Reference no: EM13357429 , Length: 3 Pages

The cost of building and maintaining an organizational computing ecosystem has become a bigger part of most organizations' budgets. Organizations have been looking for ways to reduce this cost. One of the solutions has been to look to the delivery of computing as a service by outside vendors. The delivery and provisioning of computing as a service by vendors such as Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google, and many others is known as Cloud Computing.  There are public, private, and hybrid cloud computing environments. In this assignment, consider only the public cloud computing environments.

Cloud computing provides scalable computing resources, software applications, data storage, and networking infrastructure at cost below what would cost an organization to provide an equivalent infrastructure internally.

Write a two to three (2-3) page paper in which you:

1.      Describe the hardware, software, and network architectural design of the infrastructure used to build cloud computing infrastructures. Use Microsoft Visio to generate the architectural diagrams. Note: The graphically depicted solution is not included in the required page length.

2.      Compare and contrast scalability, disaster recovery, benefits, and opportunities for businesses when using cloud-based computing environments compared to a non-cloud-based environments.

3.      Analyze hardware virtualization (virtual machines, virtual desktops, and virtual networks) used by most Cloud Computing environments.

4.      Determine if you would prefer a virtualized environment to a non-virtualized environment for a midsized business or organization. Explain why or why not.

5.      Compare the cloud computing cost models used by Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azure.

6.      Choose the cloud computing cost model that you would use for a public cloud solution and support your selection.

7.      Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the professor's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.
• Include charts or diagrams created in Excel, Visio, MS Project, or one of their equivalents such as Open Project, Dia, and OpenOffice. The completed diagrams / charts must be imported into the Word document before the paper is submitted.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

• Demonstrate the importance of application maintenance for an organization.
• Demonstrate how processing and storage components communicate in a computing environment.
• Explain the types and role of distributed software architecture.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in computer architecture.
• Write clearly and concisely about computer architecture using proper writing mechanics and technical style conventions.