INF 464: Management Information Systems

Faculty of Informatics

Course Name:

Management Information
Systems

Assessment:
Course Code:
Weighting:

002
INF 464
30%

Title of Assignment: A proposal for Implementing Cloud

Computing in a newspaper company

Intended Learning Outcomes for This Assignment

EXPLAIN THE PRINICIPLES OF VIRTUALIZATION AND
ITS APPLICATION SUPPORTING CLOUD COMPUTING.

Deadline for Electronic submission of assignment:

Friday, April 22, 2016

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Introduction
The aim of this assessment is to give you the opportunity to demonstrate your understanding
of the concepts of cloud computing and virtualization and how it can be implemented in a
typical organization.

Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty

Please DO NOT COPY any other students work (or lend other students your work) or copy
directly sentences and paragraphs from the Internet unless attributing the section correctly
to the author in quote marks, e.g.
The work of Handscomb forms a clear comparison to that of Johnson Campion (2006).
In general try only to quote short sentences and not paragraphs in full. Instead you should as
much as possible try to use your own words. As a guide you should try to limit your usage of
direct quotes to around 5 or 7 occurrences within the report. Remember also to put in the
full reference in Harvard referencing style e.g.
CAMPION, R.J. (2006) The Triumph method illustrated,
Watford, Hertfordshire Press. pp. 35-60.

IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO READ THE RULES

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Your Task
Individual Report
You are required to produce the following in the form of a recommendation report (Minimal
word count of +/- 2000 words). Ensure that all of your work is word processed in a Microsoft
office format (Office 2010+). In addition ensure that all of your work is referenced where
applicable using Harvard referencing style notation.
The report should cover the following points:
1) Comprehensive details of Cloud Computing and Virtualization principles.
2) The various providers of current Cloud Computing services and the different types
of cloud computing services and implementation architectures.
3) Your recommendation for the proposed cloud solution
4) Your individual strategy for the implementation of this solution involving costs,
timescales and other factors of importance.
5) Full references of data sources

Submission Guidelines
Your documentation should be submitted in electronic format via Moodle. Please submit
Microsoft Office Word and never hesitate to contact me if you have any questions/queries.

Marking criteria Individual Report

Criteria
A

Comprehensive details of
Cloud Computing and
Virtualization principles.
The various providers of
current Cloud Computing
services and the different
types of cloud computing
services and implementation
architectures.

Mark Grade
/25 A B C D E

/25 A B C D E

Your recommendation for the

proposed cloud solution in
detail

/20 A B C D E

Your individual strategy for the

implementation of this

/20 A B C D E

Coursework: April 2016

Comments

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INF 464: Management Information Systems

solution involving costs,

timescales and other factors of
importance.
E

Report Presentation, Harvard

referencing and Layout

Overall Mark

/10 A B C D E

/100

Company facts and figures

The GM Courier is a newspaper company with headquarters based in Manchester UK. This
newspaper is one of the leading publishers of local news and employs 30 staff at its main
office. The employees who work for the newspaper are a mix of local reporters who report
the latest news stories in the region as they happen; business representatives who liaise with
local businesses for advertising and marketing; distribution staff who distribute the printed
papers to the local businesses and shops; and administration staff for the general
administration of the company. The company also has 3 associated offices scattered around
the region each employing 15 members of staff. The printing press is located within a walking
distance of the main office and employs 10 staff for the printing of the daily newspapers
edition. Figure 1 shows the current setup of the companys network at various locations
scattered around Greater Manchester.

Figure 1 GM Courier current setup

Due to increased labour costs the company considering reducing its need for technical staff,
at the same time as maintaining data security.
With this problem in mind the company is looking into alternative solutions such as Cloud
Computing and would like to move all its services into the cloud. Hence they are looking into
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buying third party Cloud Computing services from one of the major players in this field hence
enabling them to be more effective and efficient in their publishing of the latest news stories
in that region. Before the top executive can make a decision to go ahead with its move into
the cloud realm, they need to carry out a feasibility study to investigate the risks and benefits
associated with buying and implementing cloud computing services from a third party service
provider. They need to understand what needs to be changed in terms of the infrastructure
and the cost benefits (labour, maintenance costs, current assets, building rates, third party
service rates etc.) associated with a cloud solution.
Company Site Information:
Head Office (HO) Manchester site information
The head office in Manchester has the following staffs:
a) 5 x Executive/Management staff (Running of the company)
b) 4 x Administration staff (Administration of the company)
c) 6 x Newspaper Editors/Writers (Design, editing and layout of newspaper)
d) 4 x Business/Sales staff (Business liaison and sales)
e) 4 x IT Services staff (IT and network maintenance)
f) 7 x Journalists (Local news reporters and correspondents)
The HO mainly consists of a local network of 35 PCs for the staff and a number of specialist
systems for design and editing of the newspaper. All these are connected to backend
application, file and print servers. This network is also connected to the internet and other
sites through a private leased network.
Expenditure
Leased network connection secure private
link

250,000

All the business liaison, sales, and management staff have access to IPads/tablet PCs, and
smartphones with high resolution cameras. These are used for organising their times and
whilst they are out on business trips, internal meetings and external meetings with clients.
In addition to the above mentioned devices all the journalists have access to Digital SLR
cameras.

Typical Yearly Assets/Expenditure

Current assets Head office
Property value
IT Equipment
Expenditure
Labour costs Management
Labour costs Administration staff
Labour costs Newspaper Editors/Writers
Labour costs Business/Sales staff
Coursework: April 2016

2013
1.5 Million
50,000 Depreciated 20% per year
50,000
80,000
180,000
100,000
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Labour costs IT Services staff

Labour costs Journalists
Sales Income
Business Advertising

120,000
210,000
500000

Associative site Manchester (Printing Press) Information

The printing press site has the following staffs:
a) 5 x Printing staff (Printing of newspaper)
b) 3 x Distribution staff (Local and associative area distribution)
c) 2 x IT staff (Site IT services)
The printing site mainly consists of a local network of 15 PCs used by the printing and IT staff.
All these are connected to backend application, file and print servers. This network is also
connected to the HO via a standard broadband connection.
Current assets Printing Press
Property value
IT Equipment
Digital Printing Equipment
Expenditure
Labour costs Printing staff
Labour costs Distribution staff
Labour costs IT Services staff
Secondary Income
Secondary Printing

2013
3.0 Million
10,000 Depreciated 20% per year
300,000 Depreciated 10% per year
120,000
60,000
60,000
400000

Associative offices (Wigan, Rochdale, and Stockport)

Each of the associate offices has the following staffs:
a) 3 x Distribution staff (Local area distribution)
b) 6 x Local Journalists (Local area reporters and photographers)
c) 3 x IT staff (Site IT services)
d) 3 x Business/Sales staff (Local business liaison, sales and distribution)
Each of the associative offices mainly consists of a local network of 20 PCs for each of the staff
working in each office. All these are connected to local backend application, file and print
servers. This network is also connected to the HO via a standard broadband connection.
All the business liaison, sales, and journalist staff have access to IPads/tablet PCs, and
smartphones with high resolution cameras. These are used for organising their times and
whilst they are out on business trips, internal meetings and external meetings with clients. In
addition to the above mentioned devices all the journalists have access to Digital SLR cameras.
Current assets Associative offices x3
Coursework: April 2016

Combined Total for all 3 offices

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IT Equipment
Expenditure
Labour costs Distribution staff
Labour costs Local Journalists
Labour costs IT staff
Labour costs Business/Sales staff
Property Rent

50,000 Depreciated 20% per year

180,000
750,000
270,000
300,000
300,000 per year

Roles within the company

Journalist Staff:
A newspaper journalist researches and writes stories for national, regional and local press. As
well as news and politics, they report on sports, arts and culture, science and business. They
also cover national and local events, entertainment and human interest stories.
A typical day on the job will start around 8am in the morning and is usually the busiest part
of the day as the paper has to be readied to go to print by noon. A journalist will work on the
features pages, which are generally prepared the day before they go out. The journalist will
go through all that morning's papers looking for anything that could be a feature idea as well
as helping the editors with any bits of research for future stories they do before their morning
conference. The features writers look at any last minute changes that have to be made before
the pages get sent to the press. At around 10am the features editors meet with writers,
designers and picture editor to discuss what's going to be in the following day's paper and
raise any ideas for future editions. There are around 7 editors and writers in the team.
After the morning planning the journalist has the rest of the day to work on what they have
been tasked to do. The GM Courier is a reactive paper so there is never a day which is the
same as the previous day. One day it could be focusing on something for the next day and on
another day the journalist could be sent out on field work to cover a story that is needed for
the next day or even the same day. The field work can entail any of the following tasks:
a) Interviewing people in a range of different circumstances.
b) Building contacts to maintain a flow of news, for example, police and emergency
services, local council, community groups, health trusts, press officers from a variety
of organisations, the general public.
c) Seeking out and investigating stories via your contacts, press releases and other
media.
d) Attending press conferences and asking questions.
e) Attending a variety of events, such as council meetings, magistrates' court
proceedings, football matches, talent contests, etc.
f) Answering the phones on the news desk and reacting to breaking news stories
g) Working closely with the regional news teams, photographers and editors
h) Recording interviews and meetings using technical.
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i) Creating and uploading news content for the newspaper website and 'live' online
reporting or real-time blogging when covering important events.
In all the above tasks the journalist will be using technical equipment (voice recorders,
IPads/tablets, smartphones, cameras etc.) to copy, write, record and take images for the
stories they are covering.
Whatever the task once in the field the journalist has to find lots of information, write around
1,000 words and get ideas for pictures, in just a few hours, and this can involve finding people
whose addresses are not known and going to knock on their door and asking them questions.
The journalist will finish the day around 5:30pm or even later depending upon the nature of
the story being covered by going back to the regional or head office and uploading the
information onto the companies systems and making them ready to be used for the following
days print.
Executive/Management staff:
The Management staffs are based in the head office. They have the duty to keep in contact
with the regional offices and printing press on daily basis to ensure the smooth running of the
organisation. They have to maintain contacts with various local and national organisations
either by hosting them in the head office or by going out on business trips almost on daily
basis. They also have to attend various events and meetings almost on daily basis based on
the current stories or events taking place. They are office based but need to be out in the field
on daily basis hence each staff has access to individual PCs as well as an IPad/tablet and
smartphone which allows them to keep in contact with the local offices, clients, and
organizations. .
Administration Staff:
The Administration staffs are based in the local or head offices and are responsible for the
day to day administration tasks of the company. They are always office based and do not have
any field base work. They have access to their individual PCs for carrying out the daily
administration tasks.
Distribution Staff:
The Distribution staffs are based in the regional, printing press, and the head office have the
duty to ensure that the printed newspaper copies are delivered to all the regional stores and
shops on daily basis on time. Each of the distribution staff has access to their office based
individual PCs as well as a smartphone allowing them to keep in contact with the local offices.
Newspaper Editors/Writers:
Newspaper Editors/Writers are responsible for the contents on the GM Courier news. They
need to make sure that all the stories being covered are correct and to the right levels on the
paper. So everything from local stories, international stories, interviews with the important
people, business events, sports events etc. are being covered in the right sections and are
correct and up to date. Long before the paper is published, the editor assigns reporters to
cover the news, checks for accuracy and fairness in the newspaper's articles and writes
headlines. The editors are mostly office based and on some occasions they can go out into
the field to cover some stories if the story is too big to cover and not enough reporters are
available. Each of the Editor/Writer staffs has access to individual PCs as well as a smartphone
allowing them to keep in contact with the local offices when out on field work.
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Business/Sales staff:
The Business/Sales staffs are based in the regional and the head offices. They have the duty
to liaise with local businesses to get them to advertise in the GM Courier. They also are
responsible for securing newspaper sales with local shops, stores and businesses. They are
office based but need to be out in the field talking to clients on daily basis. Therefore each of
the Business/Sales staffs has access to individual PCs as well as an IPad/tablet and smartphone
which allows them to keep in contact with the local offices when out on field work.
IT staff:
The IT staffs are based in the regional, printing press and the head offices. They have the duty
to maintain the servers, local computers networks, PCs, IPads/Tablets, smartphones and
other relevant IT equipment. They are always office based hence have access to individual
PCs in the relevant offices.
Printing Staff:
The Printing staffs are based in printing press and have the duty to ensure that the printing
press is always working and fully operational. They also have the responsibility to ensure that
in case of printing press failure alternative printing is available. They also ensure that all the
required materials (ink, paper etc.) for the printing press are available on time. Each of the
printing staff has access to their office based individual PCs.

GM Courier Data Archive:

The GM Courier has been established for almost 25 years and has a rich archive of all its
published news stories since 1990. At the moment the archive is stored in various formats
ranging from hardcopy formats, film prints, data tapes, to digital format residing on a backup
storage server at the main HO site. This archive is very important to the company as it holds
the entire history of the company and needs to be stored in a secure and digitally accessible
format and location. If all the historical archives are converted into digital format then this
will require at least 10TBs of disk storage.

Cloud Pricing:
The following links provide information on the pricing strategy from the various cloud
providers. These are some of the service providers online. You will need to choose a pricing
strategy based on your proposed cloud service. You need to analyse the pricing strategy from
three of the major service providers and then choose the best one for the GM Courier. NB:
The prices given might be in US dollars, so you will need to convert to GBP using current
exchange rate.
http://www.hpcloud.com/pricing#Object
http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/iaas-providers,1-1560.html

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https://gigaom.com/2014/10/02/confused-by-cloud-computing-price-comparisons-herethey-are-in-one-easy-peasy-chart/

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