ITM301 Case2
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Information Systems
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Dec 6, 2023
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Uploaded by jramos1023
1
Principles of Information Systems in Business and Organizations
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Trident University
Dr. Carole Angolano
Principles of Information Systems in Business and Organization-ITM301
Module 2, Case 2
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Introduction
First, I will discuss what a cloud hosting service is. Imagine you are running a business
and you have all your data stored on your local computer. Your computer ends up crashing and
wiping all your information. There would be no way to recover your data. Now, imagine you
have your information stored on the “cloud” and maintained in a different location. Your
computer can crash and your data was still be stored on this cloud, which can be easily recovered
by logging into a website. This is essentially what cloud hosting is. If you are familiar with the
iPhone and the iCloud, you can back up all of your data to the cloud and delete all your pictures,
apps, music, etc. locally on your phone. If you decide you want those pictures back stored on
your phone, you can simply redownload it from the iCloud. I will compare Amazon Web
Services (AWS) and Rackspace, focusing on their respective service level agreements (SLA).
Amazon Web Services
Amazon has their own cloud hosting service, which is commonly referred to as AWS.
Along with the ability of storing information on their servers, AWS offers tons of great services
depending on your interest. Snapchat saves costs by using AWS to back up their data, 2
exabytes! (AWS, 2022). One of the biggest games in the world right now is called Fortnite. The
company behind it, Epic Games, runs this game almost entirely on an AWS server. Epic Games
uses multiple different AWS services to deliver the best gaming experience to their customers.
Recently, Fortnite released a game mode that lets creators create their own battle royal map and
let people all over the world play it together. This information is stored in the AWS cloud and as
mentioned before, is ran off the cloud using AWS’s top tier servers. AWS offers over 200
services.
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Rackspace
Rackspace is another clouding hosting service. Although they have been around for a
long time, they are not as a big of a company as Amazon. Rackspace offers about 6 different
services. This company is different from the others as they partner with other big cloud hosting
services like Microsoft and Google. This helps them out by utilizing the newest technology and
produce greater products for their customers (Rackspace, n.d.).
Service Level Agreements
A service level agreement (SLA) is a contractual agreement between the cloud hosting company
and the client, ensuring the maintenance of a minimum standard of service (Montgomery, 2021).
To put it simply, if a cloud hosting company commits to a 100% server availability guarantee per
month in their SLA, any instances of server downtime would entitle the consumer to receive a
credit or compensation. The SLA will have more specific information on how long they have to
respond and the credit the consumer receives. These agreements hold these companies to a
standard and protect the costumer. It would be really tragic for someone to spend a lot of money
on a digital cloud service and their service be down all the time. Understanding the SLA is very
crucial as it outlines what coverage and guarantees are provided. This makes it essential for
individuals to thoroughly review the agreement. This ensures a clear understanding of what type
of coverage they can expect from the cloud hosting vendor. You want an SLA to be very detailed
and specific. You want the guarantees provided to be measurable so that the consumer can track
and be rewarded, if needed.
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Let’s now look into the SLA offered by AWS. As mentioned before, Amazon offers a
wide range of services, so I will focus on one specific SLA, as many of them share similarities.
We will look at Amazon EC2. The SLA states that they will use efforts to make sure the uptime
percentage is at least 99.5% during any monthly billing cycle. You will be compensated should
that number drop. In their SLA, Amazon breaks down the service levels as follows:
service availability between less than 99.5% but equal to or greater than 99.0% results in a
service credit of 10%, service availability between less than 99.0% but equal to or greater than
95.0% results in a service credit of 30%, and service availability below 95.0% entitles the
customer to a service credit of 100%. Specifically stated in the SLA, any individual EC2, a single
customer, will not be charged if the system is down for more than 6 minutes (Compute, n.d.). The
SLA also specifies exactly factors that would exclude a credit. Some examples are: factors outside
of their reasonable control, performance issues with your equipment or software, and if you are
suspended from using their Amazon EC2 service.
Lastly, we will look at Rackspace’s SLA. The agreement begins with definitions for words
such as API Error, Cloud Server, and Monthly Availability. This lets me know that this service
level agreement is detailed so there is no confusion when it comes to terms in the contract. We
will look at the Cloud Files Service level guarantee. Rackspace guarantees this service will be up
and running 99.99% of the time in a given billing cycle. It specifically defines what not being
available is. This includes the data center network experiencing downtown and the Cloud File
Services returns as a server error response during two or more consecutive 90 second intervals.
Rackspace provides a more precise breakdown of their availability levels: less than 99.99% but
equal to or greater than 99.0% will get the customer a 25% credit,
less than 98.99% but equal to
or greater than 98% will get the customer a 40% credit, less than 97.99% but equal to or greater
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than 97.5% will get the customer a 55% credit, less than 97.49% but equal to or greater than 97%
will get the customer a 70% credit, less than 96.99% but equal to or greater than 96.5% will get
the customer a 85% credit, and anything less than 96.5% will get the customer a 100% credit
(Cloud SLA, n.d.). It also includes a service level agreement for
the data center infrastructure.
This guarantees the HVAC system and power will be functioning 100% of the time.
Conclusion
As you can see, selecting a cloud servicing vendor can be a challenging decision. In
addition to assessing the suitability of their offered services for your specific requirements, it is
very important to thoroughly review the service level agreement. I believe both companies’ SLA
were detailed, but I do have a couple recommendations for them to use based on my research. A
lot of these contracts like to include some confusing wording. The customer would greatly benefit
from an SLA that explicitly communicates the vendor's intentions, rather than leaving the
customer guessing. I didn't come across anything indicating that regularly scheduled maintenance
is excluded from their downtime. I think the SLA should also provide a link that monitors the
service for uptimes, security, and performance.
In conclusion, cloud hosting has revolutionized the way businesses and individuals
approach IT infrastructure. Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Backspace stand as prominent
providers. Their service offerings, combined with security measures and scalability options,
make them great choices. However, to further enhance customer satisfaction, it is recommended
for these vendors to include a link or tool that shows customers uptime, response time, data
privacy, and disaster recovery in their Service Level Agreements (SLAs). By addressing these
aspects, customers can have greater confidence in their cloud hosting experience while ensuring
their specific needs are met.
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References:
AWS. (2022). https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/snap-case-study/
Cloud SLA
. Rackspace Technology. (n.d.-a).
https://www.rackspace.com/information/legal/cloud/sla
Montgomery, J. (2021, January 4).
What is a cloud SLA (Cloud Service-level agreement)?
.
Storage. https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/definition/cloud-storage-
SLA#:~:text=What%20to%20look%20for%20in,for%20the%20remediation%20of
%20outages.
Small System Services. (n.d.).
Compute
. Amazon. https://aws.amazon.com/compute/sla/?
did=sla_card&trk=sla_card
Why Rackspace Technology?
. Rackspace Technology. (n.d.-b).
https://www.rackspace.com/about/why-rackspace-technology