List business and IT aligned benefits of cloud computing

The characteristics of cloud computing enables business to gain the following IT-aligned benefits:

• Accelerate innovating projects that can lead to new revenues
• Make IT an enabler, of, not a barrier to rapid innovation
• Provide an effective and creative service delivery model
• Deliver services in a less costly and higher quality business model, while providing service access ubiquity
• Create a sustainable competitive differentiation
• Rapidly deploy application over the Internet and leverage new technologies to deliver service, when, where and how clients want them-before competitor do so
• Lower IT barriers to launch new business services
• Build and integrate modular services- in record time- by leveraging "rentable" IT service capabilities, pay only for what you use 

Name 6 different reasons for adopting cloud

Cloud computing has a set of compelling features that make it a good candidate for adoption. Some of reasons that make  cloud computing adoption a requirement are as follows

• Massive, web-scale abstracted infrastructure
• Dynamic allocation, scaling, movement of applications
• Pay-per-use
• No long-term commitments - flexible
• OS, architecture independent
• No hardware or software to install 

Write a note on cloud sourcing

• cloud sourcing is the end to end solution using cloud technology using public cloud, infrastructure and platform
• Cloud source is a planned approach and comprises of the whole service cycle of outsourcing business with cloud principles with the help strategized connected cloud platform that will match the overall enterprise requirements

What is cloud broker? What are different opportunities for cloud brokers

Cloud brokers are intermediaries will help companies choose the right platform, deploy app across multiple clouds and perhaps even provide cloud arbitrage services that allow end user to shift between platform to capture the best pricing.  

Opportunities

• Cloud service intermediaries
• Building services atop an existing cloud platform- such as additional security or management capabilities
• Cloud Aggregation
• Deploying customer services over multiple cloud platform
• Cloud service arbitrage
• supplying flexibility and "opportunities choices" and fostering competition between clouds

How cloud computing provides a new opportunity to enhance user experience. List 2 ways (2m)

Cloud computing environment presents or provides a new opportunity to enhance the user experience in the following ways.

• by providing a broader communication path for reaching out to the customer
• for providing a series of business services to the user via the application features

Write elements and description of conceptual cloud model

The conceptual cloud model describes the structure of the cloud-based services as a system in terms of its software components with their responsibilities, interfaces, relationships and the way they collaborate to deliver the required functionality.The cloud component model for implementation planning is specified at the conceptual level. Conceptual model broken down consists of the following elements

• high-level service components that form the service provided by the offerings
• The resources that support the cloud services
• The technical components that provide the technical underpinnings of the cloud service and support the non-functional needs of the cloud application.
• external and internal services (API, Storage) that are leveraged by the cloud application services

What are benefits of cloud deployment using cloud strategy

Cloud strategy helps the cloud deployment with the following benefits

• Reduced Risk and faster deployment- It leverages cloud vendor assets, skills and experience to reduce risk. It accelerates development and implementation by identifying the gaps, activities and risks and defines mitigation strategies within an implementation roadmap
• Improve service- It identifies the optimal delivery model mix and prioritizes the workloads to migrate to cloud to achieve business and IT objectives

• Lower Cost-  It identifies opportunities to reduce capital and operating expense across the infrastructure 

What is DaaS. List one benefit and one drawbacks

DaaS- provides the desktop environment either within a browser or as a terminal server. 

Advantage

The technology allows businesses to host desktops from a central server room or data center. Like server virtualization, with which many SMBs are familiar, multiple PC operating systems are concentrated onto a few servers as virtual machines, which end-users access over the network. Each virtual PC is the exact working environment they would find if the operating system were running on physical hardware on the user’s desks.

Disadvantage 

Desktop Virtualization is Cap-ex intensive. One needs to buy the Desktop Virtualization Software/Licenses, Servers, Centralized Storage infrastructure, Upgrade Network infrastructure to support more bandwidth, etc in addition to buying computers/ thin-clients for each user.

Describe IT-as-a-Service. What are different aspects that cloud needs to deliver this (2)

Cloud computing introduces the concept of " IT-as-a-Service". Under this, any and every computing resource and tools can be availed as a service. To support this service, the cloud infrastructure must deliver the following 

• Abstraction: Alleviate IT consumers from the operations of applications, allowing end users to focus instead on the execution of high-value activities
• Virtualization- access to business services on-demand independent of location and resource constraints
• Dynamic allocation- Dynamically provisions, configures, reconfigures, and de-provisions IT capability as and when needed, transparently and seamlessly 
• Data Management-  Fast, secure, reliable data access and mobility, with integrated data protection and recovery management

In cloud deployment the effective and efficient data management becomes a critical since all data resides on the same shared storage  

How cloud vendors can address client challenges. Mention 6 ways

Cloud Vendors can address client challenges by

1.  Prioritizing workloads for cloud adoption based on business impact and risk
2. Maximizing business return by identifying applications that are well suited for cloud computing and have high business impact
3. Addressing problematic workloads to improve their propensity for cloud computing
4. Helping avoid costly implementation issues by identifying and addressing potential difficulties during migration
5. Mitigating risk of costly implementation delays by identifying potential problems and addressing them before migration
6. Avoiding inadequate performance of highly complex and integrated workloads
7. Leveraging expertise to deliver an actionable roadmap to successfully migrate applications to a load computing environment
8. accelerating cloud initiatives of the client 

Why organization are taking action to migrate to cloud. Give 3 reasons

The organizations are taking action now to migrate to cloud computing for the following reasons

1. To derive the greatest flexibility and cost reduction benefits from their cloud computing investments
2. To avoid vulnerability to costly problems and delays arising from a trial-and-error method of migrating workloads
3. To augment limited in-house resources or experiences to rapidly develop an optimization roadmap to smoothly migrate workloads to a cloud computing environment 

Write a short note on cloud technical strategy

Cloud Technical strategy helps cloud customers enable the cloud deployment. Cloud service enable business cloud users to build middleware clouds in their data centers and utilize public cloud, where it makes sense by providing the following cloud-enabled middleware services

• Infrastructure services
• platform services
• Application services

In addition, cloud strategy enables organizations to do the following

• Build middleware clouds in their data centers
• Utilize public clouds where it makes sense

List and explain 3 cloud computing barriers

IT organizations have identified four major barriers to large-scale adoption of cloud services. They are as follows

1. Security- IT organization are concerned with security in cloud computing environment, particularly data security.
2. Governance and Regulatory compliance - Companies are still trying to sort out the appropriate data governance model for cloud services and ensuring data privacy, quality of service ( QoS) namely availability, reliability and performance and SLAs
3. Integration and Interoperability -  Identifying and migrating appropriate applications to the cloud is made complicated by the interdependencies typically associated with business applications. Integration and interoperability issues include a lack of standard interfaces, or API's for integrating legacy applications with cloud services
4. Suitability of workload for cloud-  Not every application is made for or good candidate for cloud migration. Whether an application is suitable for cloud depends on a number of questions- including business function it provides and capacity characteristics it requires.

what is pre-provisioning? when is it ideal?

Pre-provisioning is used in the context of on demand computing environment. For the on-demand computing requirement pre-provisioning is the viable option as it helps business meet the requirement of the dynamic data center requirements. Organizations would like to reduce the time it takes to commission servers when a new workload is to be deployed. The approach is ideal when

• The sizing and capacity planning is fully understood
• The workload is fairly constant, ensuring good utilization levels are achieved
• There are business reasons that require the physical separation of workload  
• Workload can be scaled horizontally 

Name any four unique considerations required during design and development of cloud application planning

The design and development of cloud application requires many unique considerations

1. Business Functions
2. Application architecture
3. security for cloud computing
4. cloud delivery model
5. user experience
6. Development, Testing and Run-time environment 

Describe 8 security concerns of cloud computing that are to be considered in cloud deployment

 Some of the security concerns that should considered in cloud deployments are as follows

1. Multi-tenancy 
2. Security assessment
3. Shared risk
4. Staff Security screening
5. Distributed data centers
6. Physical security
7. Policies
8. Coding
9. Data Leakage 

What is BPM. Name four ways in which cloud environment can help BPM

• Business process management(BPM) governs an organization's cross-functional, customer-focused, end-to-end core business processes.
• Its objective is to direct and deploy resources from across the organization into efficient processes that create customer value.
• 
  

The cloud environment cloud can help BPM in

• Integration of core process
• holistic
• cross organizational functions and boundaries ( height and breadth)
• Includes business and Technology
  • customer-center perspective
  • bottom-line success
  • speed at which ROI is delivered
  • Performance Measurement 

• Value focused efficiency
• customer-center perspective
• bottom-line success
• speed at which ROI is delivered
• Performance Measurement
• • Continuous
  • This is based on longer periods of intervals pertaining to cloud business
  • continual improvement

• Cultural
• Cultural considerations of the organization and geographical area kept in mind at the time of due diligence of the requirement

Name four features that Cloud IT must deliver

• Abstraction: Alleviate IT consumers from the operations of applications, allowing end users to focus instead on the execution of high-value activities
• Virtualization- access to business services on-demand independent of location and resource constraints
• Dynamic allocation- Dynamically provisions, configures, reconfigures, and de-provisions IT capability as and when needed, transparently and seamlessly 
• Data Management-  Fast, secure, reliable data access and mobility, with integrated data protection and recovery management

Name different cloud deployment models

The following are four cloud deployment models

1. Public
2. Private
3. Hybrid
4. Community 

Name and describe 8 cloud features that would help to bring in agility and transparency

The following cloud features would help bring in agility and transparency along with increase in the utilization of the existing resources.

1. Self-service
2. Dynamic workload management
3. Resource automation
4. Resource automation
5. Chargeback, Showback and metering
6. Open Architecture
7. Image Pools
8. Role-based access Administration
9. Virtualization 

Name and describe 5 different stages of path to cloud computing

The path to cloud computing involves the following stages 

1. Server Virtualization
2. Distributed Virtualization 
3. Private Cloud
4. Hybrid Cloud
5. Public Cloud 

Define and describe OSS/BSS

• Business Support services (BSS) are the components that cloud operators use to run their business operations.  Such operations include - taking customer orders, managing customer data etc
• Operational support Services ( OSS) are computer systems used by cloud service providers- network services, provisioning services
• BSS and OSS need to be externalised so that they can be moved to cloud environments

What is Computing On Demand?

On-demand computing  or computing on demand is the essential need of current business enterprises. Computing on demand is the ability of an enterprise to provide computing resources as and when requested by the user. On demand computing can be implemented using various virtualization techniques. Cloud computing helps organization to provide on-demand computing by leveraging cloud infrastructure without actually buying the hardware. This helps user to transfer the workload if your resources are not able to support it, and at other times, lets others to utilize your resources that are lying idle.

Describe essential cloud orchestration and key characteristics capabilities

The essential cloud  orchestrator and key characteristic capabilities are 

• Scalability
• High-availability
• Application Life Cycle
• Multi-tenancy/Role-based administration
• Policies
• Alarms
• Application awareness and policy-based allocation
• Resource awareness and policy-based allocation
• Elasticity based performance
• Reporting and accounting
• Self-service portal  

List key steps in cloud implementation planning

The key steps in cloud implementation planning are as follows

• Understand cloud strategy
• Define cloud application requirements
• Assess cloud readiness
• Define high level cloud architecture 
• Identifying change management
• Develop road map and implementation plan

List characteristics that set apart cloud computing from other technologies

Cloud Computing carries the basic infrastructure characteristics that are helpful to deploy cloud service in a fast and cost-effective way. The following characteristics set apart cloud from other computing techniques

1. On-demand service
2. Ubiquitous Network access
3. Location-independent Resource pooling
4. Rapid Elasticity 

What is a Grid? Name its resource layers

A Grid consists of a number of resources and layers with different levels of implementation. Grids are organized according to taxonomy and hence result in different types. The following are some of the types of grids

• Information Grid- provide efficient and simple access to data while hiding details such as platform, location and other details
• Compute Grid- provide compute or processing power (CPU) by aggregating it from distributed computing systems
• Services Grid - provide scalable and reliable access to services.