Question Description

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Great news! Executive leadership has reviewed and approved the Cloud Adoption Policy Addendum. As the principal cloud architect for BallotOnline, you are now looking forward to the next challenge from the leadership team: creating a design for cloud deployment throughout the organization. The designs for each component in the organization will make up the Cloud Deployment Architecture Plan.

BallotOnline has decided to move forward with the top three workloads identified as “cloud ready”: email, software development, and backups and archiving.

You know that those workloads can be very different from one another. You will need to carefully review the workloads in terms of performance, capacity, cost, and availability requirements. You will need to design the deployment architecture plan for each workload. This will require you to research and evaluate the available cloud service offerings as well as the kind of architectures that would be best for BallotOnline. Your cloud deployment architecture plan must meet BallotOnline’s cloud adoption policies and the business needs for deploying these workloads in the cloud. It’s another layer of responsibility, and you realize that a lot of the company’s financial viability rests on your ability to find the best service offerings.

Check the Project 2 FAQ thread in the discussion area for any last-minute updates or clarifications about the project.

You will design the deployment architecture plan for each workload over a series of 10 steps, and the project will take about two weeks to complete. Click on Step 1 to get started.

Competencies

Your work will be evaluated using the competencies listed below.

6.6: Evaluate and select cloud providers (AWS, Azure, VMware, Google Cloud, IBM).

6.7: Assess cloud storage providers.

8.2: Assess network security and privacy risks associated with cloud infrastructure.

9.3: Develop documentation (plans, policies, and procedures) to support a cloud operation.

9.5: Design a virtualized network infrastructure to meet business needs.

9.6: Design cloud storage infrastructure to meet business needs.

10.1: Develop and implement a cloud metering system.

10.6: Configure a private cloud infrastructure using industry leading software.

10.7: Configure a public cloud infrastructure using industry leading provider(s).

11.2: Monitor cloud services charges from vendors and make adjustments to stay within budget.

11.4: Monitor system performance.

Step 1: Develop User Stories From BallotOnline Employees

BallotOnline has decided to move forward with the migration of the email, software development, and backups and archiving workloads to the cloud. You will need to have a good understanding of what users really need in terms of performance, capacity, availability, etc., in order to design an effective architecture and select the best cloud offerings.

In this step, you will write user stories, brief high-level definitions of requirements that describe what the user wants to achieve in simple terms.

Watch the four user interviews of current BallotOnline employees describing their IT needs. You can record your user stories in the user stories template. Upload them to the submission box below for Sophia’s feedback.

Step 2: Evaluate Available Cloud Service Offering Architectures for Email

There is no one-size-fits-all cloud solution. You need to take workloads into account before deciding on a cloud deployment model. In order to make good design decisions, you have to understand the business, the cloud components, and the specific requirements involved.

In this step, you will be using the workload requirements for email to evaluate the available SaaS offerings.

Examples of Email as a Service Offerings

· Microsoft Azure’s Microsoft Office 360

· Zoho

· Gmail

· Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)

Review

· Cloud Providers

· Cloud Computing: A Review of PaaS, IaaS, SaaS Services and Providers

· Considerations for Cloud Provider Selection

· Best Practices for Cloud Implementation

As you did while preparing the Cloud Adoption Policy Addendum, you will focus your efforts on the market leaders in the cloud computing industry: Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

You will review the workloads based on the following criteria from the workload requirements for email and align the workload requirements with the appropriate cloud service offering. Your criteria should include:

· performance

· capacity

· cost

· availability requirements

Summarize your findings in a one-page document that describes your rationale for selecting the appropriate cloud service offering. This will be part of the overall cloud deployment architecture plan that you will present to leadership.

Step 3: Evaluate Available Cloud Service Offering Architectures for Software Development

Similar to the way you evaluated cloud architectures for email, in this step you will focus on the software development environment in cloud platforms.

Traditionally, software development efforts follow the software development life cycle. In the cloud, the core steps of the SDLC may take advantage of PaaS offerings, which provide development environments for different kinds of software applications.

In today’s organizations, development teams work together with IT operations teams to implement practices of DevOps—seamless environments for rapid execution of software development life cycles along with automatic deployment and operation of systems in production.

You will use the information found in the workload requirements for software development to evaluate the available PaaS and DevOps offerings.

Again, you will review the workloads based on the following criteria from the workload requirements for software development and align the workload requirements with the appropriate cloud service offering. Your criteria should include:

· performance

· capacity

· cost

· availability requirements

Take detailed notes of your findings because the justification for your decision will be part of the final deployment architecture plan that you will present to leadership.

In the next step, you will complete a similar evaluation for BallotOnline’s backup and archival procedures.

Step 4: Evaluate Available Cloud Service Offering Architectures for Backups and Archiving

Now you will consider the workload requirements for backups and archiving to evaluate the available IaaS offerings.

Examples of Backups and Archiving as a Service Offerings

· Amazon S3

· Amazon Glacier

· Azure Backup

· Rackspace Cloud Backup

Align the workload requirements with the appropriate cloud service offering. Your criteria should include:

· performance

· capacity

· cost

· availability requirements

Just as you did with the earlier evaluations, take detailed notes on your rationale for selecting the appropriate cloud service offering. This will be part of the overall cloud deployment architecture plan that you will present to leadership.

Now that you have completed your evaluation of the cloud service offering architectures and selected the appropriate service offering and the vendor for the three workloads, you can proceed to the next step.

There, you will begin designing the cloud deployment architecture, showing how everything will be connected.

Step 5: Design Cloud Deployment Architecture for Email

Now that the evaluations are complete, you need to document your design of the various deployment architecture plans, starting with email.

In this step, you will produce a one-page document that shows the design of the cloud deployment architecture for BallotOnline’s email system. Using diagramming software such as Microsoft Visio or PowerPoint, you will create a professional diagram that will show a high-level architecture design of BallotOnline’s new email system deployed in the cloud.

Step 6: Design Cloud Deployment Architecture for Software Development

Now that you’ve finished with the email cloud deployment design and received feedback from Sophia, you can move on to this step, in which you will produce a one-page document and drawing that will illustrate the cloud deployment architecture for BallotOnline’s computer software development. As you did in the previous step with email, using diagramming software such as Microsoft Visio or PowerPoint, you will create a professional diagram that will show a high-level architecture design of BallotOnline’s new software development platform deployed in the cloud. The drawing will be part of the overall cloud deployment architecture plan that you will present to leadership.

When you have completed the design for software development, move to the next step, where you will create another diagram, this time for backups and archiving.

Step 7: Design Cloud Deployment Architecture for Backups and Archiving

The final diagram component of the cloud deployment architecture plan will be a one-page document in which you will show the design of the cloud deployment architecture for BallotOnline’s backups and archiving. As before, using diagramming software such as Microsoft Visio or PowerPoint, you will create a professional diagram that will show a high-level architecture design of BallotOnline’s new backup and archiving environment deployed in the cloud. The drawing will be part of the overall cloud deployment architecture plan that you will present to leadership.

In the next step, you will set up procedures to monitor the use of the cloud.

Step 8: Monitor Cloud Resource Usage

As the principal cloud architect, you’ve done your research and you’ve selected and designed architecture plans for email, software development, and backup and archiving. However, you know that you need more specifics for the cloud architecture plan. Your supervisor, Sophia, has reminded you to make sure that the plan includes a way to monitor how BallotOnline may consume resources in the cloud, since the leadership is always interested in keeping cloud-related costs in check, especially when it comes to backup and archiving.

In the past few steps, you have documented the design for your cloud deployment plan. You will use those drawings as part of your final submission to company leadership. However, there are some additional components you will need for the cloud deployment architecture plan. In this step, you will consider resource consumption, which will be a key section of your overall plan.

Draft a one-page document detailing how you will use AWS CloudWatch to monitor the cloud resource consumption for the backup and archiving workload. It may include the capacity consumption, billing information, and any other relevant elements that are needed to monitor the resource consumption in the cloud infrastructure.

After you have documented how you will use AWS CloudWatch to monitor the cloud resource consumption for backup and archiving, move to the next step, in which you will consider the limitations for each of your designs.

Step 9: Identify Design and Any Additional Limitations for Each Workload

In this step, you will identify and detail in a one-page document the limitations of the cloud deployment architecture design for each workload that you have created earlier.

After you identify the design limitations for each workload, you can proceed to the last step, where you will create the final Cloud Deployment Architecture Plan

Step 10: Write and Submit the Final Cloud Deployment Architecture Plan

In this step, you will create and submit your consolidated Cloud Deployment Architecture Plan for email, software development, and backups and archiving.

The Cloud Deployment Architecture plan, which should be between eight and 10 pages, will consolidate the work that you have completed throughout the steps along with some additional elements (scope, executive summary, etc.) to create a comprehensive design for cloud deployment architecture for the selected “cloud ready” workloads. Sophia will present your work for approval at the executive meeting.

Use the Cloud Deployment Architecture Plan Template to write the Cloud Deployment Architecture Plan and submit the document via the dropbox below.

Check Your Evaluation Criteria

Before you submit your assignment, review the competencies below, which your instructor will use to evaluate your work. A good practice would be to use each competency as a self-check to confirm you have incorporated all of them. To view the complete grading rubric, click My Tools, select Assignments from the drop-down menu, and then click the project title.

6.6: Evaluate and select cloud providers (AWS, Azure, VMware, Google Cloud, IBM).

6.7: Assess cloud storage providers.

8.2: Assess network security and privacy risks associated with cloud infrastructure.

9.3: Develop documentation (plans, policies, and procedures) to support a cloud operation.

9.5: Design a virtualized network infrastructure to meet business needs.

9.6: Design cloud storage infrastructure to meet business needs.

10.1: Develop and implement a cloud metering system.

10.6: Configure a private cloud infrastructure using industry leading software.

10.7: Configure a public cloud infrastructure using industry leading provider(s).

11.2: Monitor cloud services charges from vendors and make adjustments to stay within budget.

11.4: Monitor system performance.