MetaSoft Ltd is a software development company which works for clients across Australia and New Zealand. The company is considering moving some of its computer infrastructure into the Cloud. The MetaSoft Board is contemplating this move as a way to increase the company’s flexibility and responsiveness, as well as to achieve some savings on the cost of maintaining their ICT infrastructure.

MetaSoft has engaged you as a consultant to advise them on the use of Cloud Computing in their daily operations. They have some 100 software engineering and support staff that work on different projects for clients in Australia and New Zealand. They have been advised that a move to using a Cloud based infrastructure would be an advantage to them.

Your task is to:

1      Prepare a PowerPoint briefing for the MetaSoft board. Your briefing should:

1      Explain the main concepts of Cloud Computing and why you think that a move to the Cloud could be good for MetaSoft;

2      Explain some of the Cloud Architectures that you think would be useful for MetaSoft to use as part of their Cloud infrastructure.

3      Each slide in the briefing must also include speaking notes in the notes section to explain the slide, and all images used in the briefing should be referenced. (20 marks)

2      One of MetaSoft’s first undertakings is to provide all their staff with 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 site in the field. The MetaSoft 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 MetaSoft. Your report should:

1      Provide MetaSoft with TWO different approaches to providing office automation to their staff;

2      Outline the major benefits and issues with each approach;

3      Provide a summary of your advice to this company along with your recommendation about which option to choose. Your report should be no longer than 2 pages. (20 marks)

3      MetaSoft has data centres in Sydney and Melbourne. The Australian data centres are linked by a fibre based WAN, which is supplied and maintained by a local Telco, and data is replicated between the data centres daily. The two data centres each run x86 based servers attached to a HPE 3PAR SAN with 1PB of storage. They also have a series of RHEL 6 servers (Red Hat Enterprise Linux v6.0) that are used to host Web pages and various Web services. The RHEL 6 servers are located only in the Sydney data centre. MetaSoft is considering initially moving its Web infrastructure to a public Cloud, but they are unsure of whether they should migrate to an IaaS or PaaS solution. You are to write a report for the MetaSoft board that:

1      Describes the difference between infrastructure provided using an IaaS provider and a platform provided by a PaaS provider in a public Cloud. You will need to discuss the critical differences, issues and factors, other than cost, that MetaSoft will have to consider in choosing to migrate their Web infrastructure to either an IaaS or a PaaS service provider. Your report should take no more than two pages. (30 marks)

4      MetaSoft is also considering whether to use PaaS or SaaS to provide services to its employees. MetaSoft has deployed Microsoft SharePoint 2013 from its data centre as a collaboration and document management tool for its 100 employees. The SharePoint 2013 instance has been extensively customised to suit MetaSoft’s needs and also runs Project Central, their Project Management tool as a separate application from within SharePoint. All employees have the Microsoft Office 2013 suite of office automation products installed on their respective desktops or laptops. MetaSoft would like to move its SharePoint 2013 instance to the cloud to make it more accessible, particularly to its users in remote or overseas locations. MetaSoft want you to report on:

1      What are the major differences between the models IaaS, PaaS and SaaS? (5 marks)

2      Recommend the model that you consider most appropriate for this service and discuss why this model is the most appropriate for the SharePoint service. (10 marks)

3      What are the most likely problems that MetaSoft will encounter with the model that you recommend? How would you advise MetaSoft to deal with these issues? (15 marks)

4      Your report for this question should be no more than 3 pages.

Rationale

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.

This assessment will cover the following outcomes:

• 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;