Page 238 - Using MIS

MyMISLab ™

Improve Your “No, I mean each hour. We can provision or release server resources by the hour.”
Grade! Lucas is enjoying this discussion.
Over 10 million students Kelly is surprised. “No way. How do they do that? We have to give our hosting
improved their results using vendor at least a week’s notice.”
the Pearson MyLabs. “Yeah, we do. But that’s not how the cloud works.”
Visit mymislab.com for Kelly persists. “I still don’t get it.”
simulations, tutorials, and “They use what’s called virtualization. They don’t actually provision new hardware;
end-of-chapter problems. they provision new instances of servers on existing hardware.”
“So one server is actually many?” Kelly’s read about this somewhere.
“No, one server is virtually many.” Lucas is having fun.
“Whatever.” Kelly does not like to be corrected.
“The point is they can do this programmatically, no humans involved. We tell them
we want a certain level of performance. They measure it, and when our workload
increases, they give us another 50 or 100 servers; we use them for a few hours, until
demand falls, and then they take them back.” Lucas gets serious again.
“OK, so how much does it cost? This can’t be cheap.”
Kelly is skeptical.
“How about a quarter an hour.”
Jason’s puzzled by that. “You mean a quarter of an hour?
“No, I mean 15 minutes?”
25 cents an “No, I mean 25 cents an hour . . . and probably less.”
hour . . . and Lucas grins as he says this.
“What?” Kelly’s dumbfounded.
probably less.” “Yeah, that’s it. That’s for processing. For databases, we
have to commit to a monthly charge. But I think that’s less
than 50 dollars a month for what we need.” Lucas isn’t quite
sure because he’s quoting preliminary prices. He thinks the
Source: Bizoo_n/iStock/Thinkstock/Getty Images
actual costs could be less.
“Lucas, you’ve got to be kidding. We can knock thousands out of our hosting fees.
This is huge.” As Kelly says this, in the back of her mind she’s thinking, “If it’s true.”
“Well, it’s good; I don’t know about huge,” Lucas replies. “We still have
development costs on our end. And we need to create the procedures, train people,
the whole system thing . . . ”
“Lucas, give me a plan. I want a plan.” Jason is thinking about what these savings
could mean to AllRoad’s next two quarters . . . and beyond.
“I’ll give you something next week,” Lucas says.
“I want it by Friday, Lucas,” Jason insists.
“OK.”

Study QueStionS

Q1 Why is the cloud the future for most organizations?

Q2 What network technology supports the cloud?
Q3 How does the cloud work?
Q4 How do organizations use the cloud?
Q5 How can AllRoad Parts use the cloud?

Q6 How can organizations use cloud services securely?
Q7 2025?
206