REGIONAL GARDENS CASE STUDY REGIONAL GARDENS LTD IS A COMPANY THAT RUNS A FEW RELATED GARDENING ENTERPRISES. IT HAS A LARGE DISPLAY GARDEN THAT IT OPENS FOR PUBLIC INSPECTION SEVERAL TIMES A YEAR. THESE ENTERPRISES INCLUDE THE REGIONAL GARDENS NURSERY WHICH SELLS PLANTS AND GARDEN SUPPLIES TO THE PUBLIC, AND REGIONAL GARDEN PLANNERS WHICH PROVIDES GARDEN ADVICE, DESIGN AND CONSULTANCY SERVICES. REGIONAL GARDENS LTD HAS A SMALL DATA CENTRE AT ITS MAIN SITE IN BATHURST WHERE THE COMPANY’S SERVERS AND DATA STORAGE IS LOCATED. THE COMPANY HAS THE FOLLOWING SERVER INFRASTRUCTURE: • 2 X ACTIVE DIRECTORY DOMAIN CONTROLLERS ON WINDOWS SERVER 2008 R2, (2 X XEON 3.6GHZ, 8GB RAM, 140GB HDD); • 3 X SQL SERVER 2003 DATABASE SERVERS ON WINDOWS SERVER 2003 (2 X XEON 2.8GHZ, 4GB RAM, 250GB RAID-5 ARRAY); • 1 X EXCHANGE 2007 EMAIL SERVER ON WINDOWS SERVER 2008 R2 (2 X XEON 3.6GHZ, 8GB RAM, 250GB RAID-1 ARRAY); • 4 X WINDOWS SERVER 2003 FILE AND PRINT SERVERS (2 X XEON 2.8GHZ, 4GB RAM, 250GB RAID-1 ARRAY); • 2 X WINDOWS SERVER 2008 R2 RUNNING MICROSOFT SHAREPOINT 2013 (2 X XEON 2.8GHZ, 4GB RAM, 250GB RAID-5 ARRAY); • 2 X RED HAT ENTERPRISE 5 LINUX SERVERS RUNNING APACHE AND TOMCAT (2 X XEON 2.8GHZ, 16GB RAM, 140GB HDD). THIS INFRASTRUCTURE HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED FOR SOME TIME AND THE REGIONAL GARDENS BOARD IS CONCERNED THAT A FULL UPGRADE MAY NOW COST THEM MORE THAN IT IS WORTH. THE BOARD IS NOW CONSIDERING MOVING SOME, OR ALL, OF THEIR CURRENT INFRASTRUCTURE INTO THE CLOUD. THE BOARD SEES THIS AS A STRATEGIC MOVE TO FUTURE-PROOF THE COMPANY AND IS LOOKING TO A MOVE TO THE CLOUD TO ENSURE THAT ITS SERVICES ARE: • READILY AVAILABLE AND ALWAYS ACCESSIBLE, • CAPABLE OF HANDLING HEAVY LOADS IN TIMES OF PEAK DEMAND, • CAPABLE OF SERVING DOWNLOADS TO USERS AS REQUIRED, • SECURE FROM ATTACKS, • CAPABLE OF PROVIDING DETAILED REPORTS ON USAGE. REGIONAL GARDENS IS CONSIDERING THE FOLLOWING STRATEGIC PROPOSAL: • THEY PLAN TO RETAIN THEIR DATA CENTRE SOLELY FOR ARCHIVAL AND LONG-TERM DATA STORAGE. THIS WOULD ENTAIL UPDATING THEIR DATA STORAGE INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE BATHURST DATA CENTRE AND MOVING ALL OTHER INFRASTRUCTURE INTO THE CLOUD. • THEY PLAN TO INITIALLY MOVE ALL THEIR WEB SERVICES INTO THE CLOUD IN ORDER TO PROVIDE AN INCREASED LEVEL OF HA (HIGH AVAILABILITY) AS WELL AS A BETTER DEGREE OF FLEXIBILITY IN SUPPLYING DATA TO THEIR CUSTOMERS AND EMPLOYEES. THEIR WEB SERVICES ARE RUNNING ON THE CURRENT RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX SERVERS USING APACHE TOMCAT • THEY PLAN TO CHANGE THEIR CURRENT WEB SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE FLEXIBILITY AND SCALABILITY THAT CAN BE GAINED BY MOVING TO A MICROSERVICES MODEL (THIS WOULD ENTAIL THE USE OF SUCH SERVICES AS AWS LAMBDA OR AZURE FUNCTIONS, CONTAINERS, DATA SERVICES, AND CLOUD EDGE CAPABILITY AND MONITORING). ALL MICROSERVICES ARE TO BE DESIGNED SO THAT THEY CAN BE EASILY MOVED FROM ONE CLOUD TO ANOTHER TO SUIT REQUIREMENTS OR TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF PRICE DIFFERENTIALS. • THEY ALSO PLAN TO MIGRATE THEIR GARDEN DESIGN LOB (LINE OF BUSINESS) APPLICATIONS TO THE CLOUD IN ORDER TO INCREASE THE APPLICATION’S FLEXIBILITY AND AVAILABILITY. THE GARDEN DESIGN LOB APPLICATION SUITE WILL REQUIRE: O SEVERAL IAAS INSTANCES RUNNING WINDOWS SERVER 2019 O SEVERAL PAAS INSTANCES FOR MICROSOFT SHAREPOINT 2019 ENTERPRISE • REGIONAL GARDENS WOULD LIKE TO KEEP THEIR GARDENING DATA SETS IN AUSTRALIA. THE REGIONAL GARDENS BOARD IS CONTEMPLATING THIS STRATEGY TO INCREASE THE COMPANY’S FLEXIBILITY AND RESPONSIVENESS. THE BOARD ALSO EXPECTS TO ACHIEVE SIGNIFICANT SAVINGS BY MIGRATING TO A CLOUD BASED ICT INFRASTRUCTURE. THEY APPRECIATE THAT THIS WOULD ENTAIL RETRAINING FOR: • THEIR EXISTING ICT STAFF SO THAT THEY CAN MANAGE THE NEW CLOUD BASED INFRASTRUCTURE, • THEIR DEVELOPMENT STAFF SO THAT THEY CAN START TO DEVELOP USING A MICROSERVICES MODEL. REGIONAL GARDENS HAVE SOME 70 GARDEN DESIGN, HORTICULTURAL AND SUPPORT STAFF THAT WORK ON DIFFERENT PROJECTS FOR CLIENTS IN NEW SOUTH WALES. THE BOARD HAS BEEN LOOKING AT THE STEADY INCREASE IN WORKLOAD IN GARDEN DESIGN AND CONSULTING AND WANT TO EXPAND THIS BUSINESS UNIT INTO AN AUSTRALIAWIDE ENTERPRISE. THEY HAVE BEEN ADVISED THAT A MOVE TO USING A CLOUD BASED INFRASTRUCTURE WOULD BE AN ADVANTAGE TO THEM. CURRENTLY THE DESIGNERS USE A LOCALLY INSTALLED DYNASCAPE SOFTWARE SUITE ON EACH OF THEIR PCS (THE DYNASCAPE SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ARE AN I7 PROCESSOR, A MINIMUM OF 4GB RAM AND A MINIMUM 2GB HDDR6 VIDEO CARD) ON EACH PC. BUT DYNASCAPE NOW OFFERS IT’S SOFTWARE ON AN SAAS BASIS (SEE HTTPS://WWW.DYNASCAPE.COM/ AND HTTPS://WWW.CAPTERRA.COM.AU/SOFTWARE/5930/DYNASCAPE#ABOUT). THE BOARD IS PARTICULARLY CONCERNED ABOUT THE SECURITY OF THEIR GARDEN DESIGN PROCESS AND THEIR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY FOR GARDEN DESIGN. THEY ARE ALSO CONCERNED TO KEEP THEIR CLIENT DATA SECURE. ACCORDINGLY, THEY ARE LOOKING FOR A SOLUTION THAT KEEPS THEIR DESIGN AND CLIENT DATA ON THE COMPANY’S OWN SERVERS IN ITS BATHURST DATA CENTRE.
TASK
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You must read the Regional Gardens Case Study in Interact before attempting this assignment
Regional Gardens Ltd is a company that runs a number of related gardening enterprises. It has a large display garden that it opens for public inspection a number of times a year. These enterprises include the Regional Gardens Nursery which sells plants and garden supplies to the public, and Regional Garden Planners which provides garden advice, design and consultancy services.
Regional Gardens has engaged you as a consultant to advise them on the use of Cloud Computing in their daily operations and they have asked you to prepare a report for their Board that looks at the following aspects of the proposal:
The first step of the board’s plan is to move the Regional Gardens website and associated web services into the cloud. However, they want some further information on:
Whether an IaaS or a PaaS model would be more appropriate for their web services and the advantages and disadvantages of each model in this case (15 marks).
The board also want their web services architecture to be more resilient than in the past, and they want you to recommend an architecture to achieve resiliency (15 marks).
In keeping with the their new security policy, the Board want to keep all client and transaction data in the Bathurst Data Centre and not in the cloud. This means that clients accessing the Regional Gardens web site and web services will need to have any data that they upload stored in the Bathurst Data Centre.
Describe to the Board how you would arrange to have client data that is uploaded to the Regional Gardens web site and services stored in the Bathurst Data Centre. (15 marks)
Describe the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. (15 marks)
Regional Gardens want to ensure that all their staff have the ability to access office automation, such as email, word processing and spreadsheet capabilities, as well as online storage for their files, whether they are in the office, at home, or deployed on a customer’s site in the field. The Regional Gardens board is very concerned to learn about the critical issues, other than cost, that may affect the supply of Cloud based office automation to their staff. You will need to prepare a report on the best way to provide office automation for Regional Gardens. Your report should:
Provide Regional Gardens with TWO different approaches to providing office automation to their staff; (10 marks)
Outline the major benefits and issues with each approach; (5 marks)
Provide a summary of your advice to this company along with your recommendation about which option to choose. (5 marks)
The garden design unit uses the DynaScape software suite, which is installed locally on their laptops, to design gardens and landscapes for their clients. The design staff often spend long periods at a clients property while collecting data and designing. The Board are uncertain if they should retain local installations of this software or subscribe to the SaaS version of DynaScape. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. (20 marks)
Your report should not exceed 10 pages, excluding references.
RATIONALE
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This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:
be able to compare and evaluate the ability of different cloud computing architectures to meet a set of given business requirements.
be able to evaluate a set of business requirements to determine suitability for a cloud computing delivery model.
MARKING CRITERIA AND STANDARDS
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Question
HD
DI
CR
PS
FL
1a. IaaS/PaaS evaluation (15 marks)
Clear, comprehensive
description of IaaS and PaaS architectures and their uses, advantages and disadvantages clearly identified & fully discussed
Detailed description of
IaaS and PaaS architectures and their uses, advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed
Good description of IaaS and PaaS architectures and their uses, many advantages and disadvantages mostly identified & discussed
Adequate description of
IaaS and PaaS architectures and their uses, some advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed
Incomplete or inadequate description of IaaS and PaaS architectures and their uses, with few or no advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed
1b. Possible Web services architecture (15 marks)
Clear, comprehensive description of a possible Web services architecture and its advantages and disadvantages clearly identified & fully discussed
Very good description of a possible Web services architecture and its advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed
Good description of a possible Web services architecture with some advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed
Adequate description of a possible Web services architecture with a few advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed
Inadequate or incomplete description of a possible Web services architecture with few or no advantages and disadvantages identified or discussed
2a. Data storage (30 marks) Clear, comprehensive description of a possible data storage architecture and its advantages and disadvantages clearly identified & fully discussed
Very good description of a possible data storage architecture and its advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed
Good description of a possible data storage architecture with some advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed
Adequate description of a possible data storage architecture with a few advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed
Inadequate or incomplete description of a possible data storage architecture with few or no advantages and disadvantages identified or discussed
3. Office automation (20 marks)
Clear, comprehensive description of two different OA approaches, benefits and issues clearly identified & discussed, clear recommendation made
Very good description of two different OA approaches, most benefits and issues identified & discussed, recommendation made
Good description of two different OA approaches, many benefits and issues identified & discussed, recommendation made
Adequate description of two different OA approaches, some benefits and issues identified & discussed, recommendation made
Inadequate or no description of two different OA approaches, few or no benefits and issues identified & discussed, no recommendation made
3. Use of Dynascape software (20 marks)
Clear, comprehensive discussion of how to deploy this software with advantages and disadvantages clearly identified and fully discussed
Very good discussion of how to deploy this software with most advantages and disadvantages identified and discussed
Good discussion of how to deploy this software with many advantages and disadvantages identified and discussed
Adequate discussion of how to deploy this software with some advantages and disadvantages identified and discussed
Inadequate or incomplete discussion of how to deploy this software with few or no advantages and disadvantages identified or discussed
Spelling, Grammar, Presentation
Up to 5 marks may be deducted for poor presentation, spelling and grammar
APA referencing
Up to 5 marks may be deducted for not providing or following the proper APA 7th edition style of referencing.
Note that the guide for APA referencing is provided in the Resource Section of the ITC561 Interact site.