Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management Of Amazon Web Services

Question: 1. Discuss the requirements for remote administration, resource management and SLA management. It may be useful to consider Morad and Dalbhanjans operational checklists for DSIs OSDS. This section should be no more than two to three pages in length. 2. Discuss briefly how you will consider application resilience, backup and disaster recovery for your chosen provider in relation to OSDS. This section should be no more than two to three pages in length. 3. Use Erls SLA guidelines to assess the SLA for your chosen provider. This section should be no more than two to three pages in length. 4. Provide a covering one to two page executive summary of these two assessments to DSI Executive Management and summarise the major opportunities and risks that have been identified in your assessments. Answer: Executive Summary This paper is aimed at introducing and presenting the main drivers of resource administration, resource management, SLA management, application resilience, back-up and disaster discovery. Erls guideline to assessing SLA is discussed in reference to Amazon Web Services. This study captures a number of concepts. Methods of controlling computers controlling from a central location are discussed in details i.e. the remote administration. The structure of a remote administration is summarized in this study. It captures the necessary requirements to carry out remote administration effectively which included internet and connection. The common tasks for a remote administration are viewed in details capturing aspects such as modification and access of peripherals. A popular task for remote administration known as hacking is also viewed in details and how it can affect remote administration. Remote administration software that is currently used wireless devices such as palm devices and mobile phones are studied (Wireless Remote Administration). Resource Management and Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management requirements are tackled in the research. The structures of Resource Management and SLA Management are studied and an overview is provided. SLA is viewed as a contract between its service providers and the customers that are specified. The service providers are penalized if they cannot meet their committed goals. Resource management involves effective development of the resources of the organization when the need exists. The resources may include human skills, resources on finance, or IT. A summary of the applications of resilience, back-up and disaster discovery is given in this context. The study also uses Erls guidelines to assess SLA in reference to the given case study, Amazon Web Services. A summary is then provided on the opportunities and risks that have been identified in the study. SLA Assessment of Amazon Web Services Requirements for a Remote Administration Remote Administration is defined as a procedural or method of directing, controlling of computing devices from some remote location. This process always involves the use of some software that has been already developed to suit this process. Such software that allows control from some remote location are increasingly common in the modern world and it is often used globally when being near a system in order to use it physically is either impractical or difficult. Patel, P., Ranabahu, A. H., Sheth, 2009, p.123) However, it is also important to be noted that remote administration may be either legal or illegal e.g. hacking. Malicious computer programs such as the Trojan have been developed by hackers which actually leads the users of the true intent that they actually need to gain. Hackers have developed a hacking system known as owned, this actually originated from the early 1990s. Owned involves rooting or gaining administrative authority and control over another individuals computer (Patel, Ranabahu, Sheth, 2009, p.64). Hacking, therefore, is a serious problem to the remote administration that needs to be dealt with in order to experience the best remote administration. The various requirements for a remote administration include; Internet Connectivity For a computing device to be remotely controlled, an internet connection, either on Local Area Network (LAN) or TCP/IP is required. Both the systems that need to be remotely controlled must be connected to a source of internet and the IP address of the server system/host must be known in order to administer effectively. Server Software Remote administration is aimed at providing non-malicious administration. In order to provide this, users need to install or enable server software on the server or host system. This will enable the user to access the host system/server from another computer using the software installed. Requirements for Resource Management and SLA Management Resource management in organizational studies usually refers to the effective and efficient development of the resources when such organizations are in need of them. The organization may be in need of such resources as; inventory, IT, human skills, resources of financing or production resources (Liu, Ngu, Zeng, 2004, p.134). Some of the various requirements for a successful resource management may include; Resource Management Software These are instructions /tools that automate and assist in the process of resource allocation. This will clearly help the organization to clearly know and understand the number of employees with the skills that are required. This also helps the organization to ensure that the workforce is allocated on the various projects within the organization Resource Leveling This technique aims at reducing shortages and inventories that are in excess. It also helps to smooth resources that are at hand. The main aim of resource management is to ensure maximum utilization of both the resources and the workforce that are available within the organization. Service Level Agreement (SLA) refers to a contract that exists between a service provider and the end user (clients) that defines the standards and levels of service that the end user should expect from the service provider. They specifically define what the customer will receive from the service provider. SLA may either be from an external or internal provider. SLA provided by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) represents a basic example from an external provider (Buyya, Yeo, Venugopal, 2008, p.223). Application Resilience Generally, application resilience is defined as the vibrancy of an application to react to problems and challenges of its components and still remain the best service provider (Amazon, 2015, p.43). AWS will actually need resilient applications to rapidly continue with software implementation over multi-tier, multiple technology infrastructures. Multiple degrees of technology environments tend to have failures and security issues, its, therefore, important to test the resilience of an application. When the resilience is tested there will provision of ability to check the following; Security and Privacy Issues Amazon Web Service (AWS) requires continuous maintenance of its security systems in order to provide quality services. An application that is resilient will help it maintain security issues that may arise due to hacking and other malicious practices. Scalability This means the capacity fluctuation or responsiveness. Amazon Web Service needs a resilient application that is highly responsive to change that may be needed on the systems. The application should be able to cope with such changes as web maintenance or system maintenance without experiencing any breakdowns. Risk to business Amazon Web Service will need an application with the least risk to all organization when there is a failure of such applications may be when running updates. Application Backup and Disaster Recovery In IT, back-up simply means copying and archiving data to enable its usage to restore the original data after an event of losing such data. The prime purpose of back-up is to enable one to restore data after deletion or corruption (Terry, Prabhakaran, Kotla, Balakrishnan, Aguilera, Abu-Libdeh, 2013, p.113) Amazon Web Service tends to handle a lot of data within their systems. This data may be accidentally lost due to accidental deletion or corruption of the original files, it is, therefore, necessary for AWS to continuously backup their data so as to avoid loss of their material data. Disaster recovery in IT refers to procedural strategies and policies that have been set in place by an organization to enable recovery or existence of material information. It is, therefore, crucial for Amazon Web Services to actually, come up with strategies that will enable them to carry out disaster recovery (Zheng, Lyu, 2012, p.101). This together with application back-up will enable Amazon Web Service to minimize the risk of losing crucial information to the organization by hacking, deletion or corruption of files. IT disaster recovery control measures to be strategized by Amazon Web Service should be classified into corrective, preventive, and detective. Earls Guidelines Earls guidelines are simply the standards of Service Level Agreement that are acceptable globally and recommended. Some of these deployed in Amazon Web Service include; Neutrality to Technological changes. Cloud computing services are flexibility and extensibility for which neutralization of technology is essential. This simply means that an SLA needs to be flexible and be able to move to all extents of technological development. This is stipulated on the neutrality of technology. Amazon Web Service needs to implement SLAs that can easily neutralize with the changes in technology. AWS needs to provide SLAs that are flexible and non-rigid when a change in technology is essential. Applicability The guidelines outlines that the SLAs should not only be acceptable in one country or just or region but across the globe. Internet service is a channel where communication is always done globally; it is equally built on standards that are owed respect globally. The same way, cloud services have audience worldwide ranging from NGOs to small businesses. Amazon web Services tends to provide a cloud computing service that accounts for national and local legislations, policies and laws that everyone can benefit from all over the world. Conformance Earls guidelines stipulate that SLAs should be neutral when it comes to business model. Under this provision, the cloud SLAs are required not to mandate a specific approach for a given concept. The Cloud Service providers are, therefore, required to fully document their approach towards achieving Service Level Objectives (SLOs) for every concept that is listed in their cloud SLA based on the standard vocabulary and concept. Amazon Web Service clearly documents their SLA and their Service Level Objectives are listed in a standard vocabulary and methods of achieving every concept are given. Informative SLA Recommended standards provide it that the SLA of a cloud service provider should more of informative and not just provide its structure but instead, they should be illustrative and specific on concepts that need to be addressed. Material information on the SLA should be provided and not just its structure. (Younis, Kifayat, 2013, p.314) Amazon Web Service gives detailed information on SLA based on their provision of cloud service provision. Thus, they conform to the standards of giving an informative SLA. Summary A number of opportunities and risks have been observed in the operation of a cloud computing service. Operating a cloud computing service may be of help and at the same time, it may be associated with various risks. Some of these include; There is a high risk of loss of information due to hacking and other malicious practices. Frequent maintenance and surveillance is therefore, necessary in order to reduce the risk of losing information. There is an opportunity for operating at lower IT costs. Organizations can rent added server space rather than be maintaining servers without being worried of upgrading their resources when a new application version is available. Availability of information and success of the business is at risk. Business continuity is risked in the cloud computing environment since internet connectivity may frequently be lost. Reference Amazon, E. C. (2015). Amazon web services. Buyya, R., Yeo, C. S., Venugopal, S. (2008, September). Market-oriented cloud computing: Vision, hype, and reality for delivering it services as computing utilities. In High Performance Computing and Communications, 2008. HPCC'08. 10th IEEE International Conference on (pp. 5-13). Ieee. Casalicchio, E., Silvestri, L. (2013). Mechanisms for SLA provisioning in cloud-based service providers. Computer Networks, 57(3), 795-810. Liu, Y., Ngu, A. H., Zeng, L. Z. (2004, May). QoS computation and policing in dynamic web service selection. In Proceedings of the 13th international World Wide Web conference on Alternate track papers posters (pp. 66-73). ACM. Ercolani, G. (2013). Cloud Computing Services Potential Analysis. An integrated model for evaluating Software as a Service. Cloud Computing, 77-80. Patel, P., Ranabahu, A. H., Sheth, A. P. (2009). Service level agreement in cloud computing. Raimondi, F., Skene, J., Emmerich, W. (2008, November). Efficient online monitoring of web-service SLAs. In Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of software engineering (pp. 170-180). ACM. Subashini, S., Kavitha, V. (2011). A survey on security issues in service delivery models of cloud computing. Journal of network and computer applications, 34(1), 1-11. Terry, D. B., Prabhakaran, V., Kotla, R., Balakrishnan, M., Aguilera, M. K., Abu-Libdeh, H. (2013, November). Consistency-based service level agreements for cloud storage. In Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (pp. 309-324). ACM. Younis, M. Y. A., Kifayat, K. (2013). Secure cloud computing for critical infrastructure: A survey. Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom, Tech. Rep. Zhang, Q., Cheng, L., Boutaba, R. (2010). Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research challenges. Journal of internet services and applications, 1(1), 7-18. Zheng, Z., Lyu, M. R. (2012). Optimal fault tolerance strategy selection for web services. Web Service Composition and New Frameworks in Designing Semantics: Innovations: Innovations, 218.