MSIT Theses and Dissertations (2013)
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Browsing MSIT Theses and Dissertations (2013) by Subject "Cloud computing"
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- ItemCloud computing implementation framework: case study of directorate of e-government(Strathmore University, 2013) Karimi, Paul KabuiInformation Technology has gone through a continuous paradigm shifts. All these shifts are either driven by technological change and advancement or the requirements by the clients. Hence these shifts have made the IT industry very dynamic for particular technologies to assert themselves as the defacto technologies. The technologies must be combined to give the full potential of the combined technologies by complementing and supporting each other’s capabilities. Organizations that are progressive and take ICT as an enabler and a strategic arm in their operation must take up and adapt to such technologies so that they remain competitive in terms of service delivery, cost of production, and systems integration among other benefit. Cloud computing is the most recent paradigm in IT; it uses the many years evolved technologies together to harness the benefits accrued in each technology to create modern data centers. The cloud concept is geared to enable customers or data center user to subscribe to computing service they need without investing in acquiring computing assets. This thesis proposed a cloud computing framework using directorate of Egovernment as a case study. The directorate of e-government is mandated to manage and give policy direction for ICT in government. Currently the government ministries and department implements segregated ICT systems with full investment on hardware, software and personnel. Most of the investment does not get the full economic returns because they end up being underutilized and there is a lot of duplicated effort across the government in terms of ICT projects. The research studied the sampled ministries and departments, through personalized interviews and review of existing works and documents to understand the nature of services being offered by the departments and ministries. The results formed indicative facts of the underlying ICT services and assets base in government. The research further proposes a comprehensive collective cloud computing implementation framework which can be used to transform the current SILO based approach of implementation to Government Cloud where all the government ICT resources can be pooled and managed centrally. Respective theoretical models and framework forming the building base of cloud computing and utility services are reviewed in the literature review. The research further explained how the developed framework should be implemented in government through various discussion and recommendation. The researcher validated the proposed framework by mapping the proposed frameworks components to the know variables in cloud computing implementation and post interview and frame work review by the study respondents.
- ItemCloud-based multi-agent supply chain system architecture(Strathmore University, 2013) Venzeslas, Oliko GabrielEfficient supply chain management is a key challenge for many organizations. This becomes even critical and complicated when the goods that these organizations deal with are considered to be life saving. The Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA) whose mandate is to procure, store and distribute drugs and health commodities to health facilities in Kenya has not be spared by this challenge. Secondary research suggests that the main problems in KEMSA include uneven distribution of healthcare services or drugs, ineffective and inefficient supply chain systems and low availability and accessibility of healthcare products occasioned by lack of a supply management system. The development of multi agent concepts in Artificial Intelligence in recent years provides an opportunity to explore the possibility of deployment of such concepts to further enhance the supply chain systems. Cloud computing on the other hand is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a metered service over a network. This is an applied research and semi-structured interviews and secondary data were used. This research sought to develop architecture for a multi-agent supply chain system around a cloud in an attempt to address the supply chain management and delivery challenges at KEMSA. This research then recommended this architecture as a foundation on which Supply Chain Management software for KEMSA or other interested organizations can be built on
- ItemEvaluative standard that address cloud-specific virtualization security concerns(Strathmore University, 2013) Makanga, Victor WesongaCloud computing is an emerging technology that offers an efficient delivery of computing resources through pooling of storage, network and software. These computing resources are critical to business functions, since they aid in storage and processing of data. Lack of effective cloud-computing standards has made it difficult for cloud customers to effectively evaluate different cloud offering as well as limiting interoperability among cloud platforms and therefore causing inconsistency in areas of security. From the reviewed literature, different approaches to virtualization have been adopted to offer flexibility in terms of securing customer‘s data and offering access control granularity. These include software, partial and hardware virtualization. The descriptive research method used was conducted using survey questionnaires with cloud users as the target population. The research seeks to find out how people implement virtualization and the challenges they face. Their perception on security of their data in the cloud as well as how they would like to amended to safe guard this data. The survey results are analyzed qualitatively and results presented in various forms. This research finds out that though there are some form of rule that guide virtualization, these have been compromised due to lack of strict enforcement. As a result, research focuses on standard which proposes guidelines and general principles for initiating, implementing, maintaining, and improving information security management within an organization. Therefore this research proposes an approach that established a new security layer that ensures compliance and enforcement of standards to address security concerns related to virtualization as applied in the cloud.
- ItemA framework for assessing cloud computing risk for Kenyan organizations(Strathmore University, 2013) Were, Timothy OthienoCloud computing has recently emerged as a buzz word in the distributed computing community. Many believe that Cloud is going to reshape the IT industry as a revolution. Yet for security professionals, the cloud presents a huge dilemma: How do you embrace the benefits of the cloud while maintaining security controls over your organisations’ assets? It becomes a question of balance to determine whether the increased risks are truly worth the agility and economic benefits. The author proposes a framework that borrows from other developed frameworks that will assist in the mapping out of security risks and controls that current and prospective users will need to take care of. The target group of respondents for this research are employees in the Information Technology departments in randomly selected Kenyan firms cutting across Utilities, Manufacturing, Transport, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Government, Academia, Finance and ICT. Questionnaires were used with forty respondents giving their feedback. The feedback was positive with majority of the respondents having confidence in the framework – 90% of the respondents did not suggest any item for removal from the framework. They concurred that to address the risks in cloud computing, consideration has to be given to security in personnel, operational and physical issues, in addition to supply-chain assurance, portability and business continuity management. Also to be considered are environmental controls and legal and jurisdiction matters. The suggestions for additions were incorporated in the final model that was used to evaluate an existing cloud user who found areas that needed to be addressed by their Cloud Service Provider. The implication of this research is that the market is ripe and ready for cloud computing as long it can have assurance of the security and continuity of their data and systems. The research will give guidelines to those interested in implementing cloud computing on the considerations to make in order to ensure security and continuity risks of their systems are considered. The paper adds value in that cloud computing being a relatively new phenomenon, not much research has gone into its implementation, especially in Africa and more so in Kenya.