a service provider whose data center is close to the customers so that the company can work with the customer satisfaction and try to give everything that they want.
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that cloud services are very much important for the SoftArc as they help in processing a huge data within few minutes which that also from multiple systems simultaneously which is not possible for any human being. Cloud services offers unlimited storage access so that users do not face any shortage of space. The data that is being stored in the cloud are also encrypted so it is really difficult for anyone to get their hands on these and know what is inside. Advantage of having cloud services is that it can be accessed from any part of the world and the information is shared in real time. Cloud services also provides Scalability, Robust and Task centric.
References
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Di Spaltro, D., Polvi, A., & Welliver, L. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,501,329. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
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