SoftArc Saas The Local Engineering Firm Expects

Question: 1. Should SoftArc move to a SaaS provider in order to provide email and office automation services for their employees? What are the advantages and disadvantages of moving to a SaaS provider for these services?2. SoftArc would like to move its SharePoint 2013 instance to the cloud to make it more accessible, particularly to its users in remote locations. What is the best model (IaaS, PaaS or SaaS) for SoftArc to use for this service? Choose the model that you consider most appropriate for this service and discuss why the model you chose is the most appropriate for the SharePoint service. Answer: SoftArc Engineering that is the local engineering firm expects to convert the day to day operations in the system of office automation with the help of cloud computing. The staff of the company also works on various projects in different parts of the country. The system of planned office automation also includes the features like word processing, email, capabilities of the spreadsheet, as well as internet storage. As per Brian Franklin (2010), the information systems concept that gathers, process, store as well as conduct electronic communication is among the organizations and workgroups and is explained as office automation. There are various significant facts that the firm should try to consider wahile switching the system of office automation (Brian Franklin, 2010). As per Office Automation 2016, training the employees for making use of automation system is considered as a significant challenge, which is faced by companies while implementing the system of office automation. Employees like executives, engineers, secretaries and managers that work in the firm might make use of the system of regular basis. The company might make use of applications that are mainly designed for the area of business. Therefore, it is important that the system of office automation that is selected helps in particular applications that are needed for the firm. Features like database support and storage capacity could be different as per the business. Therefore, all the facts need to be referred while implementing the new system (Fehling, Leymann, Retter, Schupeck Arbitter, 2014). Service providers of cloud computing offer the technical troubleshoot. Still it is required to hold the IT technicians that hold system knowledge. System complexity is another factor that should be referred while moving the system of office automation. If the system is complicated, staff might explore it challenging to use the system and offer the relevant results. The company can quickly try to avoi d the unrequited issues through applying the services of cloud computing and provide the required IT infrastructure for business (Fehling, Leymann, Retter, Schupeck Arbitter, 2014). Move to IaaS model Some firms hold IT resources and cloud-based Information technology resources. As IT resources are locally hosted, the firm had to hire the people for configuring, maintaining as well as troubleshooting the infrastructure network. IaaS implies Infrastructure-as-a-Service thats a model of cloud delivery, and it offers network connectivity, hardware, IT resources and operating system. While moving towards IaaS model, there are many pros and cons (Hill, Hirsch, Lake Moshiri, 2012). Vulnerabilities increment- As per Kamal Agha (2015), as cloud consumers and providers are supported through the joint framework of security it is challenging to formulate the security architecture with vulnerability occurrence. Another issue is that cloud offers can access confidential information on the firm. Less control on governing- As per Linthicum (2009), consumers of cloud holds less power for the purpose of controlling resources of IT to compare premise environment, as there is the risk that cloud providers might not behave as per SLA. Legal problems with cloud data centers locations- Cloud providers can set up data centers, and cloud consumers might be unaware of data center location. As per Loaiza (2015), data centers might build the site that is not related to cloud users jurisdiction. Therefore, data confidentiality could be violated that is not suitable for the firm. SoftArc should refer issues while moving the solutions based on cloud and explore solutions that could minimize the risk. As per Marinescu (2013), assessment of risk should be undertaken before the planning for implementing the system for the purpose of calculating the risk and initiate actions for reducing it. Move to SaaS model As per Pandurini (2006), SaaS implies software-as-a-service delivery model that is based on a cloud system. Therefore, office automation and email are deployed by SaaS. Before moving to SaaS, it is significant to consider pros and cons of SaaS. Pros Saving cost- As per Tucker Stirewalt (1999), money should be saved that is spent on maintaining, installing and data center up gradation of operational cost and IT infrastructure. Scalability- As per Srinivasan (2014), when users increase, the package of SaaS should be adjusted for enhancing server capacity and attaining new license of the software. Cons Security- if sensitive information of the company is to be entrusted to the third party, then problems like access and identity management through mobiles should be met. Outages- it occurs despite cloud providers best plans. Downtime is usually irritating, but disruption for the extended time can be disastrous. It is important to scrutinize the SLA service vendors and historical performance before critical applications are outsourced to the public cloud (Srinivasan, 2014). SharePoint 2013 hosting model There are different types of cloud-based services, such as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. Microsoft provides the cloud services that are used on-premise products of software (Van Gorp Grefen, 2010). Office 365 is considered as SaaS that offers MS Office Suite online version along with Exchange Server, Share Point Server, and Lync Server. IaaS model can easily outsource infrastructure components such as Load Balancers, virtualization storage, and networking (Van Gorp Grefen, 2010). PaaS model attains optimal building blocks service and core hosting operating system, and it permits to run on third party applications. Office 365 as SaaS offers some services like: Office Mobile Apps- it can access, modify and view the Excel, Word, and documents of PowerPoint on Windows and iPhones (Van Gorp Grefen, 2010). Office Web Apps- it can create and edit Excel, Word, OneNote files and PowerPoint through the internet browser (Van Gorp Grefen, 2010). Hosted emails- it includes shared calendars, business class email, along with 25 GB storage and makes use of domain name. Before considering IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS, one need to consider trade-off among managing efforts and control level before making any decision (Van Gorp Grefen, 2010). Iaas model offers the highest power level among three. SaaS model considers less managing efforts. References Brian, J.S. Franklin, C. C. (2010). Cloud Computing: Technologies and Strategies of the Ubiquitous Data Center. CRC Press Fehling, C., Leymann, F., Retter, R., Schupeck, W., Arbitter, P. (2014). Cloud Computing Patterns: Funda.mentals to Design, Build, and Manage Cloud Applications. Springer Science Business Media Hill, R., Hirsch, L., Lake, P., Moshiri, S. (2012). Guide to Cloud Computing: Principles and Practice. 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