Questions we Can Help you to Answer

Paper Instructions:

For your midterm, you created a business that relied on selling its products or services online. The only system you needed at the time was the online platform to sell them.



However, your business has been very successful, with a revenue of one million dollars a year. This means that you might need to reshape your business and invest more on it.



Your original website solution was not able to handle the workload, so you decided to invest on a SuperMicro SuperServer 2028U-TR4T+ running Windows for an Apache Webserver, and a MySQL database. You hired a small consultant firm to create a database that handles your customers, orders, invoices and inventory, along with proprietary applications which interact with your Apache Webserver (for those students who decided to offer digital services, such as videogames, they are hosted in this server as well).



The system has been able to handle the load, but you have it sitting at home and you have noticed that it is getting very hot as the operations increase. In addition, consultants charge you $300 an hour, which makes it very expensive to maintain. To make things worse, you just learned that similar setups were hacked, and that viruses could infect Windows servers.



Based on the above, please create an IT strategy based on the following:

You can invest up to 25 percent of your current yearly revenue in your IT solution
You expect your business to triple in the next year
You will use a cloud based solution for most of your systems and applications
There is a platform independent AI application running on your current server, which allows you to perform data analytics on your customer base, for marketing purposes. You want to keep that one as it is in the same server, but you will move everything else out of it
From the above, notice you will keep one server in an on premise model.


IT Services

Find a datacenter which can host your server, and share how much would it cost per year (remember it may be based on the size of your server)
You will replace Windows with Linux. Which flavor would you select and why?
List all the applications and services your company need (at least you will have applications for customers, products, inventory, orders, and invoicing)
Determine whether the above will be offered as IaaS, PaaS or SaaS (Each service can use a different delivery model)
Why did you select that delivery model for your services (IaaS instead of SaaS, for example)?
Based on the delivery model for your services: which parts of the stack will you be responsible for? Who would be responsible for patching?
Determine which cloud vendors will host your services and why you selected them. (They can be hosted with different vendors, and they can be sold as different services)
If possible, share how much would each of those services cost
Do you need dedicated broadband for your line of business? If so, which vendor would you use and how much would it cost?
Does your cloud vendor provide assistance with migrating your services from your current solution to what you are about to acquire? If not, how will you do it?
Will you migrate all services at once? Would your migration be in parallel? Justify your answer
How will you plan for your expected growth?


Security

Which strategies will you use to protect your business from cyber threats?
Please identify which strategies will take place at the infrastructure or system design level, and which ones will take place at the end user level
How will you make sure your customer’s private and financial information are safe?


Disaster Recovery Planning

Select a DRP vendor that can adapt to your budget and strategy
Will you choose another cloud option? Do you prefer an alternate site? Please justify your answers


Implementation Timeline and Cost

Add a timeline (estimated), including but not limited to the following:
New system planning
New system design
Set up of the cloud environment
Testing
Migration
Go Live


Important: The questions act as a guide for your paper, but write it in an essay format



Bonus questions:

Explain which metrics you will use to monitor your system’s performance and why
Add a diagram of your complete solution


Please note the following:

The due date for the final paper is: Monday, December 3rd at 11:55pm
The paper must be between two and four pages long (including graphics), and can be single or double line. Cover page and references do not count towards the limit (you can have six pages: one cover, four pages for content, and one page for references)
Review your assignment thoroughly before sending it in. There will be no resubmissions.
As this is the final exam, papers will not be accepted past the due date.


Remember:

You must use the assignment template available in the Resources section of the classroom
Do not forget to add references. The list of references may be on a second page.
Your paper will be reviewed against plagiarism with Turnitin