Tuesday 23 April 2013

Cloud computing adoption by county governments


INVESTIGATION OF CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR ADOPTION OF PRIVATE CLOUD FOR USE BY KENYA COUNTY GOVERNMENTS






BENARD KIPRONO KOECH










A Research Proposal Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment for the Requirements of the Master of Science in Information Technology Degree of Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology












APRIL 2013







DECLARATION

Candidate
I declare that this research proposal is original and has not been published or/and submitted for any other degree award in any other university. No part of this proposal may be reproduced without the prior written permission of the author and/or MMUST
Benard Kiprono Koech

Signature ………………………………………………. Date…………………………….

Approval
This research proposal has been submitted with my/our approval as University supervisor(s)

Mr. Waliaro Apollo Madi
Chairman, (Dept. of Computer Science Department)
MMUST

Signature……………………………………………………Date…………………………

ABSTRACT


In the recent past, the rise of technologies has been rapid. The rate at which technology is growing has raised an alarm of adoption in almost every industry. This is associated with the benefits that come with the technological changes. Cloud computing has taken center stage in developed countries whereas developing countries are struggling to understand and adopt the technology. Cloud computing is one of the technologies on the rise. It entails the use of hardware and software resources that are always delivered as a service over a network. Clouds offer tremendous value to business, organizations and public sector in terms of cost saving, elasticity among other benefits. This approach of going cloud has proved to be effective and efficient in terms of information sharing and resource allocation. Its deployment models transform the way an organizations infrastructure is being handled. The public sector has always looked for ways of cutting costs while providing quality services for the clients. They have been forced to streamline the operations so as to adjust costs. However, the option of going cloud has not been implemented in the day to day government operations. Kenyan recently promulgated a new constitution which has a different ways of dispensation. The county government functions as a sub government of the national government. And since the counties are independent in running their day to day management, it is highly advisable that they implement cloud computing so as to cut cost and increase efficiency and effectiveness. This research therefore seeks to investigate critical factors that would lead to creation and use of cloud computing in the Kenyan counties.

TABLE OF CONTENTS



LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF FIGURES
ACCRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

CC Cloud Computing
IaaS Infrastructure as a service
PaaS Platform as a service
SaaS Software as a service
IT
CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION


    1. Introduction
Cloud computing, also referred to as grid computing by others, is simply defined as the use of computing resources delivered as a service by a separate entity or provider. Individuals interact with the resources using devices such as laptops and desktops. The name cloud is derived from the shape of the cloud but as used, it’s an abstraction of the complex infrastructure it contains. It is thought as client server architecture taken to the next level. Cloud computing has changed the way public and private business handle their daily delivery of services and the way they consume IT. Cloud computing offers three main deployment models as a service. Platform as a service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Each of the models offers a greater chance of dependability and cost reduction. PaaS provides
CC can futher be categorized as public, private, hybrid or community. In the public clouds, resources are made available to public by a service provider.
These kind of services are either offered at a fee as per use or freely. Access is always over the internet and the providers usually own and operate the infrastructure. Most of the public cloud providers include Google, Microsoft and Amazon. Public cloud offers various advantages; cost saving, efficiency and effectiveness. The availability of this platform makes it the most desired and thus therefore Counties can implement public clouds. Cloud is always accessible anywhere as long as you have the correct credentials and internet access. Instead of counties buying numerous hardware and software as we expect them to buy, it is highly advisable that they invest in the clouds.
All the required resources will be available and can be accessed through a self-service portal. Such resources include, applications, storage and development platforms which can be shared by multiple customers. This kind of model will cut down on vendor costs.
Cloud computing also comes with the advantage of simple scalability. You find that in today’s organizations, the bandwidth is becoming smaller as the network traffic is increasing. With a cloud platform, managers can simply increase or add the capacity without going through the long procurement processes. The labor will also be optimized in that it doesn’t need a lot of commissioning as opposed to the conventional infrastructure. The IT staff can be directed to attend to other technical and critical issues rather than working on their routine maintenance tasks. The fact that cloud is location independent makes it the most desired technology in that pooled resources can be accessed anywhere and thus cost and energy reduction. In the public sector, many of the resources are poorly utilized. Equipment is always duplicated between departments. This can be put to end by sharing applications, storage, computation and power. Various software vendors have increasingly continued to develop and deploy their products on the virtual machines. This reduces those workloads that would be assigned to system administrators like testing and deploying of the software.
Cloud security is has raised concerns over a time, It has slowed the implementation of cloud computing. According to June 2009, the logging and auditing controls provided by somevendors are not yet as robust as the logging providing within enterprises and enterprise applications. In respect to the governmment that lack of regualtion and compliance standard some of the main causes of concern. There’s no clear cut policy on cloud computing use and adoption by government institutions. Adopting cloud computing will provide a potential of promoting e-goverment strategy. The cloud can be tailored to meet high security requirements such as multi level passwords for various users or authorities.The use of cloud services by the counties should be based on promotion of a responsible use, adherence to legal framwork and creation of goverment dedicated clouds.
A project called Government Unified Communication System, it is stated that all governement officess will be connected using 10,438 Telephony endpoints which connects 37 offices. The project expected to be completed at the end of this year, 2013. However, they are facing many challenges among them is LAN upgrades to fit the new features, installation of network management applications, building of data center, interconnecting various ministries in various bulidings and data back up is seemingly costly. Cloud computing offers, without the afore mentioned challenges the desired goals the Kenyan government wants.
While cloud computing in Kenya is still new, there is a lot of activity in the ministry of information communications and technology concerning the adoption of Internet applications that will make use of cloud computing technologies. Many industries in Kenya have been seen to rush to roll out cloud computing technologies in their processes. Safaricom has taken steps ahead to roll out the commercialization of cloud services. Although this is the case, there is no framework that has been developed that will act as a guide. CC has the potential to support Internet applications that can be used to manage county and national governments. This research seeks to address the success factors in the creation and implementation of the cloud in county governments.

    1. Statement of the problem
While cloud computing has many advantages like scalability, agility, cost reduction, controlled costs, encryption among others, there has been slow response from the Kenyan government to adopt the technology. The fact that government offices are distributed, and that data sharing with relevant departments has been a problem, it continues to suffer from it while fearing to invest in the present technology. The failure to adopt and implement the technology is therefore raising the concern, why isn’t cloud computing implemented? Thus therefore, there’s need to look at the frameworks for implementation of cloud computing at the county government level.
    1. Aim of the study
The aim of this study is to develop a framework that will be used by the Kenyan counties during the implementation of clouding computing at the county level. Furthermore this study aims at identifying critical success factors that needs to be adhered to while implementing cloud computing at the county level.
    1. Objectives of the study
Objectives
Methods
Output
  1. To establish the extend at which cloud computing has been implemented in counties
Questionnaires
Interviews

  1. To investigate critical success factor for adoption of cloud computing
Questionnaires
Interviews
Identify key underlying issues that need to be adhered before going cloud
  1. To develop a framework for adoption of public cloud by the county government
Questionnaires
Interviews
Develop guidelines for adoption of cloud computing

    1. Research questions
What are the critical success factors are considered when cloud computing is implemented?
To what extent has cloud computing been implemented in county goverments?
What framework need to be used to key underlying issues when adopting cloud computing?

    1. Significance of the study
The significance of this research is that it seeks to address issues that the government and the counties need to consider so as to adopt the cloud technology. Furthermore, this research will develop a framework for the adoption of cloud computing by the county governments.
The research findings will help counties in the process of adopting, implementing and use of cloud computing. The technical team will not only benefit also from the framework on implementation but they will also enrich their knowledge on the findings. The findings will also be used as a source of knowledge to both people and organizations,

    1. Limitations of the study
As it stands, the limitations of this study is the extend at which cloud computing has been implemented in the country. Few organizations have fully adapted the technology of cloud computing and thus increasing the scope.
The few organizations that will be obtained may not be a true representation of the whole population

    1. Assumptions

    1. Scope of the study

The scope of the study will be limited to two counties; Uasin-Gishu and Baringo Counties.
    1. Definition of terms
LAN- Local area network
IaaS- Infrastructure as a service
PaaS- Platform as a service
SaaS- Software as a service
IT- Information Technology
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Cloud computing is internet based technology, which is used to provide resources over the internet via a computer network. These resources include platforms, infrastructure and services. Although there are many definitions from various sources, the core functionality of the cloud has been common. Cloud computing provides scalable, flexible and on demand services to the end users. This is achieved since the resources and storage are centralized. Cloud computing has brought about a turnaround in the computing world. It has brought about user decentralization whereby the users do no longer have to be more concerned of the physical location of the files and resources being shared. There have been also tendencies whereby people have confused cloud computing with the traditional web hosting. However, the concept of cloud computing is different in that it is distributed. Several instances can be running in different locations at the same time.
In order to clearly implement cloud computing in Kenyan government, a thorough investigation has to be done so that informed decisions are made. Thorough review needs to be carried out with the main focus being on cloud computing technologies and their implementation in other private or public sectors that have adopted cloud computing. In this chapter entails the advantages that come with implementing cloud computing by county governments. It will also focus on the extent in which cloud computing has been adopted in government offices, existing framework and theories. Finally, it will discuss on the proposed framework that will aid in the implementation and adoption of cloud computing.
2.2 Cloud computing structure

The most significant aspect of cloud computing is the advent of platforms. It enables developers to develop and upload their software that run on the cloud as well as they can use the available resources in the cloud. The technology behind this is known Platform as a service (PaaS). There is however many platforms of cloud computing today that facilities day to day operations of tasks like saving, processing, storage and retrieval. All this services are carried out in the cloud. It has three branches majorly Software as a Service, Platform as a service and Infrastructure as a service. These services are also known as deployment models and each defines and carries out a different role.

2.2.1 Software as a service (SaaS)
This is a model whereby a provider or vendor hosts applications or software. The software is always made available to the public through a network. This model has become a core underlying model for the support of service oriented architechures and also the support of web services. This layer is deemed the simplest layer because of its availability. It can be accessed through the internet everywhere. Examples of the most used SaaS include Google Apps.
2.1.2 Platform as a service (PaaS)
This is the second layer of the implementation model. It provides for users the ability to develop and deploy applications over the internet. It has a set of tools that helps the developer to build applications easily by using any number of servers. In this layer, the developers have the ability to choose the operating systems that they want to deploy their applications on. This models provides many services from which the user can choose from. A user can use existing set of applications via an interface. Developers and users do not need to install any applications but they rather need to just have connectivity to internet.
PaaS have preconfigured images for different firmware having different operating systems. In order to start developing applications in the cloud, users just choose from the images aavailable before they start.
2.2.3 Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
This is always the first layer of the model. This is the model that is responsible for the entire IT infrastructure like routing, switches, Virtual Machines, networking and connections. These resources can be easily obtained through this model. IaaS offers flexible and scalable infrastructure with rapid provisioning feature. Users do pay only for what they have used. This eliminates capital expenses and thus reducing the cost of capital expenses for organizations and businesses. IaaS brings to and the issue of infrastructure scarcity to an end. In many scenarios, the providers are responsible for maintaining the infrastructure and thus cutting down technical staff. The staff can also be directed to respond to other technical issues rather than the normal maintenance of IT resources.
References
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Cloud computing World Forum Africa. (2012). cloud computing, (pp. 23-30). johanns burg.
European Federation for Medical Informatics. (2011). User Centred Networked Health Care: Proceedings of Mie 2011. Volume 169 of Studies in Health Technology and Informatics Series (pp. 120 - 150). IOS Press, Incorporated.
Flexus Technologies. (2012, march). Cloud Computing Takes Centre Stage in Kenya . Retrieved July 11, 2012, from Flexus- Technologies_ cloud finance solutions: http://www.flexus-technologies.com/index.php/our-blog/83-cloud-computing-takes-centre-stage-in-kenya
Gillam, L. (2010). Cloud Computing: Principles, Systems and Applications. New York: Springer.
Government of the Republic of Kenya. (2007). The Vision 2030. The vision 2030 popular version . The Government of Kenya.
Halpert, B. (2011). Auditing cloud computing: A security and privacy guide. New York: John Wiley & Sons.




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