On Cloud Computing Service Considerations for the Small and Medium Enterprises

The concept of cloud computing services is appealing to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), with the opportunity to acquire modern information technology resources as a utility and avoid costly capital investments in technology resources. However, the adoption of the cloud computing services presents significant challenges to the SMEs. The SMEs need to determine a path to adopting the cloud computing services that would ensure their sustainable presence in the cloud computing environment. Information about approaches to adopting the cloud computing services by the SMEs is fragmented. Through an interpretive design, we suggest that the SMEs need to have a strategic and incremental intent, understand their organizational structure, understand the external factors, consider the human resource capacity, and understand the value expectations from the cloud computing services to forge a successful path to adopting the cloud computing services. These factors would contribute to a model of cloud services for SMEs

High-Performance Cloud Computing: A View of Scientific Applications

Scientific computing often requires the availability of a massive number of computers for performing large scale experiments. Traditionally, these needs have been addressed by using high-performance computing solutions and installed facilities such as clusters and super computers, which are difficult to setup, maintain, and operate. Cloud computing provides scientists with a completely new model of utilizing the computing infrastructure. Compute resources, storage resources, as well as applications, can be dynamically provisioned (and integrated within the existing infrastructure) on a pay per use basis. These resources can be released when they are no more needed. Such services are often offered within the context of a Service Level Agreement (SLA), which ensure the desired Quality of Service (QoS). Aneka, an enterprise Cloud computing solution, harnesses the power of compute resources by relying on private and public Clouds and delivers to users the desired QoS. Its flexible and service based infrastructure supports multiple programming paradigms that make Aneka address a variety of different scenarios: from finance applications to computational science. As examples of scientific computing in the Cloud, we present a preliminary case study on using Aneka for the classification of gene expression data and the execution of fMRI brain imaging workflow.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, conference pape

Contingency Factors of Virtual Organizations’ Emergence

Business organizations are permanently influenced by contingency factors which generate profound changes in their emergence, structures and forms. Globalization, technological progress, and changes in society are foundations of networked organization emergence. In the actual economic, social and technological contexts, progress assumes interdependence of many contingency factors that are in mutual interaction. The organizations integration in virtual organizations generates positive effects through which organizations become competitive and cope with the dynamics and turbulence of the business environment. Progress in areas such as networks of communications, telecommunications, information technology and social changes are preconditions for the emergence of the knowledge-based society and of the interconnected society in which new structures emerge that allow business activities and processes to unfold in a collaborative manner. The integration of organizations, especially of small and medium-sized enterprises, into networks of organizations, has become an important goal in the current economic environment, as the organizations are striving to become more competitive, to build skills and have access to know-how. To cope with changes and complexity of business sectors, the organizations seek to become more competitive by developing new business models, strategies and governance principles, processes, internal structures based on new organizational capabilities and resources. The identification and analysis of contingency factors of the emergence of virtual organizations are issues that can highlight the distinctive features of virtual organizations compared to other organizational forms, but also the differences between them and other network-type structures.virtual organizations, networked organizations, organizational structures, collaborative structures

A cloud adoption framework for South African SMEs

Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have been touted as key enablers to the economic development of most countries. Despite growing evidence that most SMEs fail within their initial years, ICTs have been found to add substantial value in facilitating their success. However, in most developing countries, ICT adoption by SMEs has been plagued with a plethora of challenges ranging from poor electricity supply, high ICT costs, lack of ICT expertise to lack of government support. While this might seem problematic for SMEs, the adoption and the use of cloud services mitigates some of these challenges. The problem, however, is that a limited amount of literature has provided guidance with regard to how the cloud adoption process should be carried out by SMEs. The objective of this research, was therefore, to address this by developing a framework that can be used by SMEs to guide them through the cloud adoption process. To this end, thirteen (13) semi-structured interviews were conducted across nine (9) SMEs in the Eastern Cape. The resultant interview transcripts were analysed using an established thematic approach; the result of which allowed for the development of a rich interpretive narrative about SME cloud adoption. Combined with theory from extant literature, this culminated in the development of a framework for cloud services adoption for SMEs in the Eastern Cape

How can SMEs benefit from big data? Challenges and a path forward

Big data is big news, and large companies in all sectors are making significant advances in their customer relations, product selection and development and consequent profitability through using this valuable commodity. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have proved themselves to be slow adopters of the new technology of big data analytics and are in danger of being left behind. In Europe, SMEs are a vital part of the economy, and the challenges they encounter need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. This paper identifies barriers to SME uptake of big data analytics and recognises their complex challenge to all stakeholders, including national and international policy makers, IT, business management and data science communities. The paper proposes a big data maturity model for SMEs as a first step towards an SME roadmap to data analytics. It considers the ‘state-of-the-art’ of IT with respect to usability and usefulness for SMEs and discusses how SMEs can overcome the barriers preventing them from adopting existing solutions. The paper then considers management perspectives and the role of maturity models in enhancing and structuring the adoption of data analytics in an organisation. The history of total quality management is reviewed to inform the core aspects of implanting a new paradigm. The paper concludes with recommendations to help SMEs develop their big data capability and enable them to continue as the engines of European industrial and business success. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Cloud Computing: New Business Opportunities for Telecommunications Companies?

Cloud computing has recently shifted into the center of attention of Telecommuications Companies. Deutsche Telekom, for example, just announced the importance of cloud computing as one of their leading growth sectors (Deutsche Telekom Press Release, 2010). Also other important telecommunication players such as AT&T, Vodafone and Telefónica are expanding their cloud computing business. Clearly, these developments indicate that telcos believe that cloud computing provides significant business opportunities, particularly by further driving the convergence of telecommunications and information technology. Some researchers, however (cf. Greelan, 2009) state that cloud computing is nothing more than a marketing buzzword. On the other hand, Weiss (2007) mentions that although cloud computing "is a buzzword almost designed to be vague, [it] is more than just a lot of fog". In an effort to shed more light on this debate, we investigate the business opportunities of cloud computing for telecommunication companies in more detail. Thereby, we focus especially on the factors that might especially qualify telcos in becoming a significant player in this emerging domain. More specifically, our contribution is twofold: First, we indentify technical and economic factors that are relevant for the telcos' competitive position in the cloud computing market. Second, we identify future scenarios on how telcos position themselves in this market. --Cloud Computing,Telecommunications,Conjoint Analysis