Cloud Computing and Information Systems in Business - Article Example

Certainly I agree with the statement. Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet). Cloud computing is a technology that uses the internet and central remote servers to maintain data and applications (Barlow 7). Cloud computing allows consumers and businesses to use applications without installation and access their personal files at any computer with internet access. This technology allows for much more inefficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth. Here are some of the models of cloud computing: Public cloud A public cloud is one based on the standard cloud computing model, in which a service provider makes resources, such as applications and storage, available to the general public over the Internet. Public cloud services may be free or offered on a pay-per-usage model. Community cloud Community cloud shares infrastructure between several organizations from a specific community with common concerns (security, compliance, jurisdiction, etc.), whether managed internally or by a third-party and hosted internally or externally. The costs are spread over fewer users than a public cloud (but more than a private cloud), so only some of the benefits of cloud computing are realized. Hybrid cloud Hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together, offering the benefits of multiple deployment models. It can also be defined as multiple cloud systems that are connected in a way that allows programs and data to be moved easily from one deployment system to another. Private cloud Private cloud is infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, whether managed internally or by a third-party and hosted internally or externally. They have attracted criticism because users "still have to buy, build, and manage them" and thus do not benefit from lower up-front capital costs and less hands-on management, essentially "[lacking] the economic model that makes cloud computing such an intriguing concept" Advantages/positives - Currently these include: 1. Dynamism - providing the ability to expand and contract as requirements arise. This benefit adds saleability to your online system which previously was only available to big organizations. 2. Ease of implementation means it should be quicker to develop. 3. Automated - so software updates and upgrades are automatically completed. 4. Incremental payments so no large initial outlay. Disadvantages/negatives - Currently these include: 1. Software update/patches - could change security settings, assigning privileges too low, or even more alarmingly too high allowing access to your data by other parties. 2. Security concerns. Experts claim that their clouds are 100% secure - but it will not be their head on the block when things go awry. It's often stated that cloud computing security is better than most enterprises. Also, how do you decide which data to handle in the cloud and which to keep to internal systems - once decided keeping it secure could well be a full-time task. 3. Control of your data/system by third-party. Data - once in the cloud always in the cloud! Can you be sure that once you delete data from your cloud account will it not exist anymore or will traces remain in the cloud? 4. Law is lagging behind: could take many more years before required legal matters emerge. 5. Policy issue: dependent upon data gathered it may be illegal to export out of the country (Europeans within the EEC). This may not be an issue if the location of the cloud data centre is within the same country. What about their backups, where are these sent? It could be streamed off shore, meaning the eventual location of your data is not within your own country. 6. Latency (if the cloud data centre is located off shore) client connection time to your data may not be as fast as you envisaged. 7. Risks from third-party providers: downtime, speed of infrastructure. 8. Implementation: data integration issues are rife due to the difficulties in managing relationships, and for most the default server setup is the only option. 9. Costs can spiral quickly if usage becomes greater than projections. Also, if an account becomes compromised or hacked and then used for illegal file-sharing the costs of the bandwidth usage and processor time could escalate to extreme amounts within hours. B. For most businesses, there are a variety of requirements for information. Senior managers need information to help with their business planning. Middle management needs more detailed information to help them monitor and control business activities. Employees with operational roles need information to help them carry out their duties. As a result, businesses tend to have several "information systems" operating at the same time. There are different stages involved in ICT system development: problem identification, feasibility study, requirements analysis, design, development and testing, implementation, post implementation and maintenance. Stages of the chosen model are clearly defined, having a start and finish and therefore the stages can be 'signed off' by the user as compete. .The main kinds of information systems in business are described briefly below: Executive Support Systems An Executive Support System ("ESS") is designed to help senior management make strategic decisions. It gathers analyses and summarizes the key internal and external information used in the business. A good way to think about an ESS is to imagine the senior management team in an aircraft cockpit - with the instrument panel showing them the status of all the key business activities. ESS typically involves lots of data analysis and modeling tools such as "what-if" analysis to help strategic decision-making. Management Information Systems A management information system ("MIS") is mainly concerned with internal sources of information. MIS usually take data from the transaction processing systems and summarize it into a series of management reports. MIS reports tend to be used by middle management and operational supervisors. Decision-Support Systems Decision-support systems ("DSS") are specifically designed to help management make decisions in situations where there is uncertainty about the possible outcomes of those decisions. DSS comprise tools and techniques to help gather relevant information and analyze the options and alternatives. DSS often involves use of complex spreadsheet and databases to create "what-if" models. Knowledge Management Systems Knowledge Management Systems ("KMS") exist to help businesses create and share information. These are typically used in a business where employees create new knowledge and expertise - which can then be shared by other people in the organization to create further commercial opportunities. Good examples include firms of lawyers, accountants and management consultants. KMS are built around systems which allow efficient categorization and distribution of knowledge. For example, the knowledge itself might be contained in word processing documents, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations Internet pages or whatever. To share the knowledge, a KMS would use group collaboration systems such as an intranet. Transaction Processing Systems As the name implies, Transaction Processing Systems ("TPS") are designed to process routine transactions efficiently and accurately. A business will have several (sometimes many) TPS; for example: 1. Billing systems to send invoices to customers 2. Systems to calculate the weekly and monthly payroll and tax payments 3. Production and purchasing systems to calculate raw material requirements 4. Stock control systems to process all movements into, within and out of the business Office Automation Systems Office Automation Systems are systems that try to improve the productivity of employees who need to process data and information. Perhaps the best example is the wide range of software systems that exist to improve the productivity of employees working in an office (e.g. Microsoft Office XP) or systems that allow employees to work from home or whilst on the move Question 2. Information has emerged as an agent of integration and the enabler of new competitiveness for today’s enterprise in the global marketplace. However, has the paradigm of strategic planning changed sufficiently to support the new role of information systems and technology? Review of the literature for commonly used or representative information planning methodologies found that a new approach is needed. There are six methodologies reviewed in this paper. They all tend to regard planning as a separate stage which does not connect structurally and directly to the information systems development. An integration of planning with development and management through enterprise information resources - which capture and characterize the enterprise – will shorten the response cycle and even allow for economic evaluation of information system investment. The task of strategic information systems planning is difficult and often time organizations do not know how to do it. Strategic information systems planning is a major change for organizations, from planning for information systems based on users’ demands to those based on business strategy? Also strategic information systems planning changes the planning characteristics in major ways. For example, the time horizon for planning changes from 1 year to 3 years or more and development plans are driven by current and future business needs rather than incremental user needs. Increase in the time horizon is a factor which results in poor response from the top management to the strategic information systems planning process as it is difficult to hold their attention for such a long period. Vitale, et al. (1986) classifies SISP methodologies into two categories: impact and alignment. Impact methodologies help create and justify new uses of IT, while the methodologies in the “alignment” category align IS objectives with organizational goals. 1. Impact Methodologies 1.1 Value Chain Analysis: The concept of value chain is considered at length by Michael Porter (1984). According to him, ‘every firm is a collection of activities that are performed to design, produce, and market, deliver, and support its product. All these activities can be represented using a value chain.’ Porter goes on to explain that information technology is one of the major support activities for the value chain. “Information systems technology is particularly pervasive in the value chain, since every value activity creates and uses information. A firm that can discover a better technology for performing an activity than its competitors thus gains competitive advantage. 1.2Critical Success Factor Analysis: Critical success factors analysis can be considered to be both an impact as well as an alignment methodology. Critical Success Factors (CSF) in the context of SISP are used for interpreting more clearly the objectives, tactics, and operational activities in terms of key information needs of an organization and its managers and strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s existing systems. Rockart (1979) defines critical success factors as being ‘for any business the limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization.’ 2. Alignment Methodologies 2.1Business Systems Planning (BSP): This methodology, developed by IBM, combines top down planning with bottom up implementation. The methodology focuses on business processes which in turn are derived from an organization’s business mission, objectives and goals. Business processes are analyzed to determine data needs and, then, data classes. Similar data classes are combined to develop databases. The final BSP plan describes an overall information systems architecture as well as installation schedule of individual systems. 2.2 Strategic Systems Planning (SSP): A business functional model is defined by analyzing major functional areas of a business. Data architecture is derived from the business function model by combining information requirements into generic data entities and subject databases. B) The Balanced Scorecard Approach would be best for a large international business. The balanced scorecard is a multifaceted evaluation tool that combines both financial and non financial factors to measure company performance. Based on their experience, Robert Kaplan and David Norton developed the approach around the idea that impressive financial returns are only one of the important factors to consider when assessing the success of a business. A balanced scorecard evaluation should take into account a range of objectives in different categories, including both leading and lagging indicators. A sample scorecard is provided below. Question 3 A project is an investment activity where we expend capital resources to create a producing asset from which we can expect to realize benefits over an extended period of time. Or a project is an activity on which we will spend money in expectation of returns and which logically seems to lend itself to planning, financing and implementation as a unit. A project should have the following characteristics. 1. It should have a specific starting point and specific ending point. 2. Its major costs and returns are measurable 3. It should have a specific geographic location 4. It should have a specific clientele group 5. It should have a well-defined time sequence of investment and production activities. The project evaluation process requires information that has not been well defined by project specific information structures developed in previous information modeling efforts. Broadly speaking, evaluations may use either quantitative or qualitative methods, or a mix of the two. As a starting point it is useful to consider what sources of data are, or might be, available to the evaluation. Bear in mind that you may want to use at least three different methods in order to 'triangulate' your findings - in other words, to see how one set of data supports (or not) another. There are many different ways of categorizing evaluations. Evaluation findings may be designed (and used) to make a judgment about a system or service, or one of its components; to provide a basis for making improvements; or simply to generate knowledge. One way of categorizing evaluation, which is particularly useful when working with projects and programmes, is by its relationship to the state of development of the project/programme itself. Thus formative evaluation concentrates on ways of improving a project or a programme while it is still ongoing; summative evaluation is undertaken after the project or programme has been completed and judges its overall effectiveness (IRMAIC 22). A useful distinction is that formative evaluations are usually intended for the project/programme participants while summative evaluations are intended for an external audience. Therefore it is important to us dollar based evaluation Techniques for information systems project proposals since it is universally acceptable and easily understood. B. People may be paying you or investing a great amount of time in helping you and want a specific problem solved. They may have strong opinions about how to frame that problem. This should not narrow your focus too much. Some top managers may not be willing to spend more or may want to frustrate the IT manager on the introduction of the new network. Therefore the IT manager should address the following factors in the project proposal of a new network to avoid rejections by the top management. 1. Is the problem sufficiently important to justify money, company time, and your effort? 2. Is the project well defined and realistic? 3. Have you outlined a sound approach, including your ability to perform the tasks? Also, he/she should briefly outline 1. the specific objectives of project, 2. Technical approach to be used in developing the new network. 3. the anticipated results of the project B. challenges of implementing Information systems. Ignorance about the importance of and need for ICTs which makes even those rich enough to acquire them apathetic to ICTs;   general poverty which leads to the perception of computers, for example, as alien and luxury acquisitions;   poor maintenance and repair culture in which spare parts and technical ‘experts’ from the manufacturers are imported whenever the technologies break down; this leads to waste of resources, time and money;   poor infrastructural support base; examples include inefficient electricity and telephone systems;   lack of support from the government leading to underfunding of science and technology programmes in tertiary institutions;   illiteracy and lack of basic computing skills; these two points are closely related and it follows that where government is apathetic to the need for ICTs, the educational institutions will not be provided with adequate funds to acquire and teach these technologies;   lack of a science and technology policy; this has consequences at two levels – lack of policy impedes the growth and development of a culture of science and technology, and also, at the educational level, downplays the significance of science and technology in the perception of students); and   The absence of democracy which feeds political unrest and the unwillingness of foreign investors to invest in the area of ICTs.   Perception of the technologies (example, computer) as a status symbol or statement of one’s hierarchy in society.   Question 4 A Technology affects almost every aspect of our lives. Just look around you and you'll see how wired we are. Thanks to the Internet, virtually anything you desire can be delivered to your door in a matter of days. Personal information is more accessible over the Internet as well. You can even trade stocks or file taxes online. Parents don't need to lose sleep waiting for their teenage daughter to come home -- they can just call her cell phone, or send an unobtrusive text, to check up. But as much as our personal lives have changed, the business world has revolutionized almost beyond recognition in the past few decades. Technology -- and we mean the advances in communication and information technology -- has changed the face and the pace of business. As communication and information travels faster and faster, the world seems smaller and smaller, and this has large implications for the way we conduct business (Barlow 8). Storing important in files on a computer rather than in drawers, for instance, has made information easily accessible. Using e-mail allows businesses to communicate and send these files quickly to remote locations outside of an office. Many argue technology has blurred the line between professional and private lives. Wireless Internet, cell phones and Blackberries have made it easy to work from home -- or for that matter, from the beach. The fact that it's easy to work from the beach compels people to do so. On the flip side, people also feel compelled to use Internet access at work for personal reasons. In this way, technology allows workaholics to work and slackers to slack. So, exactly how has technology changed the way we do business? In countless ways, but we'll highlight the major ones on the next page. B. C. Strategic information systems are those computer systems that implement business strategies; they are those systems where information services resources are applied to strategic business opportunities in such a way that the computer systems have an impact on the organization’s products and business operations. Strategic information systems are always systems that are developed in response to corporate business initiative. The ideas in several well-known cases came from information Services people, but they were directed at specific corporate business thrusts. In other cases, the ideas came from business operational people, and Information Services supplied the technological capabilities to realize profitable results. References Barlow, J.F., “Putting information systems planning methodologies into perspective,” Journal of systems management, 1990, pp. 6-9. Information Resources Management Association International Conference (IRMAIC), 1995, Atlanta, Georgia, May 21-24, Read More