Project 3: Cloud Portfolio Report
Step 1: Review BallotOnline’s Cloud Services Offerings
You’ve now had a lot of experience working on many aspects of the cloud at BallotOnline, and you will take a look at what you’ve done in the past. In this step, you will write up how you implemented each of the use cases using the information found in the BallotOnline use case scenarios.
This is your opportunity to show your deep technical understanding for each of these systems or infrastructure. You have completed the proof of concept (POC) for each of these. You can use those as the foundation for this part of your report, but keep in mind that sometimes implementing a production environment is different than doing a POC.
Take Note
As a refresher, you may want to go back to the Project Archive to review when you did these deployments or POCs in previous courses, or you may want to use new services.
- BallotOnline website
- (see CCS 610, Project 4 and CCS 620 Project 3)
- Messaging
- (see CCS 630 Project 2)
- Disaster recovery and backup
- (see CCS 630, Project 3)
- IT self-service portal
- (see CCS 630, Project 4)
- Web application (all on-demand)
- (see CCS 640, Project 2)
Use the Cloud Services Offerings template to record an overview of all the services to be included in the final report. Submit your work for feedback after reading the instructions below.
Take Action
Submit your assignment to your instructor for review and feedback.
Follow these steps to access the assignment:
- Click My Tools in the top navigation bar.
- Click Assignments.
- Select the relevant assignment.
Project 3: Cloud Portfolio Report
Step 2: Evaluate the AWS Simple Monthly Calculator
Back when you were putting together your first presentation to convince BallotOnline’s executives to start using cloud services, you used the AWS Simple Monthly Calculator to do a comparative TCO of estimated costs for on-premise versus off-premise services as part of Building a Business Case for Cloud Computing. Now that BallotOnline has deployed services in the cloud, you can conduct a more detailed analysis of the actual costs for the ongoing use of the cloud services that you implemented.
Review
- Cost Estimating
- Cost-Benefit Analysis
- AWS’s Pricing Model
Take some time to engage in an online conversation with your colleagues to discuss pros and cons of using the AWS Simple Monthly Calculator in the Discussion: AWS Simple Monthly Calculator.
Take Action
Follow these steps to access the discussion:
- Click My Tools in the top navigation bar.
- Click Discussions.
- Select the relevant discussion.
Once in the discussion, you can Start a New Thread, as well as respond to threads others have created. Use the discussion to develop awareness, share your thoughts, ask questions, and reflect. Remember that everyone brings a valuable and unique perspective, and treat everyone with respect.
In the next step, you will use the AWS Simple Monthly Calculator to perform cost analysis.
Project 3: Cloud Portfolio Report
Step 3: Conduct the Monthly Cost Analysis for Selected Use Cases
Now that you have reviewed the cost calculator, you can use the AWS Simple Monthly Calculator to calculate how much BallotOnline spends on AWS services each month for the selected use cases:
- BallotOnline website
- Messaging
- Disaster recovery and backup
- IT self-service portal
- Web application (all on-demand)
Take Note
You may want to refer to the “Common Customer Samples” on the right of the AWS Simple Monthly Calculator for examples.
Used with permission from Amazon Web Services.
Record your results in the Monthly Cost Analysis Template and submit them to Sophia for review after reading the instructions below.
Take Action
Submit your assignment to your instructor for review and feedback.
Follow these steps to access the assignment:
- Click My Tools in the top navigation bar.
- Click Assignments.
- Select the relevant assignment.
After submitting the Monthly Cost Analysis, move on to the next step to review the AWS Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator.
Project 3: Cloud Portfolio Report
Step 4: Review the AWS Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator
In the previous step, you calculated BallotOnline’s costs within AWS. However, this doesn’t give the complete picture of costs, as there are also costs outside of AWS associated with supporting the cloud endeavors. To calculate all those costs, including hard and soft costs incurred outside of AWS, you will conduct Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis.
TCO is a cost-estimating procedure that considers both direct and indirect cost and benefits such as hardware and software acquisition, management and support, communications, end-user expenses and the opportunity cost of downtime, training, and other potential losses in productivity.
There are several publicly available tools and TCO calculators available, including those provided by the cloud vendors themselves, each of which may have slightly different inputs and units of measurement for costs. In this step, you will evaluate the pros and cons of using the AWS Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator for different AWS services.
Engage in an online conversation with your colleagues to discuss pros and cons of using the AWS TCO Calculator in the Discussion: AWS TCO Calculator.
Take Action
Follow these steps to access the discussion:
- Click My Tools in the top navigation bar.
- Click Discussions.
- Select the relevant discussion.
Once in the discussion, you can Start a New Thread, as well as respond to threads others have created. Use the discussion to develop awareness, share your thoughts, ask questions, and reflect. Remember that everyone brings a valuable and unique perspective, and treat everyone with respect.
After discussing the AWS TCO Calculator, you will move to the next step to conduct the TCO analyses for the selected use cases.
Project 3: Cloud Portfolio Report
Step 5: Conduct the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Analysis for the Selected Use Cases
In the last step, you examined the AWS Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator. Now, in this step, you will use it to conduct the TCO analysis for the following BallotOnline-specified AWS deployment use cases, with the monthly costs that you calculated in the Monthly Costs Analysis that you submitted for review in Step 3:
- BallotOnline website
- Messaging
- Disaster recovery and backup
- IT self-service portal
- Web application (all on-demand)
Use the TCO Analysis Template to record your calculations and submit them to Sophia for feedback after reading the instructions below.
Take Action
Submit your assignment to your instructor for review and feedback.
Follow these steps to access the assignment:
- Click My Tools in the top navigation bar.
- Click Assignments.
- Select the relevant assignment.
After submitting the TCO Analysis, you will move on to the next step, in which you will analyze return on investment.
Project 3: Cloud Portfolio Report
Step 6: Conduct the Return on Investment (ROI) Analysis for the Selected Use Cases
In the previous step, you calculated the TCO for the selected use cases. In that analysis, you sought to understand the complete cost of cloud expenditures by looking at both the purchase and additional costs of operation both within and outside of the cloud vendor.
Now you can continue your analysis by performing a Return on Investment (ROI) analysis, which focuses on costs versus benefits of our investment in the cloud. A favorable ROI will demonstrate to the executives that the migration to the cloud has been a good investment for BallotOnline.
Use your TCO calculations from Step 5 to conduct the ROI analysis for use cases over the next three years:
- BallotOnline website
- Messaging
- Disaster recovery and backup
- IT self-service portal
- Web application (all on-demand)
Use the ROI Analysis Template to record your ROI analysis for these AWS deployment use cases and submit them to Sophia for feedback after reading the instructions below.
Take Action
Submit your assignment to your instructor for review and feedback.
Follow these steps to access the assignment:
- Click My Tools in the top navigation bar.
- Click Assignments.
- Select the relevant assignment.
After submitting the ROI analysis, you will move on to the next step, where you will create slides for Sophia to present at the executive meeting.
Project 3: Cloud Portfolio Report
Step 7: Create Presentation Slides Summarizing TCO and ROI Results
Sophia is preparing for the presentation of the financial results to the executives. However, she knows the executives don’t want to go over the entire portfolio at the meeting, so she will concisely highlight the the real numbers of how the costs and value can be derived from BallotOnline’s use of cloud services.
Create a brief PowerPoint or Google slide deck (one to two content slides) summarizing your TCO and ROI analyses, and submit your materials to Sophia after reading the instructions below.
Take Action
Submit your assignment to your instructor for review and feedback.
Follow these steps to access the assignment:
- Click My Tools in the top navigation bar.
- Click Assignments.
- Select the relevant assignment.
After submitting the presentation slides, you can move on to the last step of the project to write your final cloud portfolio report.
Project 3: Cloud Portfolio Report
Step 8: Write the Final Cloud Portfolio Report
The Final Cloud Portfolio Report will be provided to the executives at the meeting for their future reference. This report will provide a comprehensive cloud TCO and ROI and should be between 14 and 16 pages in length.
Use the Advanced Cloud Portfolio Report Template to write your Cloud Portfolio Report and submit it after reading the instructions below.
Check Your Evaluation Criteria
Before you submit your assignment, review the competencies below, which your instructor will use to evaluate your work. A good practice would be to use each competency as a self-check to confirm you have incorporated all of them. To view the complete grading rubric, click My Tools, select Assignments from the drop-down menu, and then click the project title.
- 1.1: Organize document or presentation clearly in a manner that promotes understanding and meets the requirements of the assignment.
- 1.5: Use sentence structure appropriate to the task, message and audience.
- 1.6: Follow conventions of Standard Written English.
- 1.7: Create neat and professional looking documents appropriate for the project or presentation.
- 2.5: Develop well-reasoned ideas, conclusions or decisions, checking them against relevant criteria and benchmarks.
- 3.1: Identify numerical or mathematical information that is relevant in a problem or situation.
- 3.2: Employ mathematical or statistical operations and data analysis techniques to arrive at a correct or optimal solution.
- 3.3: Analyze mathematical or statistical information, or the results of quantitative inquiry and manipulation of data.
- 5.1: Evaluate the business IT needs of an organization.
- 5.2: Propose strategies the organization can employ using cloud solutions to enhance organizational effectiveness.
- 5.3: Evaluate cloud adoption as a viable solution based on cost benefits and desired outcomes.
- 9.5: Design virtualized network infrastructure to meet business needs.
- 9.6: Design cloud storage infrastructure to meet business needs.
- 10.1: Develop and implement cloud metering system.
- 10.3: Configure cloud management tools and software.
- 10.4: Configure cloud orchestration and automation software.
- 10.5: Configure service catalog software to support various user’s needs.
- 10.6: Configure a private cloud infrastructure using industry leading software.
- 10.7: Configure a public cloud infrastructure using industry leading provider(s).
- 10.8: Configure a hybrid cloud infrastructure using industry best-practices.
Take Action
Submit your assignment to your instructor for review and feedback.
Follow these steps to access the assignment:
- Click My Tools in the top navigation bar.
- Click Assignments.
- Select the relevant assignment.