Question 1
Objective:
1. Apply business economics to test your knowledge and understanding in evaluating a cloud provider and to formulate the actual cost of hosting a website in a public cloud.
Question Details:
The organization that you are working in has decided to migrate your official internal-staffonly portal to a public cloud service provider to maximize potential cost savings.
However,due to size and complexity of the existing facility, supporting over 5000 users world-wide, they have decided to embark on a test pilot project. This test pilot project has been scaled down to about 10% of the eventual actual requirements.
Among the short-listed public cloud providers are the following
(a) Amazon Web Services (AWS)
(b) Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
(c) Microsoft Azure (MA)
The following are specific details of this test pilot project:
- The test pilot project uses a customized HTML/PHP content management system, operating on TCP port 8080, that works best with the Linux operating system and the Apache webserver. It does not require the use of any relational databases
- All users of the test pilot project will be based in Singapore
- The test pilot project shall comprise of a single web server and the web server instance should contain at least 4 virtual CPU cores and no less than 15GB of RAM
- The entire system architecture should be housed in a single region and are to remain available 24×7
- As this is only a test pilot project, there is no need to consider persistent storage nor data transfers
Additional Notes:
- If the public cloud provider has multiple locations in Asia-Pacific, please select Singapore if available.
- If Singapore is not available, you are to select the most cost-efficient option that fulfils the requirements of the organization to have its solution hosted in Asia-Pacific.
- You are reminded not to apply or use any sustained use or monthly discounts. Use only the hourly rates for your calculations.
- When in doubt, always select the most cost-efficient option that fulfils the requirements of the test pilot project.
(a) What is the name of the AWS ON-DEMAND EC2 GENERAL PURPOSE (T-SERIES) infrastructure instance that meets the web server requirements for the test pilot project?
(b) Calculate the per hour costs, the daily costs (24 hours) and finally the monthly costs (30 days), in USD, for the webserver from AWS that meets the requirements for the test pilot project. For simplification of calculations, do not apply any sustained use or monthly discounts. Please list down all steps (hourly, daily, monthly) in arriving at your answers.
(c) Please provide all relevant AWS screen captures, along with their respective URLs, whose information you may have used in answering questions (a) and (b).
(d) What is the name of the GCP ON-DEMAND GCE N1 STANDARD MACHINE TYPE infrastructure instance that meets the web server requirements for the test pilot project?
(e) Calculate the per hour costs, the daily costs (24 hours) and finally the monthly costs (30 days), in USD, for the webserver from GCP that meets the requirements for the test pilot project. For simplification of calculations, do not apply any sustained use or monthly discounts. Please list down all steps (hourly, daily, monthly) in arriving at your answers.
(f) Please provide all relevant GCP screen captures, along with their respective URLs, whose information you may have used in answering questions (d) and (e).
(g) What is the name of the MA PAY-AS-YOU-GO GENERAL PURPOSE (Bs-Series) infrastructure instance that meets the web server requirements for the test pilot project?
(h) Calculate the per hour costs, the daily costs (24 hours) and finally the monthly costs (30 days), in USD, for the webserver from MA that meets the requirements for the test pilot project. For simplification of calculations, do not apply any sustained use or monthly discounts. Please list down all steps (hourly, daily, monthly) in arriving at your answers.
(i) Please provide all relevant MA screen captures, along with their respective URLs, whose information you may have used in answering questions (g) and (h).
(j) Based on your findings, learning of the test pilot project in questions (a) to (i), and, your knowledge of the short-listed public cloud service providers, please state your recommendation for the choice of the public cloud service provider, for the eventual full-scale migration, citing and justifying the reasons for your choice. You may provide additional references and screen-shots to support your recommendation as required.
Question 2
Objectives:
1. To demonstrate your knowledge and your ability to apply desktop virtualization.
2. To demonstrate your knowledge and your ability to manage a web server on a Linux virtual machine hosted on your personal computer.
Question Details:
(a) Using any type 2 hypervisor that supports Workstation virtualization, setup a Virtual Guest Machine on your existing operating system with virtual guest machine characteristics (CPU, RAM, HDD, GPU) required to support either Ubuntu [1], CentOS [2] or Debian [3] Linux Operating Systems.
Deliverable:
Screen-shot/s of your selected type 2 hypervisor running inside a PC host environment, showing the machine characteristics of the newly created Virtual Guest Machine.
The screen-shot/s should clearly show the Host PC’s Operating System, your selected type 2 hypervisor and the machine characteristics of the newly created Virtual Guest Machine.
(b) Set up and install either Ubuntu [2], CentOS [3] or Debian [4] Linux Operating System in your Virtual Guest Machine. Ensure that your Virtual Guest Machine boots up into GUI mode and is able to invoke the Firefox browser. Using the Firebox browser on your Virtual Guest Machine, navigate to https://www.suss.edu.sg
Deliverable:
Screen-shot/s of your Virtual Guest Machine running inside a PC host environment, showing portions of GUI desktop and the Firefox browser. The screen-shot/s should clearly show the Host PC’s Operating System, your Virtual Guest Machine and the Firefox browser clearly displaying https://www.suss.edu.sg
(c) Set up the webserver (Apache or Nginx) service on your Virtual Guest Machine. Create a one-page HTML web-page (index.html) that will display the following information when accessed
NAME: <Your-Name>
SUSS ID: <Your-SUSS-ID>
SUSS Email: <Your-SUSS-Email-Address>
*Note: Please replace <Your-Name>, <Your-SUSS-ID> and <Your-SUSSEmail-Address> with your individual specific details
Deliverable:
Screen-shot/s of your Virtual Guest Machine running inside a PC host environment, showing portions of GUI desktop and the Firefox browser. The screen-shot/s should clearly show the Host PC’s Operating System, your Virtual Guest Machine and the contents of the Firefox browser which should be displaying the contents of http://localhost/index.html
(d) Now that you have had the opportunity to familiarize yourself with a virtualized guest operating system running on your host machine, please relate to the experience and state the following:
- Your key learning point/s from this experience of deploying a virtualized guest the operating system running on your host machine
- A potential use/s of a virtualized guest operating system running on your host machineNotes:
[1] More information about Ubuntu can be found at https://www.ubuntu.com
[2] More information about CentOS can be found at https://www.centos.org
[3] More information about Debian can be found at https://www.debian.org
Question 3
Objectives:
1. To differentiate and distinguish the different types of public cloud services by testing your knowledge and ability to use a public IaaS.
2. To set up and demonstrate the ability to run a HTML web server on a Linux virtual machine hosted on a public cloud provider.
3. To set-up and demonstrate the ability to run an Opensource Blog/CMS platform on a Linux virtual machine hosted on a public cloud provider.
Question Details:
(a) Set-up an Amazon Web Services (AWS) account, log into the console and create an EC2 Virtual Machine with at least the following characteristics
- Linux operating system
- At least 1vCPU, 1GB memory and 5GB of disk space
- Single Public IP
Deliverable:
Screen-shot/s of how you access your EC2 Virtual Machine from your host environment. The screen-shot/s should clearly show your PC’s Operating System and how you are connecting to your EC2 Virtual Machine’s command line.
(b) While logged into the newly created EC2 Virtual machine, carry out the following:
1. Install the default webserver to create a default web page the displays the following
- 1 st line message that reads “JUL 2021 ICT335 SUSS”
- 2 nd line message that reads “SERVED TO YOU BY AWS-EC2”
- Your Name / Your SUSS ID / Your SUSS Email Address
- The output of the command “date; name -a; curl ifconfig.co” when run on a command line terminal
2. This web page should be displayed when accessing http://<assigned-aws-ec2-external-ip>
Deliverable:
Screen-shot/s of how you access your EC2 Virtual Machine’s web server. The screen-shot/s should clearly show your PC’s Operating System and how you are viewing the contents of HTTP://<assigned-aws-ec2-external-ip>
(c) Set-up a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account, log into the console and create a GCE Virtual Machine with at least the following characteristics
- Linux operating system
- At least 1vCPU, 1GB memory and 5GB of disk space
- Single Public IP
Deliverable:
Screen-shot/s of how you access your GCE Virtual Machine from your host environment. The screen-shot/s should clearly show your PC’s Operating System and how you are connecting to your GCE Virtual Machine’s command line.
(d) While logged into the newly created GCE Virtual machine, carry out the following:
1. Install the default web server to create a default web page the displays the following:
- 1 st line message that reads “JUL 2021 ICT335 SUSS”
- 2 nd line message that reads “SERVED TO YOU BY GCP-GCE”
- Your Name / Your SUSS ID / Your SUSS Email Address
- The output of the command “date; uname -a; curl ifconfig.co” when run on a command-line terminal
2. This web page should be displayed when accessing http://<assigned-gcp-gceexternal-ip>
Deliverable:
Screen-shot/s of how you access your GCE Virtual Machine’s web server. The screen-shot/s should clearly show your PC’s Operating System and how you are viewing the contents of http://<assigned-gcp-gce-external-ip>
(e) Using either a new AWS-EC2 or GCP-GCE Virtual Machine, carry out the following:
1. Install the required server components in order to host the WordPress Blog/CMS platform
2. Install and setup WordPress in your selected Virtual Machine
3. Create the first blog post on your WordPress blog that reads as follows:
WORDPRESS BLOG
NAME: <Your-Name>
SUSS ID: <Your-SUSS-ID>
SUSS Email: <Your-SUSS-Email-Address>
*Note: Please replace <Your-Name>, <Your-SUSS-ID> and <Your-SUSS-EmailAddress> with your individual specific details
2. This web page should be displayed when accessing http://<assigned-external-ip>
Deliverable:
Screen-shot/s of how you access your Virtual Machine and your Virtual Machine’s web server from your host environment.
The screen-shot/s should clearly show your PC’s Operating System and how you are connecting to your Virtual Machine’s command line and how you are viewing the contents of http://<assigned-external-ip>
(f) With the opportunity to familiarize yourself with a virtualized operating system from both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), relate your experience and your learnings to the following:
- Your key learning point/s from this experience of deploying a virtualized Linux host on both AWS and GCP.
- Key observation/s that you have made in this experience would make you prefer a virtualized Linux host running on AWS.
- Key observation/s that you have made in this experience that would make you prefer a virtualized Linux host running on GCP.
Question 4
Objectives:
1. To differentiate and distinguish the different types of public cloud services by testing your knowledge and ability to use a public SaaS.
Question Details:
A small business organization has just engaged you as an external consultant, to study, recommend and propose a solution for migrating their on-premise email server to the cloud.
They are considering the change due to ageing server hardware, high cost of technology maintenance, high running costs, weak spam filtering and inconsistent email access speeds.
The following are some of the key considerations of their current deployment:
- There are 45 users in the organization, spread across ASEAN, Japan, Korea, China, Europe and the USA.
- While users are currently only allowed to access emails via the email client on their workstations, management would like to do away with this and encourage the use of a web-based interface, with capabilities of emailing from authorised mobile phones.
- Due to increasing password vulnerabilities, the proposed solution should deploy more advanced security measures for authentication.
- All existing emails must be migrated to the proposed solution.
(a) Discuss the SIX (6) key measurement indicators used to measure the economic characteristics of procuring a cloud service or resource.
(b) Describe and discuss the top THREE (3) concerns the management of the small Businesses should be wary of if they decide to procure a cloud service or resource.
(c) Expanding on the key measurement indicators discussed in (a), present your case, your professional opinion and your choice of a SaaS email solution for the organization. Whenever possible or appropriate, support your recommendation with facts, figures, screen-shot/s as required. Please cite and reference as required.
