Abstract
Implementation of information systems involves a lot of processes that should be taken into consideration. Implementation of large scale information systems requires that care be taken so that the benefits that were initially sought are achieved. Grid computing is now making it possible to share resources which are not used. It has made it possible to have computer nodes which are idle in some location away and use their processing power. This is the power of grid computing. This paper will look at the implementation issues that arise with the implementation of grid computing by Synergy Finance Solutions. It will assess the benefits and the risks that are associated with sharing computer nodes and processing power with the university partners. When implementing this technology, it is important to ensure that the benefits and the effects work well with the business processes. In such information systems, there is a need to ensure that the overall benefits and processes are well articulated.
SECTION A: RISK FACTORS & ORGANISATIONAL IMPACT
This project is risky as it involves making use of data and information from other entities. There is the issue that deals with money as the PrivateInvestor package deals with money. The private investors want historical data and also information about various companies that are trading in the stock exchange. The stock exchange works in a dynamic manner as the information keeps on changing.
One reason why I think it is risky is that of security. Issues concerning the security of data have been a major challenge making users doubt its credibility. This mainly has to deal with its online nature; creating a notion that grid computing automatically inherits the data security issues related to the internet. Synergy Finance Solutions Ltd., have the responsibility to ensure that the security for the PrivateInvestor package is well taken care of. Though it’s also appreciated that most data security challenges are internal to particular companies hence this should not be a hindrance to their adoption of grid technology (JuhaÌ, Kacsuk, & Kranzlmüller, 2005).
Another factor that makes it risky is that of latency. Latency is the amount of delays experienced when a process is taking place. With grid computing, the processing of data for instance stored in the external grids will experience many delays. This is mainly because the proximity of the data being processed to the application processing greatly influences the time lapse before the output is received. For instance, data stored in the computer’s RAM is processed much faster than that processed from a removable storage attached to the computer. If this is the case, the grid computing has a great challenge to defeat the latency challenges. Since the data will be stored in the university nodes, there will be the issue of latency (Cattedu, 2010).
Another risk is that of limited bandwidth. The bandwidth required to make this effective is high hence needs a quality server that is also costly. As far as grid computing has been termed as being cost- effective, it should not be forgotten that the installation and maintenance of an internet connection that can support effective service delivery is also costly.
With grid computing, friendly applications are also not readily available hence a need for a switch from the usual company’s existing ones. This may cause discomfort to the staff and even call for further staff and user training. It may also mean a possible data loss in the event of the switch (Durkee, 2010).
Another factor is the lack of control of the infrastructure of the grid from the side of the user. Ignorance on the side of the users that leads to lack of control of the available infrastructure also poses a challenge to grid computing. Company staffs fail to locate their data in the system and are not aware of the security measures protecting them. This leads to a persistent system failure as restricted sites may be visited (Sosinsky, 2011).
A number of technologies have tried offering the on-demand delivery of services, most of which have either totally failed or were too inefficient and ineffective to win their customers’ confidence. This is what awaits grid computing, the ability to effectively deliver on-demand services. It has been said that its overdependence on internet connection is a possible loophole to its failure, maybe, maybe not. Though still the move from a capital expense to operation expense created by grid computing stands to give it a chance of success (Rittinghouse, & Ransome, 2010).
Effects of failure
In case there is any form of failure, the partnership and the cooperation between the two institutions, the university partner and Synergy Finance Solutions Ltd. will be affected. There will be lack of trust between these two entities. It is important that the grid project come out successful so that there is continuous partnership and business between the two entities.
SECTION B: TRUST AND SECURITY
With information technology and computing, it is hard to undertake grid computing with the lack of security and trust. One major issue that is considered with grid computing is that of lack of security and trust. Data protection is the major security concern in grid computing. This comes probably as a result of a company losing control of the infrastructure to the grid provider. Unlike in utility computing where the client is given some control privileges, this technology deprives an enterprise of its power over the infrastructure (Bauer, & Adams, 2012). The security issue however does not lie in the lack of control, but rather in the fact that the service provider in most cases does not guarantee for this service and worst its usually not included in the SLA, creating a great gap and overlook over this sensitive area of grid company’s life. This leaves the clients with no means of ensuring that their data is being handled rightfully especially in the event of a mass data transfer (Reese, 2009).
Lack of data portability mechanisms, a security issue mostly referred to as lock-in also faces grid computing. This creates a menace in the event of switching from one service provider to another since there is the problem of providing dependency. Literally, it has been viewed as a deliberate scheme by the grid providers to retain their clients for as long as they want to enjoy the grid services. However, the blame may be directed towards the unavailability of applications that could allow for service portability (Joseph, & Fellenstein, 2004).
Forced client merging. Grid computing technology also lacks the isolation mechanisms that could allow companies in a grid, though sharing virtual resources to operate independently. This has much to deal with memory allocations and company reputation. Its notable that storage space in a grid is merged, making it relatively difficult for a specific company to store its data on a private platform within the grid. This could attract enormous attacks that could affect a number of enterprises. These attacks however have been considered hard to be effected as compared to the individual company operating systems that have been in place in the past.
Data elimination and deletion has also been a major security risk in grid computing. Since the hardware lacks dedication to particular companies or data, deletion may be incomplete because the provider will as much as possible try to protect other data held within the same platform, or risk losing more important information than was required. Complete deletion may call for the destruction of the disk that carries it which is an impossible act since other clients’ data may also be lost.
SECTION C: TECHNOLOGICAL MATURITY
The proposed technologies are immature in that there is still a lot of research that is still going on in grid technology. It is still under innovations and there is still a lot to be desired with the use of this technology. Regarding the framework, there are still many features concerning how to implement the technology. It is therefore still immature to implement this technology in large scale.
References
Reese, G 2009, Grid Application Architectures Building Applications and Infrastructure in the Cloud, O'Reilly Media, Inc., Sebastopol.
Rittinghouse, JW, & Ransome, JF 2010, Grid computing: Implementation, management, and security, CRC Press, Boca Raton.
Sosinsky, BA 2011, Grid computing bible.,Wile John Wiley and Sons, Indianapolis.
Durkee, D 2010, ‘Why Cloud Computing Will Never Be Free’, Communication of the
ACM, Vol. 53, No. 5, pp. 62-69.
Cattedu, D 2010, ‘Cloud Computing: Benefits, Risks, and Recommendations for
Information Security’, Communication in Computer and Information Science,
Vol. 72, No. 1.
Bauer, E, & Adams, R 2012, Reliability and availability of cloud computing, Wiley-IEEE Press, Hoboken, N.J.
Berman, F, Fox, G, & Hey, AJ 2003, Grid computing making the global infrastructure a reality, Wiley, Chichester, England.
Birman, KP2012, Guide to reliable distributed systems building high-assurance applications and cloud-hosted services, Springer, New York.
Buennemeyer, TK 2011, A strategic approach to network defense: framing the cloud, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA.
Corrado, EM 2011, Getting started with cloud computing: A LITA guide, Neal-Schuman Publishers, New York.
Hugos, MH, & Hulitzky, D 2011, Business in the cloud: What every business needs to know about cloud computing, John Wiley and Sons.
Joseph, J, & Fellenstein, C 2004, Grid computing, Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference, Upper Saddle River, N.J.
JuhaÌ, Z., Kacsuk, P, & Kranzlmüller, D 2005, Distributed and parallel systems cluster and grid computing, Springer, New York.
Marks, EA., & Lozano, B 2010, Executive's guide to cloud computing, John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, New York.
Rosenberg, JB, & Mateos, A 2011, The cloud at your service: The when, how, and why of enterprise cloud computing, Manning, Greenwich, Conn.
Sarna, DE 2011, Implementing and developing cloud computing applications, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
Schulz, G 2012, Cloud and virtual data storage networking your journey to efficient and effective information services, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
Shroff, G 2010, Enterprise cloud computing: Technology, architecture, applications, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Slabeva, K, & Wozniak, T 2010, Grid and cloud computing a business perspective on technology and applications, Springer, New York.
Tuten, TL 2010, Enterprise 2.0: How technology, ecommerce, and Web 2.0 are transforming business virtually, Praeger, Santa Barbara, Calif.
