Cloud based Solution for Network IT Company

Learning Outcomes: At the end of the assignment, student should be able:

• To explain the phases of transition from classic data center to virtual data center and then to the Cloud
• To describe virtualization technology at compute, storage, network, desktop, and application layers of IT infrastructure
• Explain the key characteristics, services, and deployment models of Cloud
• Describe the Cloud infrastructure components and service management processes

Company Name: Mideast Medical Inc.  (Choose any IT Company)

Challenges Faced by Mideast Medical Inc.

Background

Mideast Medical Inc. was founded in 1998 to deliver a wide variety of healthcare and information technology services to its client's including home health agencies, hospitals, and other health-care providers in a cost-effective manner. The company focuses on the home health and hospice industry, offering services such as systems development; training and support; billing, collecting, and other financial processes and consulting.

In order to provide central management and also communication facilities between branches, high speed leased lines were rented from Telecommunication Company. In this way all-financial tasks like billing, payrolls, etc. as well as administrative jobs could be handled from the central branch.

As the number of customers grew, several issues were raised and have been taken into consideration (e.g. increasing the number of employees and Quality of Service, customer satisfaction, complicated administrative tasks, business continuity, and high availability, reduces IT costs, lowered power costs and a more sustainable enterprise). This requires huge investment in terms of both the capital the manpower and caused serious problemsfor Mideast Company. The top management of the company decided to optimize the IT infrastructure and its services related to network and communications. One of the solution proposed was to outsource company's network and infrastructure services. They reduced the number of manpower and suggested the following changes:

- Current latest technologies should be implemented and installed to reduce the cost of branch communication.

- Services to personal users should become online and accessible from anywhere.

- Online services will be extended from nationally to internationally, so appropriate techniques and methodologies should be defined.

- Since the volume of communications and service requests are increasing every day, it is necessary to combine branch resources in an integrated manner for further services.

- Online services should be able to continue its operation on 24/7 bases without interruption.

- Proper backup and recovery strategies needed to be developed and applied in the system.

- New solutions should be as much cost effective as possible.

As their network consultant, your team was given approximately 5 weeks to complete this assignment, which includes coming out with a strategy and a complete plan for improving the overall services of the organization to satisfy the customer demands.

Existing Technology

Network Connectivity

- LAN and WAN connection for office automation with bus/star topology used with Ethernet LAN transmission medium.

Applications

- All applications used in branches are dedicatedly designed for administrative tasks.

- All services are offered through a web server located at central branch.

Individual Deliverables (Research & Documentation by individual members)

1. Corporate communication using new cloud based infrastructure, i.e. transition from older IT infrastructure to virtual data center and then to the Cloud.

2. Type of cloud used, type of services that need to be migrated to cloud, cloud migration process including Virtualization with all hardware, software and architecture requirement, plus cost benefits.

3. Backup and Recovery plan.

Notes:

All sections above should include proper evaluation of alternatives.

An effort to ensure there is standardization must be indicated in all designs.

Use appropriate diagrams wherever possible to illustrate your proposals.