This proposal recommends implementing cloud computing for a newspaper company's management information system using Microsoft Azure's infrastructure as a service (IaaS) public cloud model. It analyzes cloud computing and virtualization concepts. The strategy is to move backup storage to the cloud, virtualize staff/management PCs for improved security, and implement the Azure cloud to cut costs by 50% compared to current on-premise infrastructure expenses. Virtualizing access through the cloud will strengthen security while taking advantage of Azure's competitive pricing and 30-day free trial.

1. GHANA TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
FACULTY OF COMPUTING INFORMATION SYSTEMS
PROPOSAL :
A PROPOSAL FOR IMPLEMENTING CLOUD COMPUTING IN NEWSPAPER
COMPANY
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
BY
KINGSLEY MENSAH

2. A PROPOSAL FOR IMPLEMENTING CLOUD COMPUTING IN A NEWSPAPER
COMPANY
INTRODUCTION :
CLOUD COMPUTING ; is a general term for the delivery of hosted services over the internet.
It could be defined as the delivery of on-demand computing resources as opposed to on your own
physical computer or network. For example, computer networks, servers, storage, applications
and services. The goal of cloud computing is to allow users to take benefit from all of these
technologies, without the need for deep knowledge about or expertise with each one of them.
The cloud aims to cut costs, and helps the users focus on their core business instead of being
impeded by IT obstacles. Cloud computing and storage solutions provide users and enterprises
with various capabilities to store and process their data in either privately owned, or third-
party data centers that may be located far from the user–ranging in distance from across a city to
across the world. Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence
and economy of scale similar to a utility like the electricity grid over an electricity network. In
the 1990s, telecommunications companies, who previously offered primarily dedicated point-to-
point data circuits, began offering virtual private network (VPN) services with comparable
quality of service, but at a lower cost. By switching traffic as they saw fit to balance server use,
they could use overall network bandwidth more effectively. They began to use the cloud symbol
to denote the demarcation point between what the provider was responsible for and what users
were responsible for. Cloud computing extended this boundary to cover all servers as well as the
network infrastructure.
Since 2000, cloud computing has come into existence. In early 2008, NASA’s OpenNebula,
enhanced in the RESERVOIR European Commission-funded project, became the first open-
source software for deploying private and hybrid clouds, and for the federation of clouds. In the
same year, efforts were focused on providing quality of service guarantees (as required by real-
time interactive applications) to cloud-based infrastructures, in the framework of the IRMOS
European Commission-funded project, resulting in a real-time cloud environment. By mid-2008,
Gartner saw an opportunity for cloud computing to shape the relationship among consumers of
IT services, those who use IT services and those who sell them. (wikipedia, 2000)
Cloud computing services can be private, public or hybrid. Private cloud services are delivered
from a business data center to internal users. This model offers versatility and convenience,
while preserving the management, control and security common to local data centers. Internal
users may or may not be billed for services through IT chargeback.
In the public cloud model, a third-party provider delivers the cloud service over the internet.
Public cloud services are sold on demand, typically by the minute or hour. Customers only pay

3. for the CPU cycles, storage or bandwidth they consume. Leading public cloud providers include
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, IBM SoftLayer and Google Compute Engine.
Hybrid cloud is a combination of public cloud services and on-premises private cloud with
orchestration and automation between the two. Companies can run mission-critical workloads or
sensitive applications on the private cloud while using the public cloud for bursting workloads
that must scale on demand. The goal of hybrid cloud is to create a unified, automated, scalable
environment that takes advantage of all that a public cloud infrastructure can provide while still
maintaining control over mission-critical data.
VIRTUALIZATION: Virtualization refers to the creation of a virtual resource such as a server,
desktop, operating system, file, storage or network. The most common form of virtualization is
the operating system-level virtualization. In operating system-level virtualization, it is possible to
run multiple operating systems on a single piece of hardware. Virtualization technology involves
separating the physical hardware and software by emulating hardware using software. When a
different OS is operating on top of the primary OS by means of virtualization, it is referred to as
a virtual machine.
There are six areas of IT where virtualization is making headway:
1.Network virtualization is a method of combining the available resources in a network by
splitting up the available bandwidth into channels, each of which is independent from the others
and can be assigned or reassigned to a particular server or device in real time. The idea is that
virtualization disguises the true complexity of the network by separating it into manageable
parts, much like your partitioned hard drive makes it easier to manage your files. (Techtarget,
n.d.)
2. Storage virtualization is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network storage
devices into what appears to be a single storage device that is managed from a central console.
Storage virtualization is commonly used in storage area networks. (Techtarget)
3. Server virtualization is the masking of server resources including the number and identity of
individual physical servers, processors and operating systems from server users. The intention is
to spare the user from having to understand and manage complicated details of server resources
while increasing resource sharing and utilization and maintaining the capacity to expand later.
The layer of software that enables this abstraction is often referred to as the hypervisor. The most
common hypervisor Type 1 is designed to sit directly on bare metal and provide the ability to
virtualize the hardware platform for use by the virtual machines (VMs). KVM virtualization is a
Linux kernel-based virtualization hypervisor that provides Type 1 virtualization benefits similar
to other hypervisors. KVM is licensed under open source. A Type 2 hypervisor requires a host
operating system and is more often used for testing/labs. (Techtarget)

4. 4. Data virtualization is abstracting the traditional technical details of data and data
management, such as location, performance or format, in favor of broader access and more
resiliency tied to business needs. (Techtarget)
5. Desktop virtualization is virtualizing a workstation load rather than a server. This allows the
user to access the desktop remotely, typically using a thin client at the desk. Since the
workstation is essentially running in a data center server, access to it can be both more secure
and portable. The operating system license does still need to be accounted for as well as the
infrastructure. (Techtarget)
6. Application virtualization is abstracting the application layer away from the operating
system. This way the application can run in an encapsulated form without being depended upon
on the operating system underneath. This can allow a Windows application to run on Linux and
vice versa, in addition to adding a level of isolation.
CLOUD COMPUTING vs VIRTUALIZATION : virtualization differs from cloud computing
because virtualization is software that manipulates hardware, while cloud computing refers to a
service that results from that manipulation.
PROVIDERS OF CLOUD COMPUTING SERVICES
There a vast number of cloud computing providers offering different types of cloud services.
Below are some of the top providers of cloud computing services ; (Clutch, 2015)
1. AMAZON WEB SERVERS
2. MICROSOFT AZURE
3. GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM
4. IBM CLOUD
5. RACKSPACE
6. RED HAT
7. ORACLE CLOUD
8. VERIZONE CLOUD
9. NAVISITE
10. VMWARE
TYPES OF CLOUD COMPUTING SERVICES

5. 1.Infrastracture as a service (IaaS)- gives business access to vital web architecture, such as
storage space, servers, and connections, without the business need of purchasing and managing
this internet infrastructure themselves. Because of the economies of scale and specialization
involved, this can be to the benefit of both the business providing the infrastructure and the one
using it. In particular, IaaS allows an internet business a way to develop and grow on demand.
Both PaaS and SaaS clouds are grounded in IaaS clouds, as the company providing the software
as service is also providing the infrastructure to run the software. Choosing to use an IaaS cloud
demands a willingness to put up with complexity, but with that complexity comes
flexibility. Amazon EC2 and Rackspace Cloud are examples of IaaS. (Paranet, 2016)
2. Platform as a Services (PaaS)- clouds are created, many times inside IaaS Clouds by
specialists to render the scalability and deployment of any application trivial and to help make
your expenses scalable and predictable. Some examples of this system include: Mosso, Google
App Engine, and Force.com. The chief benefit of a service like this is that for as little as no
money you can initiate your application with no stress more than basic development and maybe a
little porting if you are dealing with an existing app. Furthermore, PaaS allows a lot of scalability
by design because it is based on cloud computing as defined earlier in the article. If you want a
lean operations staff, a PaaS can be very useful if your app will capitulate. The most important
negative of using a PaaS Cloud provider is that these services may implement some restrictions
or trade-offs that will not work with your product under any circumstances. (pranet, 2015)
3. Software as a Service(SaaS) - is relatively mature, and the phrase’s use predates that of cloud
computing. Cloud applications allow the cloud to be leveraged for software architecture,
reducing the burdens of maintenance, support, and operations by having the application run on
computers belonging to the vendor. GMail and Salesforce are among examples of SaaS run as
clouds, but not all SaaS has to be based in cloud computing.
RECOMMENDATION FOR THE PROPOSED CLOUD SOLUTION
It is my recommendation that ‘GM Courier’ goes in for Microsoft azure and for the type of
service I recommend Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS) using the public cloud model. With IaaS
the company(GM Courier) will be able to host their hardware, servers, software, networks and
other infrastructures with a third party provider which is Microsoft Azure. The reason for
choosing IaaS as the service is that since it’s a newspaper company and also having branches
around, data processing is huge and also for staff and management to access from anywhere and
at any time without delay therefore engaging the IaaS will be best for the company.
I also recommend the company to go in for virtualization in the sense that the company staff,
management and writers all should access the cloud through virtualization or virtual machines
because security is a key feature that must be checked at all time. I believe that through
virtualization the company can strengthen their security.

6. STRATEGY FOR IMPLEMENTIING OF SOLUTION
My strategy for implementing the proposed solution is by choosing the public cloud model with
infrastructure as a service from Microsoft azure.
First, I will move the backup storage at the HO to the cloud storage.
Secondly, virtualize all staff and management pcs to improve security.
Lastly, implement the Microsoft azure cloud.
The company spends huge amounts of money on property value(£4.5million), leased network
connection secure private link(£250,000), IT equipment(£110,000 depreciated 20%per year) and
a huge expenditure of about £2780,000 therefore by implementing this cloud solution, about
50% cost could be cut down. Data being collected by journalist on field can be synced right
away from field to the cloud which the printing staff could get fast access to the files and print on
time.
Microsoft Azure offering £0.02 - £1.30per hour with storage price ranging from £0.06/GB/month
to £0.10/GB/month and also a bonus of free 30-day trial with a limit of up to £163.03 will help
the company cut down great amount of cost.

7. References
Clutch, 2015. clutch.co. [Online]
Available at: https://clutch.co/cloud
[Accessed 1 march 2017].
Microsoft, n.d. Microsoft Azure. [Online]
Available at: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-iaas/
[Accessed 25 february 2017].
Paranet, 2016. paranet.com. [Online]
Available at: http://www.paranet.com/blog/bid/128267/The-three-types-of-Cloud-Computing-Service-
Models
[Accessed 2 march 2017].
Techtarget, n.d. targettech. [Online]
Available at: http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/definition/virtualization
[Accessed 29 february 2017].
wikipedia, 2000. wikipidea.org. [Online]
Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
[Accessed 26 february 2017].