Read and Summarize above White Paper “Gartner Handout – Infrastructure as a Service” in APA style
format (3-4 pages). Students should also integrate answers to the following three questions in their
papers:
� What is the white paper trying to say?
� What is the significance of what you read?
� How does the material influence you?
Papers will be graded for accuracy of interpretation, rigor of argument, and clarity of expression.
Infrastructure as a Service: Case Study
With the market evolution and growing demand for service-based cloud computing
infrastructure, there exists a need for reputable cloud infrastructure service providers to
improvise the traditional platforms. Though there are other services provided by the magic
quadrant, the paper only evaluates cloud compute infrastructure as a service provider. Cloud
computing is a service that offers flexible information technology components through the use of
the internet.
Cloud computing infrastructure has evolved from being offered as a physical component
to a service and still ably competes with data centers and infrastructure based IT initiatives.
Other elements of the service-based infrastructural market are cloud printing and cloud storage.
However, cloud computing consists the largest market of the cloud Compute Infrastructure as a
service (IaaS). The paper provides an evaluation of cloud computing IaaS with the vendors that
are known to offer the service.
As a major component of the magic quadrant, cloud computing infrastructure as a service
is an automatic and standardized component that allows computer resources to be transferred to
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Infrastructure as a Service: Case Study
customers by service providers on demand. The computer resources can be shared by different
tenants or by a single tenant and hosted by the service provider or on customer’s premises. The
service infrastructure offers user-interfaces directly to the client.
Cloud infrastructure can be in the form of a service or a technology platform. Cloud
infrastructure as a service is advantageous to the technology platform in that it offers direct
services to the customer through self-service. However, there are capabilities that the technology
platform offers that the service infrastructure is unable to perform on its own. Cloud computing
IaaS has to use cloud-enabled system infrastructure to offer activities such as outsourcing and
data-enabled hosting. Still, on its own, cloud computing IaaS is capable of providing a variety of
offerings to the customer.
Gartner clients have a dire need to control IT operations. The evaluation covers the needs
of the clients ranging from enterprises, retail and technology firms. The quadrant talks about the
development, analysis, and production of the cloud computing IaaS internally and externally.
The service hosts diverse workloads for a range of design application. Through the magic
quadrant, an emphasis is given to standardized self-service and automation.
Magic Quadrants serve the different needs of customers. Customers are more interested
in self-service cloud computing infrastructure. To make the service more reliable, it can still be
complemented by negligible amounts of dedicated servers. The magic quadrants offer
customized services to organizations that need the service or that want to supplement their
traditional hosting platform. Magic Quadrants for Managed Hosting are cloud computing service
providers based in North America, Asia, and Europe. The quadrants also provide custom-made
cloud computing services for outsourcing of data and utility offerings.
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Infrastructure as a Service: Case Study
The providers of IaaS are known for offering exceptionally high-quality services that
have a high-performance rate. Also, the providers are always available for customer’s inquiries
and support. The magic quadrant specifies unique providers that were evaluated. The providers
are profiled about their strengths and weaknesses.
Characteristics of Magic Quadrant vendors include:
- Ownership of private and public cloud services. The customers are placed on standard
infrastructure and cloud-enabled tools. - The providers lay emphasis on hybrid IT elements but with a view on security and self-
service control. Though some of the providers target start-ups, they normally lack the capabilities
needed by big organizations. It, therefore, becomes important for the selected providers to
provide unique offerings that allow easy access to cloud computing infrastructure. - Most of the vendors combine resilient support with maintenance windows for efficient
service provision. - Providers mostly do not oversubscribe Random Access Memory resources, but those that do
not assure of allocations of resources are identified and noted. However, not all providers have
the same storage capability, and it is only those in the quadrant that offer alternatives for storage
purposes. - Most of the vendors possess extra SLAs to provide extensive network services, customer
services and all of the customer’s inquiries. - Customers define the scope of the services offered hence the infrastructural service is not
automatic. For that reason, some providers specialize in offering disaster recovery in case
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Infrastructure as a Service: Case Study
customers want to re-instate the services. Vendors support virtual networking that is secure with
the inclusion of firewall. The providers have extra security services that they offer to their
customers at varying amounts depending on the customer. Self-service allows customers to bring
their portals and VM image.
- Finally, after evaluation, the vendors were found to be financially stable, offer contracts in
English, sign contracts with clients and provide managed services on Iaas cloud computing.
As a student, the analysis has given an insight on evolution of technology and how
traditional computing methods are being replaced with modern technology. Globalization of
services and customer’s demand for technology that they can have control over has driven the
invention of the Magic Quadrant. The paper provides an overview of the gap that technology is
creating in the evolving world and the need for virtual technology. Before one goes for cloud
computing services, it is important to analyze the providers since some vendors do not have the
required tools for provision of the service.
The paper influences the aspiration for invention in virtual technology to meet the
modern market demands. The high number of vendors is attributable to the market demand and
therefore means that technology innovation is the new market driving force. Career in software
development is not to be underrated in the new digital era.
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Infrastructure as a Service: Case Study
References
Gartner (2014). Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service: Case Study.
