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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Objectives of the study
-
ObjectivesMethodsOutput
- To establish the extend at which cloud computing has been implemented in counties
QuestionnairesInterviews
- To investigate critical success factor for adoption of cloud computing
QuestionnairesInterviewsIdentify key underlying issues that need to be adhered before going cloud- To develop a framework for adoption of public cloud by the county government
QuestionnairesInterviewsDevelop guidelines for adoption of cloud computing
- 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?
- 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,
- 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
- Assumptions
- Scope of the study
The scope of the study will be
limited to two counties; Uasin-Gishu and Baringo Counties.
- 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.
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