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As a medium sized business owner I would prefer to have a majority of our services hosted online. As covered in previous modules it typically proves cheaper to actually run most machines in a virtual environment and has its own security benefits as well. Saying that I would prefer to use virtual machines on each individual physical machine with a VM setup for every user. This would allow monitoring of every associate and insanely simple scalability for the company. One of the only services that I would try and keep in house would be the internal IT team as well as the helpdesk team. I believe having to wait on hold to get what is 90% of the time a very simple issue fixed can cost any company both time and money.

support:
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5951-workspace-virtualization.html

https://www.equivityva.com/virtualizing-your-office/

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My fictional Medium sized enterprise is a crypto currency investment firm. Microsoft Azure is the chosen hosting service for the VM that runs the block-chain indexing software. In addition, Azure services would be utilized to keep remote backups available. I would also utilize the services offered by Office 365 to handle email, chat, and document production services. The AD/domain/networking services and personnel services would be kept in house.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/#storage

https://research.binance.com/en/projects/the-graph

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IBM, we are all pretty familiar with the company, and they are no stranger to the cloud market. Operating in-house services can be expensive and it can be more efficient with the rapid implementation that cloud services can provide. A medium-sized business will have some assets to throw around for getting everything they will need to, the resources can be used better online than on-site. Reducing disruptions is something that every company wants to achieve but things can happen, and that is where the IBM cloud services can be used as a valuable business strategy. Microsoft’s Azure has plenty of cloud services that can be useful for most IT-related components and data management services.
For in-house services, I think continuing with Microsoft and what can be seamless with the Azure services for cloud-based applications but can all be done locally as well. There will always be some information that might be too sensitive to be used in the cloud, but then some will be put there at a later point. Keeping services together can make an easy transition when needed, but at the same time, allowing for others to remain offline.
https://www.ibm.com/services/cloud
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-offline-backup-with-azure-data-box-now-in-preview/

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Why Should My Business Care About Cloud Computing? (velocityconsultancy.com)
AWS: What Small Business Owners Need to Know - businessnewsdaily.com
What is Cloud Computing (amazon.com)

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For a medium sized business, I could see the entirety of an organization's or at the very least, most of it being hosted via the cloud. However, this would be completely dependent on the nature of the business. Different industries are going to have different standards for their data. For example, in the healthcare industry, patient confidentiality is critically important, so Networking and data storage might be hosted in house. However, in that same environment, emails, video conferencing could be virtualized. Google offers many cloud-based services for free, and has different tiers of product offering. The GSUITE can be used for emails, website hosting, file hosting, surveys, calendars, and even maps. Personally, my organization takes advantage of this suite with the ease of mind that our data infrastructure is sound. For data storage and processing solutions, we use AWS for an variety of purposes. For the all important and low-latency tolerance parts of our data, we have in-house servers that handle that side of things. I think that as time progresses, we will see more and more organizations that are able to survive and even thrive some small-to-mid/large size by being completely virtualized.

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/the-cloud-in-your-small-business-2951636

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I believe for most medium-sized enterprises it would be extremely beneficial to host most services in the cloud. This has the biggest impact in the financial aspect, since most cloud based services charge by usage. I would start with using the cloud for email and collaborative work, using software like Gsuite by Google. We utilize this at my work and the cloud storage with customizable permission is really valuable, along with the suite of office tools we are able to easily work together on a project. Additionally, anything that can be automated with a SaaS product would be ideal to put in the cloud so it can also be done remotely, like sales and customer relations. Another service that is more efficient using the cloud is team communication like Slack, a cloud based messaging app. By utilizing these cloud based solutions you can free up time so staff could work on impactful projects that can produce revenue. 




https://builtin.com/cloud-computing/cloud-computing-examples

https://www.monitis.com/blog/3-types-of-cloud-computing-services/

https://ontech.com/managed-services-vs-in-house-management/

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Supporting Links: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-azure/
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/azure/

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See discussion for post: Links below.

https://aws.amazon.com/

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If I were a medium-sized business I would choose AWS as my cloud choice as it is one of the most flexible and secure cloud computing environments available today with military-grade security protocols. There are over 175 various products available with a pay-as-you-go model so that payment is only for the services used. As for things stored in-house, I would choose to backup important data in case of the need for emergency restoration such as AD and DNS. Everyday services would be stored on the cloud giving the employees the ability to be mobile and work remotely but still have the advanced security AWS offers.

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Cloud Computing Services - Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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Amazon Web Services offers reliable, scalable, and inexpensive cloud computing services. Free to join, pay only for what you use.

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If I were a medium sized business and I had the choice of hosting in house or on the cloud, I would choose to move most to all my resources to the cloud.  As a medium sized business, the only thing that I would consider doing is keeping an in-house backup of important things just in case something did happen where I would need to do a full restore.  Having to do a in house restore compared to a cloud restore would be a lot less time consuming.  Other then that reason, I would try to get everything else cloud based because of the many perks that the cloud offers such as being able to actively scan the provided applications for vulnerabilities, tracking data flows of applications that are provided, maintaining updates and upgrades, and most importantly being to do this all in one UI while having the option to always downgrade or upgrade at any given moment.




https://www.theseattledataguy.com/7-reason-why-small-and-medium-sized-businesses-should-be-using-cloud-computing/#page-content

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See discussion for post. Links for assignment
https://www.digitalocean.com/

https://aws.amazon.com/

https://www.bluehost.com/

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See the Discussion in class for the full post.

Links for the assignment:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/backup/#overview

https://aws.amazon.com/free/webapps/

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In a medium sized business, space and upkeep for servers and a data room can be expensive.  Minimizing the services that are kept locally help reduce the upkeep costs.  I would elect to keep  systems such as DHCP, DNS and Active directory  local as well as the VoIP phone system.  A short term file storage backup solution would be kept locally for immediate restore needs.

I would maintain email and productivity software such as cloud solutions such as the Microsoft Enterprise Suite. Long term file storage backup would be kept cloud based however. Other solutions such as SalesForce cloud solutions for interacting and managing customer profiles and engagement (Client Relationship Management).

https://www.salesforce.com/crm/

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise

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I would choose Office 365 as a service to use in the cloud. The majority of basic users already use Windows and Office gives them ease of use and familiarity. Most people already have all of the apps stored locally already but with the cloud based service it can save documents automatically while still having the ability to save locally if needed.

Core services that contain sensitive data would be stored in-house due to security issues. This includes database services as well as DHCP and Active Directory.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/identity-protection/access-control/active-directory-accounts

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https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-online-backup-services

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business

https://www.cloudwards.net/best-cloud-based-email-services/

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For a medium sized enterprise, I would invest in Office 365. The entire suite of applications would be extremely helpful to the enterprise. Not to mention the cost benefits of not having to purchase each application in the Microsoft Office portfolio. The majority of workstations utilize Microsoft as an operating system already so this would be a slam dunk.

Most network services would be kept in-house such as AD and DHCP to name a few. It would also be beneficial to utilize Azure services for data analytics and database caching.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/office-365-service-descriptions-technet-library#:~:text=To%20get%20started%2C%20see%20the%20following%20service%20descriptions%3A,8%20Microsoft%20Teams%20service%20description%20More%20items...%20

https://reviews.financesonline.com/p/microsoft-azure#:~:text=Overview%20of%20Microsoft%20Azure%20Features%201%20Build%20websites,Cloud%20Services%2010%20Business%20Analytics%20More%20items...%20

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If I were a medium sized enterprise, I would host a number of services in the cloud. I would find a cloud service which will host all email and office applications in the cloud and database such as Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 is simple and convenient to use because you have all the applications downloaded on your pc unless you use the online version which has all the application together and it automatically saves your work in the cloud as well as emails.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise

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the cloud.  This will also make it easier for users to access these things outside of their office, and if this pandemic has taught us nothing else it is that you may need to change how you operate your business at a moment’s notice.

Things I would keep in-house with cloud backup are DNS and file services, so they would still be available intranet should internet connections go out

The only things I would keep strictly in-house would be sensitive data that must remain secure.

https://sysgen.ca/cloud-vs-in-house-servers/

https://blog.storagecraft.com/cloud-vs-in-house-servers/

https://www.cloudhealthtech.com/blog/cloud-services-comparison

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/

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https://shadow.tech/

https://www.vultr.com/

https://www.digitalocean.com/

https://www.linode.com/ (My favorite one)

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With much of today’s business infrastructure migrating to the cloud, we as IT admins are left wondering what should really be in the cloud and what should not. In my opinion, I would want to protect business critical services like Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) or Domain Name Services (DNS). Though now, its common in medium size businesses or even in a hybrid architecture to replicate these services. Having services on premises and in the cloud for applications like office 365. In contrast, some companies use the cloud to have virtual environments for their remote workers to use their own devices to interact with the network. This architecture requires that core services be either replicated or completely migrated to the cloud.

I’d choose to have core services like DHCP, DNS, AD DS, and database services in house and also replicated in the cloud as part of a disaster recovery plan but turned off. This way I would be able to limit the attack vector of the company but at the same time be able to recover fast in an emergency. I’d choose to move web applications to the cloud. This would allow me to put the outside applications on another platform and use next generation equipment provided by the cloud vendor to further mitigate against possible security breaches. I’d also move the email service to a cloud platform, passing the headache of the hardware portion of enterprise mail to the service provider.

Resources

·       The Pro's & Con's of moving email services to the cloud

·       Migrating your Business to the Cloud: 5 Pro's & Con's

·       Hybrid Architecture & Security

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In a medium to large sized healthcare environment, the need to access and store patient data, while holding HIPPA and PHI compliance are top priorities. There are many options for cloud based applications for the healthcare team to interact with. For this instance, I would like to focus on a web based solution called Modernizing Medicine. With Modernizing Medicine (ModMed), there is no on premise hardware running the application, instead there is a unique URL created for the practice enabling providers and staff to access patient data from within any of our 10 locations. We have implemented the use of a secure virtual private network (VPN), for employees to access this service on corporate owned/business only (COBO) devices remotely.

Even though, cloud computing is beginning to improve our day to day operations, there are a couple services that we would keep in our current on premise solution. Depending on whether or not the service has been implemented plays a huge role in whether it should stay on premise or moved to the cloud. Active Directory falls into the category of “if it’s not broke don’t fix it”, meaning that either Azure or a physical server hosting AD is fine, but will cause more hassle to migrate. In my opinion, file servers should remain on premise because it is a lot easier to plug in an encrypted drive to copy data to, instead of having to move file to the cloud. There is a bigger sense of physical security of the system that should be only accessible through our internal network.

Sources Used

https://www.purestorage.com/products/staas/pure-as-a-service.html#:~:text=Whether%20on%2Dpremises%20or%20in,storage%20you've%20ever%20managed.&text=Deliver%20storage%20as%20a%20service,security%20of%20on%2Dpremises%20infrastructure.

https://www.modmed.com/

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If I were to pick services that would stick in the cloud I would say Office 365. It is easy and convenient for employees and staff to use and for them to access from virtually anywhere as long as they have an internet connection. This will allow the user to access email, files, and backups with ease. They also do not need to worry about losing any documents.

If I were to pick something to support locally, I would pick jabber and cisco telemedicine. I would have a local server on site that is going to support the capabilities to be able to use this technology. Essentially the only thing that you do once it is set up, is updates and just make sure that you have backups just in case if an update break something.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/unified-communications/unified-communications-manager-callmanager/index.html

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https://www.backblaze.com/business-backup.html

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/compare-office-365-plans

https://aws.amazon.com/free/webapps/

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There are many different choices when it comes to cloud-based computer services. Ranging from services that are all shapes and sizes (and scopes). I think the quickest, most reliable, and cost-effective cloud-based web service currently is amazon web services. They have the fortune of infrastructure and already have a large footprint in the current cloud-based service industry as it exists. I think that any medium wanting to be a large company can feel secure having such a large name providing their ever-important cloud web-based services, no matter the capacity that will be required if growth occurs.
-Brian Rasor

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Supporting Links:
*https://www.cleo.com/blog/knowledge-base-cloud-based-services
*https://slack.com/help/articles/227838227-Salesforce-for-Slack

*https://www.salesforce.com/solutions/industries/healthcare/overview/?bc=DB