Cloud Computing a Better Means of IT Outsourcing
Chapter One
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
- To determine the nature and characteristics of cloud computing
- To determine the nature of IT outsourcing
- To highlight the role of cloud computing as a better means of IT outsourcing
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Cloud Computing Definition
The US Government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines cloud computing as a computing model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly
Provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. (Mell and Grance, 2011)
Other attempts to define clouds computing which assist to have a broader perspective and understanding of the technology are:-
- Cyber infrastructure (cloud) is a collection of computing resources that increases efficiency, quality and reliability by capturing commonality among application needs and felicitates the efficient sharing of equipments and services (Vouk, 2004).
- Cloud computing is not a new technology; it is a new business model wrapping round technologies, such as server virtualization, to reduce the cost of using information technology resources. It takes advantage of Web-based
- Utility services are accessed so frequently that they need to be available whenever the consumer requires them at any time. Consumers are then able to pay service providers based on their usage of these utility services. (Buyya et al., 2009) technologies to allow scalable, virtualized IT resources to be provided as a service over the network (SNIA, 2009).
- Cloud is a type of parallel and distributed system consisting of a collection of inter-connected and virtualized computers that are dynamically provisioned and presented as
History of Cloud Computing
Information technology has had a continuous evolution paradigm shifts, for example from Main frames to the advent of personal computers and most recently mobile computing, from standalone computing, peer–to-peer, client-server, distributed systems and the breakthrough of all times the internet in the 1990 (David, 2009).
Cloud computing gained popularity in October 2007 when IMB and Google announced collaboration in the domain. IBM followed up by announcing “Blue Cloud”. (Vouk, 2004)
Cloud Computing Predecessor Paradigm
Buyya (2009) describes cluster computing and grid computing as the immediate building block of cloud computing. He gives the following description:-
Cluster – the resources in a cluster are located in a single administrative domain and managed as single entity.
Grid system– the resources are geographically distributed across multiple administrative domains with their own management policies and goals
Cloud computing – the cloud platform possesses characteristic of cluster and grids plus its own special attributes and capabilities such as virtualization, dynamic services with web services interfaces, and support for creating 3rd party value added computing storage and application services.
Cloud Computing Service Models
The models are based on NIST definition of cloud computing (Mell and Grance, 2011).
Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS).
SaaS provides the consumer the ability to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through a thin client interface such as a web browser (e.g., web-based e-mail, Gmail, yahoo, cooperate email). The implication of this consumer rents services from the provider rather than buying, installing and running their own software.
Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS).
PaaS Provides the consumer the ability to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages and tools supported by the provider. It implies that customers can develop and execute application in abstraction of the underlying infrastructure. E.g. Microsoft Azure and Google App Engine
Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
IaaS Provides the consumer the ability to process, store, use networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The provider gives a solution that offers computing power and storage space on demand. E.g. Rackspace and Amazon S3.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
This chapter covers the description and discussion on the various techniques and procedures used in the study to collect and analyze the data as it is deemed appropriate.
It is organized under the following sub-headings:
- Research Design
- Area of the Study
- Population of the study
- Sample and sampling procedure
- Instrument of Data Collection
- Validation of the Instrument
- Reliability of the Instrument
- Method of Data Collection
- Method of Data Analysis
RESEARCH DESIGN
According to Asika (2009), research designs are often referred to as the structuring of investigation aimed at identifying variables and their relationships to one another. In this study, questionnaire serves as useful guide to the effort of generating data for this study. The survey research design through the administration of questionnaires was used for the study.
AREA OF THE STUDY
The study will be conducted in Lagos State, Nigeria. Lagos is the most populous city in Nigeria, the second fastest-growing city in Africa and the seventh in the world. The population of Lagos urban area, according to the Lagos State Government is 17.5 million, a number disputed by the Nigerian Government and judged unreliable by the National Population Commission of Nigeria.Lagos was reported in 2014 to have a metropolitan population of 21 million, making Lagos
POPULATION OF THE STUDY
The population of study consists of students of Lagos State University, Lagos. According to Wikipedia, 2015 61,000 enrolled for full time and part time programs in the school.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
BIO DATA OF RESPONDENTS
CHAPTER FIVE
FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
The objectives of the study were to
- To determine the nature and characteristics of cloud computing.
- To determine the nature of IT outsourcing.
- To highlight the role of cloud computing as a better means of IT outsourcing.
Findings from the study revealed the following:
- Cloud computing has more benefits than making use of a local server or a personal computer.
- Cloud computing helps in getting more work done with less people and in less time.
- Storing information in the cloud gives almost unlimited storage capacity.
- The growth of cloud computing is high.
- The level of IT outsourcing is high.
- The impact of cloud computing on IT sourcing is high.
REFERENCES
- Beaker. (2009). Cloud Computing security architechural framework, rational survivability.
- Buyya, R., Yeo, Venugopal, S., Broberg, J., & Brandic, I. (2009). Cloud Computing and Emerging IT Platform: Vision, Hype and reality for Delivering computing as a 5th utility. Future generation computer system .
- Cater-Steel and Al-Hakim. (2008). Information Systems Research Methods, Epistemology, and Applications
- Creswell. (1994). Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches.
- David, C. W. (2009). 2010-07 IBM Business of Goverment Cloud Computing in Goverment .
- David, C. W. (2010). A model Based approach to Implement Cloud Computing in EGoverment International Journal of Computer Applications IJCA, .
- Gay and Airasian. (2000). Selecting a Quantitative or Qualitative Research. (2011). Cloud consulting .
- Jingyu, D., Jiajin, L., Rui, X., and Yaohui, J. (2010). Data center consolidation with virtualized Private Network : A step towards Enterprise Cloud.
- Khajeh, H., Sommerville, I., and Sriram, I. (2010). Research challanges for enterprise cloud computing .
