Infrastructure and Security

Running head: ANALYTICS, INTERFACES, AND CLOUD TECHNOLOGY

ANALYTICS, INTERFACES, AND CLOUD TECHNOLOGY 8

Project Deliverable 4: Analytics, Interfaces, and Cloud Technology

Section 1: Design Document

Patrick B. Magee

Information Systems Capstone (CIS-499)

Mark O’Connell, Professor

February 21, 2015

Introduction

Business analytics involves the practice of iterative and methodological examination of business’s data with a special emphasis on statistical making. Business analytics help businesses to automate and optimize their businesses processes. Organizations in which data plays pivotal role treat their data as corporate assets and leverage it so as to gain competitive advantage. Successful business analytics typically depend on the data quality, highly experienced and skillful professionals who understand the organizations processes in depth. A business organization should also have a capable infrastructure so as to support the operations of the business analytics (Evans, 2014). As the CIO of my organization business analysis should be utilized for the following purposes:

· To explore data for the goal of finding patterns and trends

· To identify relationships in key data variables for forecasting, for instance, the next probable purchase by the customer.

· To drill down to the results so as to find out why a particular incident took place, this approach is performed through statistical analysis as well as qualitative analysis with the business analytical tools.

· To predict future results by employing predictive modeling as well as predictive analytics

· To test previous decisions by utilizing A/B and Multivariate testing

· To assist a business in decision making such as figuring out the amount of discount that is to be given to a new customer.

In analyzing business data, an analysis methodology needs to be selected and data acquired to support the analysis. The data acquisition normally involves extracting data from systems that may be spread throughout different facilities and locations. The data that is extracted is then cleansed and integrated into a single repository such as a data warehouse or a data mart. Since the data that is collected is extremely vast and large, the analysis cannot be performed on all data. This calls for a sampling method to be employed and analysis performed. The analytical tools ranges from commonly used spreadsheets coupled with other statistical functions or even more complex data mining as well as predictive modeling tools. After the trends, patterns, and relationships begin to uncover, new insights come into light, and the analytical process continues until all the business goals are met (Dill, 2012).

The IT world is ever changing and companies always have challenges that stress out the current generation of IT infrastructure to its limit. Even if spending big sums of money is a good way to overcome the challenges, it is not always a feasible solution. This is where cloud computing comes in since cloud computing technologies revolutionize the IT world by making computing ubiquitously available to leverage factors such as flexibility, storage capacity, agility, as well as redundancy in managing information assets. The use of the internet in the business world has enabled cloud computing to utilize the current infrastructure in a way that prove to be beneficial by saving costs as well as increasing efficiency. Organizations are now realizing that there are limitless potential that comes with cloud computing and are leveraging it to benefit both the customers and the businesses (Evans, 2014). As the CIO of this company, I will bring in business analytics tools for the following benefits:

· To achieve better awareness and knowledge in every business process.

· To understand the key stakeholders better

· For cost effective operations

· For timely response of customer’s needs for data availability

· For critical enterprise-wide-real-time information

· For improved competitiveness

Business analytics will be very beneficial to a company such as mine where business data plays a pivotal role by enabling the organization to have the right information at the right time. This will enable my organization to make sound decision quickly thereby gaining competitive advantage in the industry. However, the company should be able to choose an appropriate vendor which has the right solution for the company that will offer a variety of techniques and solutions for collection, analysis, clarification, interpretation of data in uncovering patterns, anomalies, variables leading to better insights and much informed decisions, as well a key relationships. The vendor chosen should also be able to bring strategic advice along with their services which is required so as to address the cultural, performance, and process issues of the business analytics (Dill, 2012).

Reasons for Cloud Computing Technologies

Cost Effective - Cloud computing will enable my organization to leverage the power of many powerful servers as well as robust industry proven platforms without serious financial commitments. However, there will be almost no maintenance and no upfront capital expenditure, these services are usually available on Pay-as-you-go basis and are highly customizable which will enable my company to pay for only those services that we may need.

Implementation- Cloud computing technologies are easier to implement and have very little or no implementation time where the services can be configured or deployed on a single day as most of its services utilize standard web browser.

Availability - Cloud computing services providers have the required infrastructure as well as available bandwidth so as to accommodate business requirements in providing high speed access and applications.

Resilience- Cloud service providers utilize a robust storage infrastructure as well as mirrored solutions which are very much applicable in disaster scenarios as well as for load balancing traffic. Disasters may be in any shape or form such as intrusion attempts, virus attacks, or even external disasters such as natural calamities. Cloud computing solutions have the resilience and capabilities to ensure sustainability through any unfortunate events that may occur in an organization.

Scalability - Cloud computing solutions are virtually limitless scalable and can shrink as well as expand based on the business requirements. Implementation and provisions are normally done on-demand that could handle unconditional traffic spikes as well as other urgent business needs.

Efficiency - Moving organizational business management to cloud based solutions will enable the business to realize tension on various operational activities enabling it to have more time and resources to focus on other aspects of business including innovations. This will enable my organization to grow as well as innovate, making cloud offerings to go beyond financial advantage.

Due to the above and many other reasons, I conclude that the Company should consider cloud computing solutions as an attractive potential solution that offers the enhancing of IT resources while at the same time controlling the investments in these fronts. However, the Company should not jump the ship without researching cloud offerings from various providers first since there are certain risks as well as security concerns brought upon by cloud computing solutions on top of its benefits. There will also be an increased dependency on the third-party service providers for many critical operations of the Company such that the Company should be able to make sure that the vendor is capable of providing fast, robust, flexible, as well as resilient services. This makes it easy to see why cloud computing solutions are attractive potential services.

Cloud computing solutions enhance IT resources while at the same time controlling costs. However, it is wise to notice that along with the benefits come the risks as well as security concerns that must be considered. Since the IT services are contracted outside the organization, there is also an added risk with the increased dependency on a third-party to supply flexible, resilient, available, as well as efficient IT services. Many business enterprises are accustomed to managing these kinds of risks in-house though changes are required in expanding governance approaches as well as structures to appropriately handle the new IT solutions and enhance business process analysis (Chandrasekaran, 2015).

I recommend IBM Smarter Analytics as the best analytical tool with cloud computing technology for my organization; the software is a renowned analytical tool that available in the market today. The software is developed and maintained by IBM and has a proven track record in the industry. It is also suitable for various types of industries and can integrate in nearly all business operations.

Appendix

Diagram to illustrate how Analytics and Cloud technology could align with the company’s business processes

References

Evans, J. R. (2014). Business analytics.

Ohri, A. (2014). R for cloud computing: An approach for data scientists.

Dill, J. (2012). Expanding the frontiers of visual analytics and visualization. London: Springer

Chandrasekaran, K. (2015). Essentials of cloud computing. London: Chapman & Hall.

Customer

Staff

Online forms

IT equipment

CustomerSEOVendors

Third IT parties

Payments

In-House IT

team

Private/

Public cloud

(Analytical

reports)

(Private cloud)

Data collection and web analytical records

(Public cloud)

Third party AaaS

applications

(Private cloud)

Computer resource (IT

infrastructure)

Cloud community