Cloud computing recommendation paper (Research Paper Sample)

Recommendation Paper Name Institution Author Note Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u List of figures PAGEREF _Toc55979832 \h 3Introduction PAGEREF _Toc55979833 \h 4Discussion/ Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc55979834 \h 4Conclusions PAGEREF _Toc55979835 \h 9References PAGEREF _Toc55979836 \h 10 List of figures TOC \h \z \c "Figure" Figure 1: Nextcloud configuration (Marbun et al., 2020) PAGEREF _Toc55979797 \h 7 Introduction Cloud computing is an emerging technology that offers organizations robust features for data storage, processing of data using software features and protecting data against malicious attacks (Khanezaei & Hanapi, 2014). Cloud-hosted solutions also enable an organization to create a backup system and avail a larger storage space beyond the limitations of the on-premise systems. Additionally, the cloud-hosted solution is regarded as virtualized data centres and applications offered as services to companies (Raju, Amudhavel, Kannan & Monisha, 2014). Hence, multiple organizations are migrating their services and applications to the cloud to leverage the opportunities offered by cloud systems and platforms. For instance, ProCom intends to migrate its IT systems such as the WordPress powered server to the cloud. However, issues such as security, complexity, and the costs of the cloud solutions are critical challenges hindering most companies from migrating their systems to different cloud platforms offered by various vendors. This paper focuses on recommending the most appropriate cloud-hosted solution or platform that meets the IT and user requirements for ProCom. Discussion/ Recommendations ProCom may adopt Nextcloud open-source cloud computing platform that is used to store data in a private cloud (Marbun, Fitri & Iskandar, 2020). Only the users authorized to access cloud-hosted information are allowed to access the resources. Since one of the major IT requirements for ProCom is for the proposed solution to restrict access of the university services to the teachers and students only, Nextcloud private cloud-hosting solution meets these requirements by allowing single sign-on and allowing access to authorized users only. All the cloud-system users log into nextcloud using only a single interface. According to Kariyattin, Marru and Pierce (2018), the utilization of SAML (Security Assertions Markup Language) and SSO (Single Sign-On) enables nextcloud to be easily integrated with an existing single sign-on solution. Offered as an Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) with critical features such as storage on demand, networks and servers, the Nextcloud solutions will enable ProCom to migrate and store all the website files and other information stored in the current systems into the cloud. Additionally, as an open-source software without, the university will not incur any cost but take advantage of the robust network, storage and server feature, unlike the old infrastructure. According to Marbun et al. (2020), nextcloud open-source cloud platform can be customized by the users such as the administrator (James) to suite ProCom’s needs. The designer of the cloud service only needs simple configuration skills such as making the DNS (domain name system) server method that will enable the administrator and other users to access the cloud services. Moreover, Nextcloud offers large data storage spaces to meet ProCom’s data storage needs for all university applications and files of websites created by students. For instance, Marbun et al. (2020) claim that previous explorers used nextcloud and created a 1 TB (Terabyte) storage space. The explorers can upload small and large files of sizes such as 300 MB and 1GB simultaneously without any errors. Therefore, this implies that the university can easily migrate the systems and files of any size successfully without encountering challenges. Besides, nextcloud allows the users to extend the storage space that meets their needs. For example, designers of the cloud service can increase the storage by 2 TB and uploaded files of up to 500 gigabytes (Marbun et al., 2020). This means while students and teaches continue to generate vast amounts of data and create files, the administrator or a designer hired from the vendor could help them adjust the storage space that accommodates new requirements without any expenditure. Nextcloud cloud-based system also allows integration with other software platforms such as software-defined storage (SDS). Integration with other systems helps enhance and avail new functionalities beneficial to the organizational stakeholders such as the administrator. For example, Nurdin and Mulyana (2019) noted that nextcloud could be integrated with Ceph SDS to enable the administrator to configure the solution through a PHP Based web application framework. Therefore, knowing that the users require a platform easy to use and storage website files, the files could be easily accessed through the new interface created by the integration of a new configuration framework. As a private cloud storage solution, the administrator will operate in a safe environment with no security threats emerging due to unauthorized access of malicious code execution. Additionally, the administrator has privileges of performing multiple activities within the nextcloud solution to perform various configuration activities. For instance, the administrator can install software such as MariaDB and MySQL databases (Marbun et al., 2020). These database tools that can be installed in the cloud-hosted solution help students to create websites driven by databases installed and configured by the administrator. Nextcloud is up to date with the latest security features that fix any existing vulnerabilities that could potentially allow cyber threats to exploit the university’s sensitive resources. According to Marbun et al. (2020), the latest updated nextcloud is ‘version 17.0.0, PHP 7.3, Cloud Storage, Apache2.’ Therefore, the cloud-hosted solution does not have any outdated codes that may easily be exploited by hackers. Besides, as indicated in the latest version of nextcloud, the software is compatible with PHP 7.3, which is a major tool used in creating PHP-based websites. Sari, Hariani and Suheryanto (2019) argue that the latest version of PHP (7.3.1) is a useful scripting language that is designed for creating websites and web applications. Hence, students and teachers will benefit from cloud solutions as they develop websites and save files in a safe environment (private cloud). In nextcloud, the devices installed with the cloud solution can be configured with unique IP addresses such as 192.168.1.2 as shown in figure 1 below (Marbun et al., 2020). These configuration features help enable the administrator to identify and track devices submitting the data to the cloud storage system. Additionally, since ProCom comprises of a highly customized WordPress network, even after migrating its IT systems and data to nextcloud, the administrator will only make some adjustments to the server to use the service. After migration, the administrator can also test the functionality of the new solution by using commands such as ping which determines if the nextcloud system is connected to the network and can provide a response to client computers (Marbun et al., 2020). Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1: Nextcloud configuration (Marbun et al., 2020) Nextcloud has detailed documentation of its components, features supported and configuration procedures to enables the users and the administrator access and execute various activities within the cloud. The documentation is available at https://nextcloud.com.vn/wp-content/themes/nextcloud.vn/assets/files/architecture-whitepaper.pdf. For instance, Nextcloud documentation indicates that data and files stored in the solution can be shared among users and groups, the users can upload or change files using the ‘create’ or ‘file drop’ functions. Besides, in the documentation, the users and the administrator can learn activity tracking and announcement features such as the calendar changes, comments on files, administrator announcements, files, updated, created, shared, modified, or removed, administrator announcements and notifications (Karlitschek & Mache, n.d.). Therefore, based on the platform features, the students can work on collaborative projects of creating websites effectively as all the activities are recorded and can be tracked or the list of ‘to-do’ activities is available. The teacher will have higher privileges of monitoring and controlling student activities on blogging and the creation of websites. Additionally, the available documentation of nextcloud highlights special feature such as authentication methods, auditing and monitoring techniques, security mechanism employed to protect data and other sensitive resources, workflow, third party integration, application programming interfaces, and supported file systems (Karlitschek & Mache, n.d.). Therefore, before adopting the cloud solution, the university, administrators and others users have the opportunity of assessing it based on the features provided and determine whether it can address the current challenges encountered by the university. For instance, the administrator ...