Reference no: EM13312513

Companies often have "testimonials" from their favorite or happy customers but often times it's more like a commercial; the benefit of digging in more with a case study is that sometimes you can find out more of the full picture: the benefits and drawbacks, expectations vs reality, etc.

Your assignment is to write a 2 - 3 page single spaced (or 4-6 double spaced) paper that resembles a case study; your options are:
(Option #1)You need to find someone who has good knowledge of the cloud implementation details for a company or organization (we will refer to them as "subject"). Ideally this "subject" could be the company you work for now or previously worked for, or a company that a friend or relative works for, or the university department that you are affiliated with or are interested in, or even a community group. There might be some details the "subject" can't discuss due to confidentiality, but you should be able to gather enough general information without compromising their business information if that is a concern of theirs. I would recommend you try to find a match for the portion of the cloud that interests you (ie: a system or network administrator will have different cloud responsibilities than someone using a cloud to do scientific research).

List some information about the company, but be general if you have to, such as "Large Storage Company", or "Scientific Startup" (ask if they would prefer their company name not be used). A primary goal is to find out what type of cloud they are using: are they deployment or service models and which specific types. Is their cloud internal or external? How long did it take them to decide what model to use and has it met their expectations; are they using anything from Google, Amazon, Azure, or others? Are they providing their own applications for their customers to use or are they just using the cloud for themselves? Have they found it easier or more difficult than they expected? How was cost a factor in their decision to use the cloud? Have there been any surprises? Also, go through the various sections in Chapters 1 and 3 (Cloud Computing Bible) to see what other information you can ask them about and apply that to the case study: for example, are the benefits and disadvantages mentioned in the book the same ones they mention? Do they expect to expand their use of cloud technology in the future? Has it affected their bottom line in either a positive or negative way? Page 26 lists the "Top 10 adopters of cloud computing", does this company fall into one of these categories? There are plenty of questions you could ask, just be creative.

(Option #2)Another possibility is to talk with a "subject" that is creating a technology that is or will be used in the cloud. It could be something like a low level provisioning technology that deals with storage, systems, networks, etc, or it could be something like a build and boot manager that helps is dealing with various hardware or VMs and being able to install various operating systems on them, or it could be open source technology such as Eucalyptus or OpenStack, etc., or it could be Virtualization software. If your "subject" works on a technology like this, then some of the same questions above would apply, such as what types of clouds is their technology deployed with and how is it or will it be use, what are the benefits/drawbacks for using such a technology, who are the main competitors, etc.