This document summarizes a study on barriers to government cloud adoption in Ghana. The study interviewed IT personnel from 12 public agencies to identify challenges they may face in adopting cloud computing. Major inhibiting factors identified include lack of basic infrastructure, data security concerns, unreliable internet connectivity, and a general lack of institutional readiness. The study uses the technology, organization and environment framework to classify adoption factors into technological, organizational, and environmental contexts.
The Cloud Playbook showcases how Booz Allen’s Cloud Analytics Reference Architecture can be utilized to build technology infrastructures that can withstand the weight of massive data sets - and deliver the deep insights organizations need to drive innovation.
Cloud computing can give the ability of flexibly outsourcing software for supply chain collaboration and infrastructure needs in a better way. Instead of maintaining and paying for maximum use this technology puts forward the method that provides flexibility to add on the way,depending upon the overall business process and network model of supply chain. Ahead of the usual technology publicity,the worth of cloud computing is that it can be a right technology for supporting and managing a constantly cha nging and dynamic network and thus for supply chain management. Because now a day these are the exact visibility and supply chain collaboration needs. Efficient supply chains are a vital necessity for many c ompanies. Supply chain management acts on operational processes,divergent and consolidated information flows and interaction processes with a variety of business partners. Efforts of recent years are usually facing this diversity by creating and organizing central information system solutions. Taking in account all the well-known probl ems of these central information systems,the question arises,whether cloud-based information system s represent a better alternative to establish an IT support for supply chain management .
The Cloud Playbook showcases how Booz Allen’s Cloud Analytics Reference Architecture can be utilized to build technology infrastructures that can withstand the weight of massive data sets - and deliver the deep insights organizations need to drive innovation.
Cloud computing can give the ability of flexibly outsourcing software for supply chain collaboration and infrastructure needs in a better way. Instead of maintaining and paying for maximum use this technology puts forward the method that provides flexibility to add on the way,depending upon the overall business process and network model of supply chain. Ahead of the usual technology publicity,the worth of cloud computing is that it can be a right technology for supporting and managing a constantly cha nging and dynamic network and thus for supply chain management. Because now a day these are the exact visibility and supply chain collaboration needs. Efficient supply chains are a vital necessity for many c ompanies. Supply chain management acts on operational processes,divergent and consolidated information flows and interaction processes with a variety of business partners. Efforts of recent years are usually facing this diversity by creating and organizing central information system solutions. Taking in account all the well-known probl ems of these central information systems,the question arises,whether cloud-based information system s represent a better alternative to establish an IT support for supply chain management .
IBM Global Technology Services: Partnering for Better Business OutcomesIBM Services
IBM can help you take advantage of the changes in technology – including Cloud, Social, Mobile, and Analytics – and devise the right partnering strategy to drive innovation for your organization.
This presentation highlights the core differentiators that can maximize private cloud's transformative business value.
For more information go to: http://ibm.co/PrivateCloudinHybridEra
The ultimate banking and financial sector with cloud computing machine ! Sai Natkar
Banking and financial sector basically operate over the vast IT infrastructures that deal with Big amount of data on a day-to-day basis.Banking organizations and the financial sector as a whole has been relatively slow in adopting the cloud. Their strategy has been to wait and watch on how the cloud performs both from a security as well as robustness of infrastructure point of view.
White Paper IDC | The Business Value of VCE Vblock Systems: Leveraging Conver...Melissa Luongo
The Business Value of VCE Vblock Systems: Leveraging Convergence to Drive Business Agility
In the past decade, information technology (IT) evolved from an enabler of back-office business processes to the very foundation of a modern business. In the increasingly digital and mobile world, the datacenter is often the first and most frequent point of contact with customers. The ability to innovate quickly lies at the heart of today’s changing business models. Businesses expect their IT investments to accelerate their pace of innovation, provide flexibility to meet new demands, and continually reduce the costs of operations.
Converged infrastructure is essential for many companies to ensure that their datacenter infrastructures can meet today’s challenges. The business rationale for deploying converged infrastructure goes far beyond traditional IT feeds and speeds. Customers using converged solutions like VCE’s Vblock Systems (Vblock) realize lower costs, greater levels of utilization, and reduced downtime. VCE customers in this study recognized business benefits such as improved organizational agility, faster application development, increased innovation, and improved employee productivity.
IDC interviewed 16 VCE Vblock Systems customers to understand and quantify the benefits delivered by their Vblock converged infrastructure deployments. Vblock Systems are built by VCE using compute, network, and storage technologies and virtualization software from Cisco, EMC, and VMware.
IDC found that by using Vblock Systems, these organizations recorded improved business outcomes and that these improvements are increasingly driving IT investment decisions.
All VCE customers interviewed for this study generated substantial business value by consolidating their IT infrastructures with Vblock. IDC calculates that these VCE customers will generate five-year discounted benefits worth an average of $384,202 per 100 users by using Vblock, which will result in an average return on investment (ROI) of 518% and a payback period of 7.5 months.
This presentation from IBM's Business Continuity and Resiliency Services examines the trends and challenges that support cloud-based resiliency, and how IBM's Cloud Resilience portfolio can help.
NEC Backup as a Service reduces administrative tasks, helping it departments...InteractiveNEC
Cloud solutions continue to grow not only in adoption but also in importance in customer IT strategies. In typical risk-averse practices, cloud solutions were initially used near the fringes of IT environments, delivering test and development functions far outside most of the core mission-critical workloads sustaining internal and external business operations. Likewise, customers in regulated industries such as healthcare or government were initially wary of the security and performance of services delivered from third-party data centers. These dynamics are changing rapidly, however, as both the customer and vendor behavior around cloud have matured considerably. Cloud providers have expanded their data center locations, added almost every flavor of regulatory compliance, and enhanced security capabilities. These developments have dramatically lowered the traditional barriers to cloud adoption, allowing customers in almost any industry to have at least the possibility of deploying most of their workloads through cloud delivery methods.
Tech Mahindra ' s Managed Platform for Adaptive Cloud (mPAC) Tech Mahindra
This Technology Spotlight discusses the management capabilities enterprises will need to optimize the cost and performance of hybrid, multicloud environments in the era of DevOps and digital transformation.
Intellectual Point is a Global Information Technology, Training, Consulting and Software Development Company. Intellectual Point provides professional hands-on computer and IT training as well as certifications to prepare you with the marketable skills and knowledge needed for today’s competitive job market.
Introduction to Cloud Computing and Cloud InfrastructureSANTHOSHKUMARKL1
Introduction, Cloud Infrastructure: Cloud computing, Cloud computing delivery models and services, Ethical issues, Cloud vulnerabilities, Cloud computing at Amazon, Cloud computing the Google perspective, Microsoft Windows Azure and online services, Open-source software platforms for private clouds.
IOSR Journal of Computer Engineering (IOSR-JCE) is a double blind peer reviewed International Journal that provides rapid publication (within a month) of articles in all areas of computer engineering and its applications. The journal welcomes publications of high quality papers on theoretical developments and practical applications in computer technology. Original research papers, state-of-the-art reviews, and high quality technical notes are invited for publications.
IBM Global Technology Services: Partnering for Better Business OutcomesIBM Services
IBM can help you take advantage of the changes in technology – including Cloud, Social, Mobile, and Analytics – and devise the right partnering strategy to drive innovation for your organization.
This presentation highlights the core differentiators that can maximize private cloud's transformative business value.
For more information go to: http://ibm.co/PrivateCloudinHybridEra
The ultimate banking and financial sector with cloud computing machine ! Sai Natkar
Banking and financial sector basically operate over the vast IT infrastructures that deal with Big amount of data on a day-to-day basis.Banking organizations and the financial sector as a whole has been relatively slow in adopting the cloud. Their strategy has been to wait and watch on how the cloud performs both from a security as well as robustness of infrastructure point of view.
White Paper IDC | The Business Value of VCE Vblock Systems: Leveraging Conver...Melissa Luongo
The Business Value of VCE Vblock Systems: Leveraging Convergence to Drive Business Agility
In the past decade, information technology (IT) evolved from an enabler of back-office business processes to the very foundation of a modern business. In the increasingly digital and mobile world, the datacenter is often the first and most frequent point of contact with customers. The ability to innovate quickly lies at the heart of today’s changing business models. Businesses expect their IT investments to accelerate their pace of innovation, provide flexibility to meet new demands, and continually reduce the costs of operations.
Converged infrastructure is essential for many companies to ensure that their datacenter infrastructures can meet today’s challenges. The business rationale for deploying converged infrastructure goes far beyond traditional IT feeds and speeds. Customers using converged solutions like VCE’s Vblock Systems (Vblock) realize lower costs, greater levels of utilization, and reduced downtime. VCE customers in this study recognized business benefits such as improved organizational agility, faster application development, increased innovation, and improved employee productivity.
IDC interviewed 16 VCE Vblock Systems customers to understand and quantify the benefits delivered by their Vblock converged infrastructure deployments. Vblock Systems are built by VCE using compute, network, and storage technologies and virtualization software from Cisco, EMC, and VMware.
IDC found that by using Vblock Systems, these organizations recorded improved business outcomes and that these improvements are increasingly driving IT investment decisions.
All VCE customers interviewed for this study generated substantial business value by consolidating their IT infrastructures with Vblock. IDC calculates that these VCE customers will generate five-year discounted benefits worth an average of $384,202 per 100 users by using Vblock, which will result in an average return on investment (ROI) of 518% and a payback period of 7.5 months.
This presentation from IBM's Business Continuity and Resiliency Services examines the trends and challenges that support cloud-based resiliency, and how IBM's Cloud Resilience portfolio can help.
NEC Backup as a Service reduces administrative tasks, helping it departments...InteractiveNEC
Cloud solutions continue to grow not only in adoption but also in importance in customer IT strategies. In typical risk-averse practices, cloud solutions were initially used near the fringes of IT environments, delivering test and development functions far outside most of the core mission-critical workloads sustaining internal and external business operations. Likewise, customers in regulated industries such as healthcare or government were initially wary of the security and performance of services delivered from third-party data centers. These dynamics are changing rapidly, however, as both the customer and vendor behavior around cloud have matured considerably. Cloud providers have expanded their data center locations, added almost every flavor of regulatory compliance, and enhanced security capabilities. These developments have dramatically lowered the traditional barriers to cloud adoption, allowing customers in almost any industry to have at least the possibility of deploying most of their workloads through cloud delivery methods.
Tech Mahindra ' s Managed Platform for Adaptive Cloud (mPAC) Tech Mahindra
This Technology Spotlight discusses the management capabilities enterprises will need to optimize the cost and performance of hybrid, multicloud environments in the era of DevOps and digital transformation.
Intellectual Point is a Global Information Technology, Training, Consulting and Software Development Company. Intellectual Point provides professional hands-on computer and IT training as well as certifications to prepare you with the marketable skills and knowledge needed for today’s competitive job market.
Introduction to Cloud Computing and Cloud InfrastructureSANTHOSHKUMARKL1
Introduction, Cloud Infrastructure: Cloud computing, Cloud computing delivery models and services, Ethical issues, Cloud vulnerabilities, Cloud computing at Amazon, Cloud computing the Google perspective, Microsoft Windows Azure and online services, Open-source software platforms for private clouds.
IOSR Journal of Computer Engineering (IOSR-JCE) is a double blind peer reviewed International Journal that provides rapid publication (within a month) of articles in all areas of computer engineering and its applications. The journal welcomes publications of high quality papers on theoretical developments and practical applications in computer technology. Original research papers, state-of-the-art reviews, and high quality technical notes are invited for publications.
Cloud computing has sweeping impact on the human productivity. Today it’s used for Computing, Storage, Predictions and Intelligent Decision Making, among others. Intelligent Decision-Making using Machine Learning has pushed for the Cloud Services to be even more fast, robust and accurate. Security remains one of the major concerns which affect the cloud computing growth however there exist various research challenges in cloud computing adoption such as lack of well managed service level agreement (SLA), frequent disconnections, resource scarcity, interoperability, privacy, and reliability. Tremendous amount of work still needs to be done to explore the security challenges arising due to widespread usage of cloud deployment using Containers. We also discuss Impact of Cloud Computing and Cloud Standards. Hence in this research paper, a detailed survey of cloud computing, concepts, architectural principles, key services, and implementation, design and deployment challenges of cloud computing are discussed in detail and important future research directions in the era of Machine Learning and Data Science have been identified.
THE IMPACT OF EXISTING SOUTH AFRICAN ICT POLICIES AND REGULATORY LAWS ON CLOU...csandit
Cloud computing promises good opportunities for economies around the world, as it can help reduce capital expenditure and administration costs, and improve resource utilization. However there are challenges regarding the adoption of cloud computing, key amongst those are security and privacy, reliability and liability, access and usage restriction. Some of these challenges lead to a need for cloud computing policy so that they can be addressed. The purpose of this paper is
twofold. First is to discuss challenges that prompt a need for cloud computing policy. Secondly, is to look at South African ICT policies and regulatory laws in relation to the emergence of cloud computing. Since this is literature review paper, the data was collected mainly through literature reviews. The findings reveals that indeed cloud computing raises policy challenges that needs to be addressed by policy makers. A lack of policy that addresses cloud computing challenges can
negatively have an impact on areas such as security and privacy, competition, intellectual property and liability, consumer protection, cross border and juridical challenges.
Across the world, governments are trying to present, in the best p.docxdaniahendric
Across the world, governments are trying to present, in the best possible way, their government services to citizens. Using the new technology is paramount to reduce this interaction through effective and efficient services.
Cloud Computing is a computing concept that is formed from the aggregation and development architecture such as SOA. Its purpose is to provide resources for communication and storage in a secure environment based on the service as quickly as possible, which is virtually implemented, via Internet access.
As the services provided by the e-Government are available via the Internet, so the benefits of Cloud Computing can be used in theimplementation of e-Government architecture to provide better service with the least economic cost.
Many countries have attempted to implement the e-Government based on the functionality provided by Cloud Computing, some of these countries have achieved remarkable success, and others have confronted difficult to make it worked.
This article will explore the use of Cloud Computing in e-Government, identify challenges and benefits of this use, and finish with benchmarking countries that have followed this approach.
Keywords: e-Government, Cloud Computing, Public services, Advantages, Challenges, Benchmarking, European governments, Arabic governments.
1. Introduction
For the past 10 years, the Internet and web services have experienced rapid and significant increases, which generated through their use in all sectors of activity, a high cost of data storage and consumption energy and complexities of implementation and infrastructure solutions.
To remedy this, large organizations have begun extensive studies to reduce these costs and complexities and they deduced the CloudComputing.
Today, Cloud Computing, this new technology, has effectively respond to thousands of their hardware and software needs, and it is considered the topic most requested by academics and research centers related to the field of information technology.
The e-Government among the industries that used the Internet and web services, seeks firstly overwhelming user satisfaction, and others from the implementation of an effective system based on Information Technology. To do this, the e-Government adopted to use the concepts of Cloud Computing.
2. Cloud Computing
2.1. Definition
In 2009, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) [9] published a definition of Cloud Computing as : "a 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."
This definition was included in the Global Security Mag magazine as "Cloud Computing is a new way of delivering IT resources, not a new technology." Moreover, this concept has been proven in my post in the second edition of the PhD day ...
USERS’ PERCEPTION TOWARDS CLOUD COMPUTING: A CASE OF DEPARTMENT STATISTIC SOU...ijccsa
This study was initiated as a result of the researcher’s concerns regarding computing infrastructure at the
Department of statistic South Africa (Stats-SA). The concerns arise from issues observed on the physical
infrastructure platform currently deployed within the organisation. It is therefore proposed to investigate
the attitude and perceptions of users working in Stats-SA on cloud computing and their willingness to
migrate from physical infrastructure to cloud. The issue of user behavior during the transition from
traditional IT services to cloud services has been addressed in a lot of studies, but the perceptions of
employees at Stats-SA have never been investigated. The study expounds on the technology acceptance
model by incorporating factors such as availability, accessibility, security and reliability by investigating
the perception of end-users. The investigation took the mixed research approach. A questionnaire was
developed using three technology acceptance instruments: perceived ease of use, usefulness and attitude to
measure the end-user’s intention to move to the cloud.
USERS’ PERCEPTION TOWARDS CLOUD COMPUTING: A CASE OF DEPARTMENT STATISTIC SOU...ijccsa
This study was initiated as a result of the researcher’s concerns regarding computing infrastructure at the
Department of statistic South Africa (Stats-SA). The concerns arise from issues observed on the physical
infrastructure platform currently deployed within the organisation. It is therefore proposed to investigate
the attitude and perceptions of users working in Stats-SA on cloud computing and their willingness to
migrate from physical infrastructure to cloud. The issue of user behavior during the transition from
traditional IT services to cloud services has been addressed in a lot of studies, but the perceptions of
employees at Stats-SA have never been investigated. The study expounds on the technology acceptance
model by incorporating factors such as availability, accessibility, security and reliability by investigating
the perception of end-users. The investigation took the mixed research approach. A questionnaire was
developed using three technology acceptance instruments: perceived ease of use, usefulness and attitude to
measure the end-user’s intention to move to the cloud.
Security and Privacy Solutions in Cloud Computing at Openstack to Sustain Use...Zac Darcy
Cloud computing is an emerging model of service provision that has the advantage of minimizing costs
through sharing and storage of resources combined with a demand provisioning mechanism relying on
pay-per-use business model. Cloud computing features direct impact on information technology (IT)
budgeting but pose detrimental impacts on privacy and security mechanisms especially where sensitive
data is to be held offshore by third parties. Even though cloud computing environment promises new
benefits to organizations, it also presents its fair share of potential risks. It is considered as a double edge
sword considering the privacy and security standpoints. However, despite its potential to offer a low cost
security, customer organizations may increase the risks by storing their sensitive information in the cloud.
Therefore, this study focuses on privacy and security issues that pose a challenge in maintaining a level of
assurance that is sufficient enough to sustain confidence in potential users.
In this study, survey questions were sent to different non-profit and government organizations, which
assisted in collecting fundamental information. The data was acquired by conducting surveys in OpenStack
Company to identify the critical vulnerabilities in the cloud computing platform in order to provide the
recommended solutions.
So, analysis will be made on how the cloud’s characteristics such as the nature of the architecture,
attractiveness, as well as, vulnerability are tightly related to privacy and security issues. Privacy and
security are complex issues for which there is no standard and the relationship between them is necessarily
complicated. The study also highlight on the inherent challenge to data privacy because it typically results
in data to be presented in an encryption from the data owner. Thus, the study aimed at obtaining a common
goal to provide a comprehensive review of the existing security and privacy issues in cloud environments,
and identify and describe the most representative of the security and privacy attributes and present a
relationship among them.
Finally, in order to ensure that the standard measure of validity is achieved, validity test was conducted in
order to ensure that the study is free from errors. Various recommendations were provided. The study also
explored various areas that require future directions for each attribute, which comprise of multi-domain
policy integration and a secure service composition to design a comprehensive policy-based management
framework in the cloud environments.
Lastly, the recommendations will provide the potential for security and privacy approaches that can be
implemented to improve the cloud computing environment to ensure that a level of trust is achieved
SECURITY AND PRIVACY SOLUTIONS IN CLOUD COMPUTING AT OPENSTACK TO SUSTAIN USE...Zac Darcy
Cloud computing is an emerging model of service provision that has the advantage of minimizing costs
through sharing and storage of resources combined with a demand provisioning mechanism relying on
pay-per-use business model. Cloud computing features direct impact on information technology (IT)
budgeting but pose detrimental impacts on privacy and security mechanisms especially where sensitive
data is to be held offshore by third parties. Even though cloud computing environment promises new
benefits to organizations, it also presents its fair share of potential risks. It is considered as a double edge
sword considering the privacy and security standpoints. However, despite its potential to offer a low cost
security, customer organizations may increase the risks by storing their sensitive information in the cloud.
Therefore, this study focuses on privacy and security issues that pose a challenge in maintaining a level of
assurance that is sufficient enough to sustain confidence in potential users.
Cost Benefits of Cloud vs. In-house IT for Higher EducationCSCJournals
Cloud Computing is an excellent alternative for Higher Education in a resource limited setting. Universities should take advantage of available cloud-based application offered by service providers and enable their own user/student to perform business and academic tasks. In this paper, we will compare the cost between on-premise options and Cloud Computing. Two cost estimates will be created, the firstfor building and setting up IT infrastructure in-house in Federal University of Technology (FUTO), Nigeria while the second cost estimate will be for setting up IT in the cloud for the same Institution.This will enable us know the cost benefit cloud has over onpremise in setting up IT in Higher Educations.
A traditional computing environment requires a costly
infrastructure to offer a better service to users. The introduction
of cloud computing has changed the working environment from
traditional to virtual. A larger number of IT companies are
utilizing the cloud. On the one hand, the cloud attracts more
number of consumers by offering services with minimized
capital cost and virtual infrastructure. On the other hand, there
are a risk and security challenges in cloud computing that
makes the user not to move completely towards it. The cloud
environment is more vulnerable to security breaches and data
theft. Moreover, insider attacks are more frequent in larger
enterprises. An unauthenticated user can cause more damage
to company reputation. The cloud service providers are trying
to provide a secure work environment for users. However,
there is a lack of global standards and policies to invoke
security measures in cloud computing. This study aims to
highlight and classify security challenges and trust issues in the
cloud environment.
The survey was conducted in various institutions and
governmental organizations in Saudi Arabia to study the
opinions of stakeholders on cloud computing security
challenges and risks.
Links:
http://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/
https://google.academia.edu/JournalofComputerScience
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ijcsis-research-publications-8b916516/
http://www.researcherid.com/rid/E-1319-2016
Mobile Cloud Computing MCC which consolidates versatile processing and distributed computing, has turned out to be one of the business trendy expressions and a noteworthy dialog string in the IT world since 2009. As MCC is still at the beginning period of improvement, it is important to get a handle on an exhaustive comprehension of the innovation so as to call attention to the course of future research. With the last point, this paper introduces a survey on the foundation and standard of MCC, attributes, ongoing examination work, and future research patterns. A concise record on the foundation of MCC from portable processing to distributed computing is given and after that pursued an exchange on attributes and ongoing exploration work. It at that point examinations the highlights and framework of versatile distributed computing. The remainder of the paper investigations the difficulties of versatile distributed computing, rundown of some examination ventures identified with this territory, and calls attention to promising future research bearings. Sumit | Ms. Kirti Bhatia | Ms. Shalini Bhadola ""Cloud Computing using Mobile Phone"" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-3 | Issue-3 , April 2019, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd23145.pdf
Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/engineering/computer-engineering/23145/cloud-computing-using-mobile-phone/sumit
Student Number: Sxxxxxxx
Email:
Assignment 3
Due Date: 2 May 2014
Lecturer:
Course Coordinator:
Executive Summary
Cloud computing promises a transformation in the provision of IT services to businesses and other organisations. Along with many advantages to the business that include easy scalability and ubiquitous access to resources, there are many risks that a business must consider before deploying a cloud solution. These risks include a loss of control over service restoration in case of failure and possible security risks due to attack via the Internet. To mitigate against those risks businesses need to have well-written contracts, develop strict and easily understood polices to ensure the appropriate storage of information and have multi-factor authentication to access sensitive information via the Internet.
This report considers the situation of GlobDev, who are an Aid and Development organisation headquartered in Melbourne with staff in many developing countries. Using recent research, the report analyses the advantages and disadvantages of Cloud Computing, associated security risks and mitigation, and examines using cloud services to enable secure mobile computing. The report proposes a possible path to the transformation in the delivery of IT services in GlobDev through the migration to cloud based services. The report supports the use of cloud computing through mobile devices provided to field staff. The engagement in technology through social media applications and mobile technology should improve donor engagement and expand GlobDev’s opportunity for growth by increasing its supporter base.
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction 4
1.1 Organisational Context 4
1.2 Objective and Methodology 4
1.3 Report Outline 5
2.0 Definitions of Cloud Computing 5
3.0 Advantages and Issues with Cloud Computing 6
3.1 Advantages of Cloud Computing 6
3.2 Issues with Cloud Computing 7
4.0 Security Risks in Cloud Computing 7
5.0 Opportunities for growth through Cloud Services 9
6.0 Conclusions 9
7.0 Recommendations 11
8.0 Reference list 13
1.0
Introduction
1.1 Organisational Context
Cloud computing is an increasingly popular method for delivery of software services and storing data. GlobDev is a not for profit large organisation, headquartered in Melbourne, that runs aid and development programs in underdeveloped nations. The projects are organised by people from developed nations including Australians who are part of this organisations staff. National staff in each country are also employed by the organisation. There are currently 2150 people employed in Projects across 38 nations with a further 50 people employed in administration in 10 donor countries plus a further 70 staff in the head office in Melbourne. Projects and administration costs are funded through personal and corporate donations along with contributions from the foreign aid budgets of some G-20 major economies. The company has a central server located in the Melbourne H.
Cloud Computing a leading and getting widely adopted technology in industry, unveils some unprecedented challenges to security of company’s resources such as capital and knowledge based assets. Hither to no much attention has been paid by the governments and there is neither any universal standard adopted, nor any breakthrough to take up these challenges. Traditional contracts and licensing agreements may not provide adequate legal resources and remedies normally associated with the layers of protection for corporations. Intellectual Property, Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) and corporate governance issues have to be fully explored and practiced in domestic and international markets. So this paper discusses the need of establishment of Law and judicial framework of policies to the services embedding cloud computing technology, besides this it also addresses legal issues and existing policies adopted by different countries.
The Cloudy Future Of Government IT: Cloud Computing and The Public Sector Aro...dannyijwest
Cloud computing is fast creating a revolution in the way information technology is used and procured by
organizations and by individuals. In this article, we examine what cloud computing is and the importance
of this new model of computing. We then examine non-military uses of cloud computing in governments
across the globe, from the Unites States to Europe and Asia. Then, we look at the resource – people and
computing – issues involved in shirting to cloud computing. The author then presents his six-step “Cloud
Migration Strategy” for governmental agencies to shift to cloud computing. Finally, we look “over the
horizon” to the implications for public sector organizations and the information technology community
as the cloud computing revolution progresses
Similar to Barriers to government cloud adoption (20)
MULTIMODAL COURSE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION USING LEML AND LMS FOR INSTRUCTIO...IJMIT JOURNAL
Traditionally, teaching has been centered around classroom delivery. However, the onslaught of the
COVID-19 pandemic has cultivated usage of technology, teaching, and learning methodologies for course
delivery. We investigate and describe different modes of course delivery that maintain the integrity of
teaching and learning. This paper answers to the research questions: 1) What course delivery method our
academic institutions use and why? 2) How can instructors validate the guidelines of the institutions? 3)
How courses should be taught to provide student learning outcomes? Using the Learning Environment
Modeling Language (LEML), we investigate the design and implementation of courses for delivery in the
following environments: face-to-face, online synchronous, asynchronous, hybrid, and hyflex. A good
course design and implementation are key components of instructional alignment. Furthermore, we
demonstrate how to design, implement, and deliver courses in synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid
modes and describe our proposed enhancements to LEML.
Novel R&D Capabilities as a Response to ESG Risks-Lessons From Amazon’s Fusio...IJMIT JOURNAL
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) management is essential for transforming corporate
financial performance-oriented business strategies into Finance (F) + ESG optimization strategies to
achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In this trend, the rise of ESG risks has divided firms into two categories. Former incorporates a growthmindset that creates a passion for learning, and urges it to improve itself by endeavoring Research and
development (R&D) -driven challenges, while the other category, characterized by risk aversion, avoids
challenging highly uncertain R&D activities and seeks more manageable endeavors.
This duality underscores the complexity of corporate R&D strategies in addressing ESG risks and
necessitates the development of novel R&D capabilities for corporate R&D transformation strategies
towards F + ESG optimization.
International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) ** WJCI IndexedIJMIT JOURNAL
The International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) is a quarterly open access peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles that contribute new results in all areas of the strategic application of information technology (IT) in organizations. The journal focuses on innovative ideas and best practices in using IT to advance organizations – for-profit, non-profit, and governmental. The goal of this journal is to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia, government, and industry to focus on understanding both how to use IT to support the strategy and goals of the organization and to employ IT in new ways to foster greater collaboration, communication, and information sharing both within the organization and with its stakeholders. The International Journal of Managing Information Technology seeks to establish new collaborations, new best practices, and new theories in these areas.
International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) ** WJCI IndexedIJMIT JOURNAL
The International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) is a quarterly open access peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles that contribute new results in all areas of the strategic application of information technology (IT) in organizations. The journal focuses on innovative ideas and best practices in using IT to advance organizations – for-profit, non-profit, and governmental. The goal of this journal is to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia, government, and industry to focus on understanding both how to use IT to support the strategy and goals of the organization and to employ IT in new ways to foster greater collaboration, communication, and information sharing both within the organization and with its stakeholders. The International Journal of Managing Information Technology seeks to establish new collaborations, new best practices, and new theories in these areas.
NOVEL R & D CAPABILITIES AS A RESPONSE TO ESG RISKS- LESSONS FROM AMAZON’S FU...IJMIT JOURNAL
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) management is essential for transforming corporate
financial performance-oriented business strategies into Finance (F) + ESG optimization strategies to
achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In this trend, the rise of ESG risks has divided firms into two categories. Former incorporates a growthmindset that creates a passion for learning, and urges it to improve itself by endeavoring Research and
development (R&D) -driven challenges, while the other category, characterized by risk aversion, avoids
challenging highly uncertain R&D activities and seeks more manageable endeavors.
This duality underscores the complexity of corporate R&D strategies in addressing ESG risks and
necessitates the development of novel R&D capabilities for corporate R&D transformation strategies
towards F + ESG optimization.
Building on this premise, this paper conducts an empirical analysis, utilizing reliable firms data on ESG
risk and brand value, with a focus on 100 global R&D leader firms. It analyzes R&D and actions for ESG
risk mitigation, and assesses the development of new functions that fulfill F + ESG optimization through
R&D. The analysis also highlights the significance of network externality effects, with a specific focus on
Amazon, a leading R&D company, providing insights into the direction for transforming R&D strategies
towards F + ESG optimization.
The dynamics of stakeholder engagement in F + ESG optimization are indicated with the example of
amazon's activities. Through the analysis, it became evident that Amazon's capacity encompassing growth
and scalability, specifically its ability to grow and expand, is accelerating high-level research and
development by gaining the trust of stakeholders in the "synergy through R&D-driven ESG risk
mitigation."
Finally, as examples of these initiatives, the paper discussed the Climate Pledge led by Amazon and the
transformation of Japan's management system.
A REVIEW OF STOCK TREND PREDICTION WITH COMBINATION OF EFFECTIVE MULTI TECHNI...IJMIT JOURNAL
It is important for investors to understand stock trends and market conditions before trading stocks. Both
these capabilities are very important for an investor in order to obtain maximized profit and minimized
losses. Without this capability, investors will suffer losses due to their ignorance regarding stock trends
and market conditions. Technical analysis helps to understand stock prices behavior with regards to past
trends, the signals given by indicators and the major turning points of the market price. This paper reviews
the stock trend predictions with a combination of the effective multi technical indicator strategy to increase
investment performance by taking into account the global performance and the proposed combination of
effective multi technical indicator strategy model.
INTRUSION DETECTION SYSTEM USING CUSTOMIZED RULES FOR SNORTIJMIT JOURNAL
These days the security provided by the computer systems is a big issue as it always has the threats of
cyber-attacks like IP address spoofing, Denial of Service (DOS), token impersonation, etc. The security
provided by the blue team operations tends to be costly if done in large firms as a large number of systems
need to be protected against these attacks. This leads these firms to turn to less costly security
configurations like IDS Suricata and IDS Snort. The main theme of the project is to improve the services
provided by Snort which is a tool used in creating a vague defense against cyber-attacks like DDOS
attacks which are done on both physical and network layers. These attacks in turn result in loss of
extremely important data. The rules defined in this project will result in monitoring traffic, analyzing it,
and taking appropriate action to not only stop the attack but also locate its source IP address. This whole
process uses different tools other than Snort like Wireshark, Wazuh and Splunk. The product of this will
result in not only the detection of the attack but also the source IP address of the machine on which the
attack is initiated and completed. The end product of this research will result in sets of default rules for the
Snort tool which will not only be able to provide better security than its previous versions but also be able
to provide the user with the IP address of the attacker or the person conducting the attack. The system
involves the integration of Wazuh with Snort tool in order to make it more efficient than IDS Suricata
which is another intrusion detection system capable of detecting all these types of attacks as mentioned.
Splunk is another tool used in this project which increases the firewall efficiency to pass the no. of bits to
be scanned and the no. of bits scanned successfully. Wazuh is used in this system as it is the best choice for
traffic monitoring and incident response than any other of its alternatives in the market. Since this system
is used in firms which are known to handle big amounts of data and for this purpose, we use Splunk tool as
it is very efficient in handling big amounts of data. Wireshark is used in this system in order to give the IDS
automation in its capability to capture and report the malicious packets found during the network scan. All
of this gives the IDS a capability of a low budget automated threat detection system. This paper gives
complete guidelines for authors submitting papers for the AIRCC Journals.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly become a critical technology for businesses seeking to improve
efficiency and profitability. One area where AI is proving particularly impactful is in service operations
management, where it is used to create AI-powered service operations (AIServiceOps) that deliver highvalue services to customers. AIServiceOps involve the use of AI to automate and optimize various business
processes, such as customer service, sales, marketing, and supply chain management. The rapid
development of Artificial Intelligence has prompted many changes in the field of Information Technology
(IT) Service Operations. IT Service Operations are driven by AI, i.e., AIServiceOps. AI has empowered
new vitality and addressed many challenges in IT Service Operations. However, there is a literature gap on
the Business Value Impact of Artificial intelligence (AI) Powered IT Service Operations. It can help IT
build optimized business resilience by creating value in complex and ever-changing environments as
product organizations move faster than IT can handle. So, this research paper examines how AIServiceOps
creates business value and sustainability, basically how AIServiceOps makes the IT staff liberation from a
low-level, repetitive workout and traditional IT practices for a continuously optimized process. One of the
research objectives is to compare Traditional IT Service Operations with AIServiceOPs. This paper
provides the basis for how enterprises can evaluate AIServiceOps and consider it a digital transformation
tool. The paper presents a case study of a company that implemented AI-powered service operations
(AIServiceOps) and analyzes the resulting business outcomes. The study shows that AIServiceOps can
significantly improve service delivery, reduce response times, and increase customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, it demonstrates how AIServiceOps can deliver substantial cost savings, such as reducing
labor costs and minimizing downtime.
MEDIATING AND MODERATING FACTORS AFFECTING READINESS TO IOT APPLICATIONS: THE...IJMIT JOURNAL
Although IOT seems to be the upcoming trend, it is still in its infancy; especially in the banking industry.
There is a clear gap in literature, as only few studies identify factors affecting readiness to IOT
applications in banks in general, and almost negligible investigations on mediating and moderating
factors. Accordingly, this research aims to investigate the main factors that affect employees’ readiness to
IOT applications, while highlighting the mediating and moderating factors in the Egyptian banking sector.
The importance of Egypt stems from its high population and steady steps taken towards technology
adoption. 479 valid questionnaires were distributed over HR employees in banks. Data collected was
statistically analysed using Regression and SEM. Results showed a significant impact of ‘Security’,
‘Networking’, ‘Software Development’ and ‘Regulations’ on ‘readiness to IOT applications. Thus, the
readiness acceptance level is high‘Security’ and ‘User Intention’ were proven to mediate the relationship
between research variables and readiness to IOT applications, and only a partial moderation role was
proven for ‘Efficiency’. The study contributes to increasing literature on IOT applications in general, and
fills a gap on the Egyptian banking context in particular. Finally, it provides decision makers at banks with
useful guidelines on how to optimally promote IOT applications among employees.
EFFECTIVELY CONNECT ACQUIRED TECHNOLOGY TO INNOVATION OVER A LONG PERIODIJMIT JOURNAL
IT (Information and Communication Technology) companies are facing the dilemma of decreasing
productivity despite increasing research and development efforts. M&A (Merger and Acquisition) is being
considered as a breakthrough solution. From existing research, it has been pointed out that M&A leads to
the emergence of new innovations. Purpose of this study was to discuss the efficient ways of acquisition and
to resolve the dilemma of productivity decline by clarifying how the technology obtained through M&A
leads to the creation of new innovations. Hypothesis 1 was that the technology acquired through M&A is
utilized for innovation creation, Hypothesis 2 was that the acquired technology is utilized over a long
period of time, and Hypothesis 3 was that a long-term utilization has a positive impact on corporate
performance. The results, using sports prosthetics as a case study and using patents as a proxy variable,
confirmed all the hypotheses set. We have revealed that long-term utilization of technology obtained
through M&A is effective for creating new innovations.
International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) ** WJCI IndexedIJMIT JOURNAL
The International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) is a quarterly open access peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles that contribute new results in all areas of the strategic application of information technology (IT) in organizations. The journal focuses on innovative ideas and best practices in using IT to advance organizations – for-profit, non-profit, and governmental. The goal of this journal is to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia, government, and industry to focus on understanding both how to use IT to support the strategy and goals of the organization and to employ IT in new ways to foster greater collaboration, communication, and information sharing both within the organization and with its stakeholders. The International Journal of Managing Information Technology seeks to establish new collaborations, new best practices, and new theories in these areas.
Authors are solicited to contribute to the journal by submitting articles that illustrate research results, projects, surveying works and industrial experiences that describe significant advances in the areas of information technology and management
4th International Conference on Cloud, Big Data and IoT (CBIoT 2023)IJMIT JOURNAL
4th International Conference on Cloud, Big Data and IoT (CBIoT 2023) will act as a major forum for the presentation of innovative ideas, approaches, developments, and research projects in the areas of Cloud, Big Data and IoT. It will also serve to facilitate the exchange of information between researchers and industry professionals to discuss the latest issues and advancement in the area of Cloud, Big Data and IoT.
Authors are solicited to contribute to the conference by submitting articles that illustrate research results, projects, surveying works and industrial experiences that describe significant advances in Cloud, Big Data and IoT.
TRANSFORMING SERVICE OPERATIONS WITH AI: A CASE FOR BUSINESS VALUEIJMIT JOURNAL
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly become a critical technology for businesses seeking to improve
efficiency and profitability. One area where AI is proving particularly impactful is in service operations
management, where it is used to create AI-powered service operations (AIServiceOps) that deliver highvalue services to customers. AIServiceOps involve the use of AI to automate and optimize various business
processes, such as customer service, sales, marketing, and supply chain management. The rapid
development of Artificial Intelligence has prompted many changes in the field of Information Technology
(IT) Service Operations. IT Service Operations are driven by AI, i.e., AIServiceOps. AI has empowered
new vitality and addressed many challenges in IT Service Operations. However, there is a literature gap on
the Business Value Impact of Artificial intelligence (AI) Powered IT Service Operations. It can help IT
build optimized business resilience by creating value in complex and ever-changing environments as
product organizations move faster than IT can handle. So, this research paper examines how AIServiceOps
creates business value and sustainability, basically how AIServiceOps makes the IT staff liberation from a
low-level, repetitive workout and traditional IT practices for a continuously optimized process. One of the
research objectives is to compare Traditional IT Service Operations with AIServiceOPs. This paper
provides the basis for how enterprises can evaluate AIServiceOps and consider it a digital transformation
tool. The paper presents a case study of a company that implemented AI-powered service operations
(AIServiceOps) and analyzes the resulting business outcomes. The study shows that AIServiceOps can
significantly improve service delivery, reduce response times, and increase customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, it demonstrates how AIServiceOps can deliver substantial cost savings, such as reducing
labor costs and minimizing downtime.
DESIGNING A FRAMEWORK FOR ENHANCING THE ONLINE KNOWLEDGE-SHARING BEHAVIOR OF ...IJMIT JOURNAL
The main objective of this paper is to identify the factors that influence academic staff's digital knowledgesharing behaviors in Ethiopian higher education. A structural equation model was used to validate the
research framework using survey data from 210 respondents. The collected data has been analyzed using
Smart PLS software. The results of the study show that trust, self-motivation, and altruism are positively
related to attitude. Contrary to our expectations, knowledge technology negatively affects attitude.
However, reward systems and empowerment by leaders are significantly associated with knowledgesharing intentions.Knowledge-sharing intention, in turn, was significantly related to digital knowledgesharing behavior. The contributions of this study are twofold. The framework may serve as a roadmap for
future researchers and managers considering their strategy to enhance digital knowledge sharing in HEI.
The findings will benefit academic staff and university administrations.The study will also help academic
staff enhance their knowledge-sharing practices.
BUILDING RELIABLE CLOUD SYSTEMS THROUGH CHAOS ENGINEERINGIJMIT JOURNAL
Cloud computing systems need to be reliable so that they can be accessed and used for computing at any
given point in time. The complex nature of cloud systems is the motivation to conduct research in novel
ways of ensuring that cloud systems are built with reliability in mind. In building cloud systems, it is
expected that the cloud system will be able to deal with high demands and unexpected events that affect the
reliability and performance of the system.
In this paper, chaos engineering is considered a heuristic method that can be used to build reliable cloud
systems. Chaos engineering is aimed at exposing weaknesses in systems that are in production. Chaos
engineering will help identify system weaknesses and strengths when a system is exposed to unexpected
knocks and shocks while it is in production.
Chaos engineering allows system developers and administrators to get insights into how the cloud system
will behave when it is exposed to unexpected occurrences.
A REVIEW OF STOCK TREND PREDICTION WITH COMBINATION OF EFFECTIVE MULTI TECHNI...IJMIT JOURNAL
It is important for investors to understand stock trends and market conditions before trading stocks. Both
these capabilities are very important for an investor in order to obtain maximized profit and minimized
losses. Without this capability, investors will suffer losses due to their ignorance regarding stock trends
and market conditions. Technical analysis helps to understand stock prices behavior with regards to past
trends, the signals given by indicators and the major turning points of the market price. This paper reviews
the stock trend predictions with a combination of the effective multi technical indicator strategy to increase
investment performance by taking into account the global performance and the proposed combination of
effective multi technical indicator strategy model.
NETWORK MEDIA ATTENTION AND GREEN TECHNOLOGY INNOVATIONIJMIT JOURNAL
This paper will provide a novel empirical study for the relationship between network media attention and
green technology innovation and examine how network media attention can ease financing constraints. It
collected data from listed companies in China's heavy pollution industry and performed rigorous
regression analysis, in order to innovatively explore the environmental governance functions of the media.
It found that network media attention significantly promotes green technology innovation. By analyzing the
inner mechanism further, it found that network media attention can promote green innovation by easing
financing constraints. Besides, network media attention has a significant positive impact on green invention
patents while not affecting green utility model patents.
INCLUSIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HANDLING COMPETING INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS FOR DHI...IJMIT JOURNAL
Information System (IS) research advocates employing collaborative and loose coupling strategies to address contradictory issues to address diversified actors’ interests than the prescriptive and unilateral Information Technology (IT) governance mechanisms’, yet it is rarely depicting how managers employ these strategies in Health Information System (HIS) implementation, particularly in a resource-constrained setting where IS implementation activities have highly relied on multiple international organizations resources. This study explored how managers in resource-constrained settings employ collaborative IT governance mechanisms in the case of District Health Information System 2 (DHIS2) adoption with an interpretative case study approach and the institutional logic concept. The institutional logic concept was used to identify the major actors’ logics underpinning the DHIS2 adoption. The study depicted the importance of high-level officials' distance from the dominant systemic logic to consider new alternative, and to employ inclusive IT governance mechanisms which separated resource from the system that facilitated stakeholders’ collaboration in DHIS2 adoption based on their capacity and interest.
DEEP LEARNING APPROACH FOR EVENT MONITORING SYSTEMIJMIT JOURNAL
With an increasing number of extreme events and complexity, more alarms are being used to monitor
control rooms. Operators in the control rooms need to monitor and analyze these alarms to take suitable
actions to ensure the system’s stability and security. Security is the biggest concern in the modern world. It
is important to have a rigid surveillance that should guarantee protection from any sought of hazard.
Considering security, Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) cameras are being utilized for reconnaissance, but these
CCTV cameras require a person for supervision. As a human being, there can be a possibility to be tired
off in supervision at any point of time. So, we need a system to detect automatically. Thus, we came up with
a solution using YOLO V5. We have taken a data set and used robo-flow framework to enhance the existing
images into numerous variations where it will create a copy of grey scale image, a copy of its rotation and
a copy of its blurred version which will be used to get an enlarged data set. This work mainly focuses on
providing a secure environment using CCTV live footage as a source to detect the weapons. Using YOLO
algorithm, it divides an image from the video into grid system and each grid detects an object within itself
MULTIMODAL COURSE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION USING LEML AND LMS FOR INSTRUCTIO...IJMIT JOURNAL
Traditionally, teaching has been centered around classroom delivery. However, the onslaught of the
COVID-19 pandemic has cultivated usage of technology, teaching, and learning methodologies for course
delivery. We investigate and describe different modes of course delivery that maintain the integrity of
teaching and learning. This paper answers to the research questions: 1) What course delivery method our
academic institutions use and why? 2) How can instructors validate the guidelines of the institutions? 3)
How courses should be taught to provide student learning outcomes? Using the Learning Environment
Modeling Language (LEML), we investigate the design and implementation of courses for delivery in the
following environments: face-to-face, online synchronous, asynchronous, hybrid, and hyflex. A good
course design and implementation are key components of instructional alignment. Furthermore, we
demonstrate how to design, implement, and deliver courses in synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid
modes and describe our proposed enhancements to LEML.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a button
Barriers to government cloud adoption
1. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
BARRIERS TO GOVERNMENT CLOUD
ADOPTION
Samuel Tweneboah-Koduah1,Dr. Barbara Endicott-Popovsky2 and Anthony
Tsetse3
1iSchool, University of Washington, 4311 11th Ave. NE, Seattle, Washington 98105
2iSchool, University of Washington, 4311 11th Ave. NE, Seattle, Washington 98105
3State University of New York, Fredonia, USA, 280 Central Ave, Fredonia, NY 14063
ABSTRACT
Besides the benefits are there possible challenges government agencies are likely to encounter should they
decide to adopt cloud computing? What strategies should be deployed to overcome the inhibitors of cloud
computing? These are but few questions this paper aims to investigate. Studies have shown that, cloud
computing has become a strategic direction for many government agencies and is already being deployed
in many critical areas of the government's cyber infrastructure. The benefits and the challenges of cloud
adoption have heightened interest of academic research in recent times. We are however uncertain, per
literature factors that hinder successful cloud adoption especially in the Ghanaian context. We posit that,
understanding the challenges of cloud adoption and overcoming them must accompany the use of the
technology in order to prevent unwanted technical consequences, and even greater problems from
government information management. This study is based on unstructured interviews from selected
government agencies in Ghana. The study is grounded on the theory of technology, organization and
environment (TOE) framework. Major inhibiting factors identified include lack of basic infrastructure for
cloud take-off, data security, unreliable internet connectivity, and general lack of institutional readiness.
KEYWORDS
Cloud-computing, adoption, challenges, deployment-models, virtualization
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Cloud computing, which allows for highly scalable processes, storage, and communication, is
increasing in importance throughout government information technology (IT) strategy[1]. Cloud
Service providers (CSPs) offer variety of services to individuals, companies, and government
agencies. Cloud consumers (users) usually employ cloud computing for storing and sharing
information, database management and mining, and deploying web services, which can range
from processing vast datasets for complicated scientific problems to using clouds to manage and
provide access to medical records [2] in (Hand, 2007). Whilst the overall benefits of cloud
adoption seem seductive, it is important that decision-makers factor in the very significant
antecedents that might thwart its implementation and deny its success. In a government context,
both tangible risks and intangible risks are introduced along with the functionality and benefits
provided by cloud applications [1]. The institutions’ ability to manage these challenges will be a
key determinant in the success of cloud computing. Understanding challenges of cloud adoption
and strategies to overcome the challenges must accompany the use of cloud model in order to
prevent unwanted technical consequences, and even greater problems from government
information management perspective.
DOI : 10.5121/ijmit.2014.6301 1
2. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
Currently, there exist very few studies that investigate migration of existing public agencies’ IT
systems to the cloud in the Ghanaian context, concern that motivated the call for this study.
Furthermore, little has been published about the implications of cloud computing from an
enterprise or organizational perspective[3].
This is how the rest of the paper is structured: The next section provides background study on
cloud computing, we provide data on global government cloud adoption in section III. Section IV
looks at the research method and results of the study while section V discusses our findings with
conclusion.
2
1.1 BACKGROUND
The rapid advancement of information technologies (IT) has contributed to the downward trend
of the cost of computing resources. While prices of computing resources keep slumping, the
technologies that depend on these resources are becoming more powerful, sophisticated and
ubiquitously available than ever before. This advancements in network and Internet technologies
have led to a computing model known in as cloud computing. The model enables services
providers known as Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) to provide computing resources as utilities
through the Internet to Cloud Service Consumers (CSCs). Cloud computing is defined as a model
for enabling 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[4]. The
three most common cloud services are Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service
(PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). The model is also described by how it is deployed.
The most popular among them are private, community, hybrid and public clouds (figure 1).
Figure1: Cloud architecture
The emergence of cloud model has made a tremendous impact on the IT industry over the past
few years, where large companies such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft strive to provide more
powerful, reliable and cost-effective cloud platforms. Below are few compelling features that
have made cloud model attractive to business and government agencies all over the world:
i. No up-front investment: Because cloud computing operates like the traditional utilities,
pricing of cloud services is based on pay-as-you-use. For this reason CSCs do not need to
invest in technology infrastructure to start gaining the benefit of cloud computing.
Consumers simply pay for the resources they use according to their needs and
requirements.
ii. Lowering operating cost: Because resources in cloud environment can be rapidly
allocated and de-allocated, service providers rent cloud resource according to their needs.
3. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
With this feature, consumers are able to request resources based on their own needs
preventing unwanted or under/over utilization of computing resources saving
considerably on IT cost.
iii. High scalability: Scalability is the ability of a system to expand to meet internal and
external demands. This enables cloud infrastructure providers to pool large amount of
resources from data centres sometimes across different geographical locations and make
them accessible to meet rapid demand from consumers.
iv. Easy access: Cloud services are internet and web based, making them accessible through
variety of internet enabled devices such as phablets, tablets, cell phones, laptops and the
traditional PCs.
The three key benefits government agencies could derive from well implemented cloud models
include (but not limited to): increase productivity, ease scalability and overall cost cutting (figure
2).
3
Figure 2: Key Benefits of Cloud Adoption
Cutting cost: SaaS enables government agencies to minimize costs on software acquisition and
maximize operational performances. This allows CSCs to pay for software according to their
needs. For instance, if clients need an application for a short period of time, they only pay for
application that is needed instead of paying for complete licensing for software that might not be
needed. As service providers own and host software, users benefit from ongoing upgrades and
updates as well as maintenance without the associated costs and time constraints. Moreover, since
CSPs use multiple redundant sites, they are able to provide reliable and secure locations for data
storage which provides greater security which is ideal for disaster recovery and business
continuity. Government agencies are therefore not worried about the loss of data and creating
recovery backups.
Easy Scalability: Depending on services needed, cloud users are able to scale back the amount of
storage space needed, or raise it according to the pattern of growth. This is especially helpful for
agencies that are trying to save money at every possible turn. If an agency is a SaaS user, the user
can also request to adopt PaaS or IaaS whenever required. With an on-demand integration of
cloud services, CSCs can quickly and easily increase or decrease connections, transactions, or the
number of companies in their integration community, and then scale up when resources
4. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
requirement increases. The elimination of an up-front commitment by CSCs enables agencies to
start small and increase hardware resources as and when the needed.
Increased Productivity: There has been an upsurge in the demand for services by citizenry in
both developed and developing economies. To meet this demand, both private and public
institutions around the world need to communicate, collaborate and share data. Cloud enables
government services to be accessed by citizens anytime anywhere. With the use of cloud
applications, citizens can access government services (taxes, pensions, medical records, transport
information, forms, view updated orders or transactions) anywhere anytime as long as they have
internet access. This enables public organizations to deliver effectively and efficiently, making
them more productive, leading to improved services and overall satisfaction.
4
1.2 CLOUD COMPUTING IN GOVERNMENT
According to International Data Corporation[5], worldwide spending on public cloud services
reached $47.4 billion in 2013 and is expected to be more than $107 billion in 2017. Moreover,
over the 2013–2017 forecast period, public cloud services have a compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 23.5%, five times that of the IT industry as a whole[5]. Cloud computing certainly
seems to be the phrase “du jour” in much of the computing world today, many experts now think
that cloud computing will be “the next big thing”[6]. The promise of cloud computing is that, it
can bring together practices, tools and technologies that will better position a public organisations
to operate in a significantly more efficient, predictable, flexible, and accountable manner. From
literature reviewed, most government cloud adoption strategies include the use of cloud-based
productivity and project management tools that are also popular with businesses. As well as
gaining significant cost savings, governments also use cloud technology to increase the quality
and innovation in the services they provide to citizens, businesses and other governments.
Government use of cloud computing is gradually increasing in areas such as transport services,
health services, education, contracting and now managing of utility services [5]. Countries
leading the way in cloud adoption in terms of Government institutions are USA, Japan, Australia,
Finland, Denmark, Sweden and United Kingdom[6]. Table 1 below provides examples of cloud
adoption, planned adoption, and cloud model use by selected government agencies.
Table 1: Global cloud adoption from selected countries
Country Services Details
United Kingdom Digital Britain (G-cloud) An important aspect of the Digital Britain strategy
is to improve governmental IT and allow for more
services to migrate online [7]
Finland Cloud Software Program
The four-year Cloud Software Program (2009-
2013). This seeks to support business developing
cloud solutions[8].
Spain ‘Un alcorque, un árbol’ Adopted by Madrid City Council to help manage
more than 245,000 trees around the capital cared
for by 300 maintenance workers[9].
Japan The “Kasumigaseki Cloud” This project allows for greater information and
resource sharing promoting more standardization
and consolidation in the government IT resources
Hong Kong GovCloud This is government private cloud which is used to
host common apps for shared by Hong Kong
government departments. Services such as e-procurement,
e-invoicing, human resource
management and electronic information
management, among others, are placed
5. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
5
on GovCloud.
USA - General
Services
Administration
USA.gov and its Spanish–
language companion site,
GobiernoUSA.gov
With the shift to cloud-based hosting, the GSA
can use “cloudbursts” to increase capacity as
needed, rather than having to host server capacity
(and the costs—in personnel and energy—
necessary to support this largely idle capacity) to
handle the web traffic experienced only at peak
times[5],[10],[11].
The White House -
USA
Google Moderator The cloud-based application allowed for hundreds
of thousands of votes to be cast on the almost ten
thousand questions that were submitted for
possible use in the live event with the president.
Moreover, Office Management and Budget using
cloud based applications to interact with state and
local agencies receiving stimulus funding[10].
NASA, USA NEBULA cloud computing
platform
Designed to allow for greater transparency and
public involvement with space efforts, while
serving as a “seamless, self-service platform” that
consolidate the agency’s web offerings into a
single portal, and provide NASA personnel with
“high capacity computing, storage, and network
connectivity and a virtualized, scalable approach
to achieve cost and energy efficiencies” (Martin
K 2012) .
SLOVENIA KC Class program Collaborating platform that brings together
researchers and developers from six small
businesses, four middle-sized enterprises, and
seven research organisations, who work to
develop local solutions, services and products in
the field of cloud computing [12]
EU Initiatives
EU Cloud Strategy
In addition to setting-up internal, private cloud
environments, European nations were beginning
to explore the use of cloud-based computing in the
following areas: management of public sector
housing, transportation service, census, health
services, contracting and education services.
2.0 THEORETICAL REVIEW
Multiple theories exist in literature for the research of information systems adoption[13]. In order
to achieve our goal, we borrow some theoretical concepts from one of these theories which
epitomize our understanding and shape the direction of the study. From the theory, we posit that
internal and external organisational factors, available technologies and environmental factors are
key drivers for successful cloud adoption in Ghana. From these contexts, we attempt to
holistically review and investigate the antecedents that might hinder the successful adoption of
cloud computing in Ghana. To do this, we adopt technology, organization and environment
(TOE) framework by Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990). The TOE framework was adopted due to
its philosophical constructs. Moreover, the framework has been used for studying adoption of
different types of IT innovation especially at the organisational level. It provides theoretical basis,
consistent empirical support and the potential application to IS innovation domains, even though
specific factors within the three contexts may vary across different studies[14].
Developed in 1962 by Rogers with further work on it in 1990 by Tornatzky and Fleischer in
1990, TOE identifies three key constructs that influence the process by which organization adopts
and implements technological innovation. First, the technological context refers to characteristics
6. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
of the technologies which are available for possible adoption by the organization, and the current
state of technology in the organization. This current state of technology can be expressed in both
material (e.g., equipment owned by the organization) and immaterial (e.g., methods currently in
use). Second, the organizational context; this consists of the organization’s structure, presence of
innovation–enabling processes such as informal communication and strategic behaviour of top
management, slack resources, and the size of the organization. Third, the environmental context
combines elements such as market structure, the external support available for adopting new
technologies and government regulations. These elements interact with each other to influence
technology adoption decisions[15]. Although, many important issues involves in the theory, this
research chiefly focuses on the discussion about the key variables influencing technology
adoption.
6
Figure 3: TOE framework (Tornatzky and Fleischer 1990)
Several authors have used the framework to study different IT adoption strategies. The following
examples exist in literature: [16], [17], [14], [18] and [19]. Although it has primarily been used to
study adoption of technology and/or innovations, it does not provide concrete model describing
the factors that influence the organizational adoption decision; it rather provides taxonomy for
classifying adoption factors in their respective context [15]. The model therefore encourages the
researcher to take the broader context in which innovation takes place into account why applying
it.
2.1 METHOD
Using a semi-structured interviews we explore the challenges agencies could encounter should
they decide to adopt cloud computing. The interviews were conducted with key IT personal
across twelve public (state funded institutions). They are made up of three government ministries,
three public universities, three regional hospitals and three district assemblies located in three
different regions in southern Ghana. These are institutions which annual budgets are financed by
the central government. This means, the decision to adopt or not to adopt cloud models with the
exception of the universities might have to get an approval from the sector minister. Thirty-six
personnel took part of the study. Interviews were one-on-one. Each interaction session was
preceded with an overview of cloud computing, the purpose of the study and clearly defined
study expectations. Those involved in the discussions were IT managers, Director of IT, Head of
IT and Head of System. With the exception of the Directors of IT who was found to report
directly to the respective sectors’ minister, the rest have the same functions with different titles
7. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
per functional documents reviewed. This was however different at the universities. The study data
is analysed using MS Excel Macro scripts.
Guided by the theory, our focus of discussion was to ascertain and understand the environmental,
organisational and technical challenges that might hinder the institutional adoption of cloud
computing. We defined ‘challenge’ as any technical, operational, social-economic and
environmental antecedents that may hinder successful adoption of cloud computing by these
agencies. The details of the result are the subject of the next section.
7
2.2 RESULTS
With the exception of the district assemblies, all other institutions visited had well structured IT
infrastructure consisting of Database Systems, Networks and Data communication tools, Software
and well trained IT staff. What was visibly missing among all but two institutions, were IT user
policy, data protection and confidentiality agreement, service level agreement and overall
institutional IT policy framework. About 95% of the IT resources reviewed have no
documentations covering their operations and most users don’t have adequate formal training on
how to use techie tools that they use for their day-to-day operations.
Over 55% percent (21/36) of those interviewed had heard of cloud computing but their agencies
have no immediate plans to migrate their services or operations to clouds. The three public
universities have implemented google(g)mail (SaaS) but were not sure or ready to add other cloud
services. The entire respondents had not discussed the issue in their last or the current budget and
they have no immediate plans of adopting or implementing cloud modules. Having explained the
cloud concept, we asked participants to rank factors that might influence their organisation’s
cloud adoption using the following factors as exist in the study’s framework (Technology,
Organization and Environment). The chart below (figure 3) shows their responses.
Using the response above, we developed the following follow-up questions to understand the top
challenges or inhibitors of each of the above drivers. First, what do you believe are the top
technical challenges or concerns your agency faces in adopting cloud computing?
8. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
Second, what do you believe are the top institutional challenges or concerns your agency faces in
adopting cloud computing?
Third, what do you believe are the top environmental challenges or concerns your agency faces in
adopting cloud computing?
Inferring from figure 7, we generate the eight-factor concerns considered to be the key inhibitors
to government cloud adopting in the study context (figure 8). The next section discusses our
findings.
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In the next section, we provide detailed discussions of the above concerns and provide our eight-point
9
strategies to address them.
2.3 DISCUSSION
Most of the challenges of government cloud adoption relate to its apparent newness and the
relative underdevelopment of the marketplace for cloud services,[20]. At the national level,
information is the lifeblood of government, for this reason, decision to manage information can
have far-reaching political, social, and economic considerations. Cloud computing has been
welcome as a new model capable of helping government manage its information resources.
Despite the ever increasing interest of cloud computing in the public sectors across the globe,
various factors continue to slow down its migration, and in Ghana the situation is not different.
We provide below the discussions on the key challenges that potentially create barrier between
adopting and adopters.
Cost of migration - According to the survey, the key performance indicators include those
relating to cost, productivity, and revenue in most public agencies in Ghana. In the finance
ministry, the concern was to cut down the cost of operations and how cloud could help improve
revenue generation. Nearly 85% of our respondents mentioned cost associated with cloud
adoption as a key determining factor. The costs associated with cloud adoption include (but not
limited to) building new technology and security infrastructure that are cloud compatible and
redesigning existing ones, training and retraining, institutional realignment, policy and standards
formulations in addition to the cost of cloud services which in most cases are not known until the
services have been consumed. It was not surprising, when we spoke to one sector Minister about
cloud adoption in his ministry, his first reaction was “Yes, I know cloud computing is good but
who is going to fund its implementation?”
Security and Data Sovereignty - The major critiques against public cloud adoption to date, has
been the issue of security, privacy and trust ([21], [6], [22], [22], [23], [24], [25],[26]).
Government has an onus to protect citizen data and ensure availability of critical
infrastructure such as power, water, health, communications, and banking. This might not relate
to only data owned by government but those entrusted to her by others. Over 80% of our
respondents mentioned the issue of security and privacy as the major concern for government
cloud adoption. Besides, most studies relating to the subject, do mention security, trust and
privacy as majors concerns for both public and private adoption. A survey conducted by
department of Economic and Scientific Policy under EU, 63% of government CIO consider
security and privacy as the major concern for public cloud adoption. Report by KPMG on public
cloud adoption across Europe, America and Asia Pacific indicates that, security and privacy
concerns are the most significant barriers to public sector cloud adoption.
10. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
Equally important is the impact of data storage on national sovereignty. This is because most
CSPs have storage servers in multiple countries sometime far away from their regional
boundaries. Whether cloud services are provided on or offshore, governments will need the
assurance that sovereignty is not threatened, especially, where overriding effect of laws in the
jurisdiction of CSPs application or data storage. Public managers are also concerned about
challenges in preserving the integrity or privacy of government information held offshore and in
having it repatriated, if required, in instances of natural disaster, political instability, civil or
industrial unrest, criminal activity, terrorism, or any instance of “casus fortuitous”. Data security
risks arising from cloud computing relate to: 1) an increase in threats to data confidentiality,
integrity and accessibility due to the concentration of data on common cloud infrastructure, 2)
loss of control and governance by organisations using cloud services, 3) and an increased risk of
data interception in authentication and transmission procedures that are mostly hidden from
CSCs.
Privacy - Privacy in cloud environment is the ability of a user or a business to control what
information they reveal about themselves over the cloud or to a cloud service provider, and the
ability to control who can access that information[27]. This is an important issue for cloud
computing users and most importantly Government, both in terms of legal compliance and user
trust. This needs to be considered at every phase of design and implementation. Cloud
environment is beset with complex privacy and confidentiality issues due to lack of appropriate
laws that block users from information disclosure to the cloud providers or other cloud users.
Government may not be interested in sharing her information but such information may be
already placed in the cloud and this may lead to adverse impacts on their services and sometimes
the state as a whole. Privacy and data protection laws (regulations of EU countries and US Safe
Harbour Program), require knowledge of where data is stored at all times but these laws are not
known to exist in Ghana, making it almost impossible for Government to protect itself in case of
breach by CSP or other CSC.
Internet Connectivity- Virtually all Cloud deployment services are assessed over the internet
using hypertext transfer protocols (http). Any agency planning to adopt cloud must ensure reliable
and stable internet connectivity and accessibility not only to the agency but its service consumers.
Indeed, universal connectivity is a panacea for successful cloud adoption and cloud usage.
Available statistics show that nearly 85% of Ghanaian population don’t have access to reliable
and stable Internet both at home and public offices. Besides, Ghana as a nation has not done
much in digitizing public services. Most countries that have adopted cloud services have long had
digital services making the migration quite easier and faster. E-government services in Ghana are
still not matured [28]. Out of the thirty-six public institutions observed only three (less than 8%)
of them have some kind of e-services. The graph below shows population per internet usage (%)
in major economies that have adopted cloud services compared to that of Ghana (coloured).
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Institutional Readiness - Cloud migration requires that certain basic services be cloud ready, up
and running. E-government services, government data centres and digital service are but few
examples. These services pave way for smooth cloud migration. Only three out of thirty-six (8%)
of the agencies observed have their e-services working perfectly. Though government over the
years has managed to improve its LAN and Internet connections, this infrastructure development
are mostly found at the regional capitals especially in the national capital, Accra. Studies have
shown that, organisations that have successfully migrated to cloud environment, did build on
existing digital or e-services and well managed data centres. Cloud migration requires
institutional re-alignment. It requires administrative, operational, cultural and managerial reforms
including training and retraining. In Ghana, public organisations are beset with bureaucratic
processes. General perception was that, digitization is a panacea for institutional downsizing
especially for most system and network administrators who feel threatened should government
adopt cloud.
In a related development, nearly 89% of the leaders and administrators interviewed stated the
issue of funding. The concern is that, in Ghana most government agencies get their budget
approved from the Ministry of Finance which in most cases approve institutional expenditure. For
this reason any project they intend to finance must get approval from the ministry making it
difficult to implement cloud project on their own without financial tussle from the ministry of
finance.
Business Continuity and Service Availability - A key selling point to cloud computing has been
the potential for 100% non-interrupted availability to the customer. For large vendors and most
essential government services, maintaining 24/7 up time is crucial to businesses and the citizens
in general, as customers demand no less to support their mission-critical efforts. Outages do
occur, and can be unexpected and costly to a customer [21]. Concern was whether CSPs will have
adequate capabilities and effective business continuity plans (BCP) to handle emergencies and
disaster situations. This makes some wary of cloud computing. Though existing cloud services
have set a high standard in this regard, records show however, there have been instances where
cloud services have gone down making the concern a legitimate one. Most government agencies
depend on reliable data for their day-to-day operations. The absence of such data brings
government business to a halt. Table 3 shows recorded outages for Amazon Simple Storage
Service (S3), AppEngine and Gmail in 2008.
11
Table 2: Outages in selected cloud services
Standardization, Legal, Compliance and Audit - Cloud standards are an agreed-upon approach
to ensure interoperability, so a customer can take data, tools, applications, virtual images, etc.,
and use them in other cloud environments with minor rework in case provider’s system goes
12. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
down1. Standards and policies regulating cloud computing have been a great concern to date.
Equally challenging, is the legal requirement with respect to trans-border information flow
relating to cloud adoption. The following legal questions need to be answered to clear the doubts
and concerns on legal and governance issues: what kind of liability will a company that provides
cloud services expected to assume in the event that there are serious outages? What are the
requirements with regard trans-border information flow? What are the minimum criteria for
service termination (including data, asset return, data privacy, destruction and migration) in a
contractual arrangement? Another thorny issue related to the cloud may be electronic
surveillance, particularly when it spans international borders[29]. In the United States, citizens
are protected by the constitution against unreasonable search and seizure. In most cases, the
police must get a search warrant to examine data on someone’s home computer. It is not clear if
the same data is protected when backed up in a data centre in the Cloud, particularly if that data
centre is in another country[29]. It is even less clear how and when intelligence services in Ghana
can access data stored in the cloud for security and protection purposes.
12
3.0 THE WAY FORWARD
No organization wants to spend time, money or resources needlessly. When it comes to cloud
computing, the same is true – organizations do not embark on cloud strategies just to have a
“Cloud”. It is critical therefore to understand the driving factors behind such a move and whether
it is a standalone activity or part of a more transformational move toward delivering IT as a
service. Agencies must assess and re-assess themselves if they are cloud ready. Below is our
seven-point migration strategy for government cloud adoption in the context of the study.
Education, Training, and Engagement - Adopting any technology must begin with learning
the basics of the technology by attending seminars, networking, talking with vendors and
other institutions that have the experience. Given that cloud computing represents a new
paradigm in information technology, it will be important for technology and knowledge
transfer to occur—the “techies” in and outside of government will need to go the extra mile to
educate and inform the “non-techie” policymakers (agency executives, staffers, and
lawmakers) as to the merits and value of cloud computing[6].
Government should collaborate with universities to expand their courses and revise their existing
curricula to build knowledge and skills needed in cloud computing. They should seek the support
of cloud service providers to offer short courses for industry, government and university
researchers on cloud computing, including its data-parallel programming, virtualization and big
data models. Where possible, government should negotiate internships and exchange programs
for fresh graduates and newly recruited IT staff as a form of re-training. As it is being done in the
Pacific Northwest of US, the engagement should include colleges, the military and other training
institutions. Besides, both technical and non-technical IT personnel should be retrained,
encouraged and/or supported to take certifications in cloud computing and other related programs
to build local capacity.
Institutional Assessment - Cloud computing is a new way of managing IT infrastructure. It is
not a magic wand. Adopting it, impacts on the organization’s operations and processes.
Organisations that have successfully adopted it have had existing structures and services that
were cloud compatible which facilitated the migration. IT managers should conduct an overall IT
cloud-readiness assessment to determine if their organization have services, data and
applications that could readily move to a cloud environment. The assessment will help
1 EU Directorate General for Internal Policies
13. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
establish which services, data and applications can - and cannot be housed in any form of cloud
environment. In doing so, they will discover a definite field of “cloud-eligible” and
“cloud-ineligible” data and applications[30]. Equally, agencies must ensure they have personnel
with the right skills and experience level for successful move to the cloud. Internal staff must be
assessed of their current roles and responsibilities, change management needed, and how well
current skills will map to the cloud model being designed or implemented. The organization
network capability must also be assessed to test its capability of supporting additional network
traffic that will result from assessing applications over cloud environment.
Security Risk Assessment - As with adoption of new processes or technologies, there exist some
associated risks. As we stated above, security, privacy and trust issues have been suggested and
documented to be one of the major risks to cloud adoption. However, cloud providers and end-users
are increasingly working together to use cloud in ways that actually enhance the ability to
manage key risks in areas such as trusted platforms, data privacy and security. In short, says Ian
Gravestock, “Government agencies should be aware of risks, but they should not be using the
mere existence of risk as an excuse for doing nothing” in [30]. IT managers should ensure their IT
and security infrastructure has been tested and verified to be cloud compatible. They should
conduct security risk impact assessment for the services and information they intend to move to
the cloud environment. It is suggested, IT managers must be retrained on cyber security issues
and be abreast of the threats in cloud environment and cyber infrastructure in general. Moreover,
users must ensure to have secured authentication protocols. Other non-technical solutions such as
awareness creation, provision of IT user acceptability policies and safety cultural practices should
be encouraged across government agencies.
Universal Connectivity (broadband) - All Cloud deployment services are internet dependent
tunnelling through hypertext transfer protocols (http). Successful cloud adoption strategy must
ensure reliable and efficient internet connectivity and accessibility to both the institution and the
end-users. Government agencies must build and ensure local and wide area networks are well
connected and are compatible with cloud architecture. Government could liaise with National
Communication Authority (NCA) and perhaps with the Commonwealth Department of
Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy to review existing broadband pricing and
policies of providers to ensure that unnecessary impediments to the uptake of cloud computing
are minimised. In particular, ensuring internet prices do not increase the cost of users accessing
cloud services.
Infrastructure Setup for Cloud take-off - Cloud computing is a network centric application
with storage, information processing, multi tenancy and virtualization technologies being the key
backbone. Government must invest in new networks infrastructure and improve the existing ones.
Government can partner with local network providers and major partners in the industry
(Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and google) to build data centres and reliable energy source that is
capable of supporting the centres. Network and security infrastructure must be secured, tested and
verified to be cloud compatible. Lack of integration between networks makes it difficult for
organizations to combine their IT systems with the cloud and realize the gains from the
technology. Organizations need to automatically provision services, manage virtual machine
instances, and work with both cloud-based and enterprise-based applications using a single tool
set that can function across existing programs and multiple cloud providers[31]. Government
could liaise with the Open Grid Forum, an industry group, which is working on the Open
Cloud Computing Interface, which provides an API for managing different cloud platforms.
Regulations, Accountability and Standardization - Cloud standards are an agreed-upon
approach to ensure interoperability, so a customer can take data, tools, applications, virtual
images, and more, and use them in another cloud environment with minor rework or in case
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provider’s system goes down [32]. Standards and policies regulating to cloud are major concerns
of cloud adoption to date. The issue has been discussed on several platforms and other
international forums. These however, can be addressed by establishing a new taskforce to review
the adequacy of current regulations, standardization, and legislation and identify what steps are
needed to be taken to ensure a supportive regulatory environment in Ghana. Local taskforce could
liaise with other international bodies such as National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST), Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and
the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) for support and guidance.
Regarding service level agreement (SLA), government should engage with CSPs to determine
their business continuity and disaster recovery plans. These should be factored into government
cloud migration strategies. Besides, the contracting process, the degree of flexibility (contract
length, scope and coverage, liabilities, indemnifications and policies) regarding cross border data
migration need to be discussed with CSP.
Cloud Piloting - Concluding, IT managers should pick one area, a process or one specific project
to “cloud pilot” and assess their ability to manage and bring such project to fruition using internal
resources where possible. This can also be used to test the capability and efficiency of cloud
provider should managers decide to use public cloud for the pilot process. For government, it is
recommended to start with locally built private cloud for data and time sensitive resources. Less
sensitive and more general services could be piloted with either hybrid cloud or public cloud. IT
managers can use this time to roll-out their cloud migration strategies by gaining buy-in from
both organizational leadership and IT staffers. The trial period can be used to communicate to
both internal and external stakeholders as to the goals, progress, and costs/benefits of the project.
This is where the cloud goes from being a test effort to become a mainstream, in the way the
agency manages its data, operations, services and its people in the new cloud environment.
14
4.0 CONCLUSION
We should all think of what we do on the Internet on a daily basis. We check mails, “social
networking – Facebooking, once, twice,…ten times a day and now Twittering”, and the like. We
post and view photos (selfies), we store files online (dropbox, Google drive, etc.) Yes, there can
be real work done as well, creating documents, spreadsheets and presentations entirely online.
Indeed, a lot of people are in the cloud yet they are not realising it. Cloud computing has come to
stay. It is already at work today reducing operating costs, in some cases substantially. They are
enabling optimization of asset utilization and flexibility in both the scale and scope of IT services
and hardware2. Many government agencies are exploring a host of new services and are
interactions with other groups within government as well as citizens[6]. Cloud computing is set to
change (if it has not done that already) how IT systems are deployed both in business and in
government because of its apparently cheap, simple and scalable nature. The question isn’t
whether government will migrate to cloud or not, but how far and how fast will it go?
The main concerns about adopting cloud services are security, privacy data location, universal
connectivity, applicable law and jurisdiction over data and uncertainty about the cost of migration
as this study has shown. It also appears that most organisations lacked a full understanding of the
complexity of cloud computing including inadequate IT and security infrastructures for cloud
take-off. Having identified what cloud is and its key characteristics, the benefits, adoption
inhibitors and the way forward of adopting cloud, further research work is needed to establish
clear strategies to overcome adoption inhibitors in the case of Ghana. Moreover, government
should partner with key stakeholders to strategise and develop workable solutions to address the
2 http://www.kpmg.com
15. International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) Vol.6, No.3, August 2014
challenges identified in this study. Finally, we provide figure 10 below as the general overview of
the cloud environment as discussed in the study.
15
Figure 10: Overview of cloud environment
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to send our appreciation to the Directors, IT Managers and especially all
the personnel who took part in our interview sections. We would also like to thank Professor
Knud Erik Skouby of CMI, Aalborg University, Associate Professor Gamel Wiredu at School of
Technology GIMPA and Ruth Ayanful-Torgby of Ghana Health Service & Nuguchi Momorial
Institute for Medical Research, Ghana for your comments and reviews. Finally, the comments
from two anonymous reviewers are very much appreciated.
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