2024

Technical Report
CLOUD STORAGE AND COLLABORATION TOOLS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
 Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction to Existing Solution...........................................................................................................3
1.1 Aims and Objectives of Cloud Solution..................................................................................3
1.2 User Requirements................................................................................................................4
1.3 Technical Requirements.........................................................................................................4
1.4 Literature Review...................................................................................................................5
1.5 Gantt Chart............................................................................................................................5
Justification of the Plan.........................................................................................................................6
2.1 Risks and Mitigation of the Risks............................................................................................7
Development of the Cloud-Based Solution............................................................................................7
3.1 Signing up for One Drive Account..........................................................................................7
3.2 Dashboard of the One Drive..................................................................................................8
3.3 Creating Shared Folder:.........................................................................................................9
3.4 Adding Members to the solution...........................................................................................9
3.5 Creating Document and Spreadsheet Files in Shared Folder...............................................10
3.6 Calendar Integration............................................................................................................10
3.7 Accessibility Check from Two Other Browsers (Microsoft Edge)..........................................11
3.8 Accessibility from another browser (Mozilla Firefox)...........................................................12
3.9 Mobile Accessibility.............................................................................................................13
Testing.................................................................................................................................................16
4.1 Functionality Testing............................................................................................................16
4.2 Storage Testing.....................................................................................................................16
4.3 Compatibility Testing............................................................................................................17
User Feedback.....................................................................................................................................19
5.1 Response of the users..........................................................................................................19
5.2 Contacting with customers..................................................................................................20
Optimization........................................................................................................................................20
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................21
References...........................................................................................................................................21

Table of Figures
Figure 1: Gantt Chart............................................................................................................................6
Figure 2: Signing up for One Drive.........................................................................................................8
Figure 3: One Drive first Screen.............................................................................................................8
Figure 4: Creating a Shared Folder.........................................................................................................9
Figure 5: Adding members to the shared folder....................................................................................9
Figure 6: Creating Document and Excel file.........................................................................................10
Figure 7: Calendar Collaboration.........................................................................................................10
Figure 8: Calendar Integration.............................................................................................................11
Figure 9: Accessibility from Microsoft Edge.........................................................................................11
Figure 10: Accessibility from Mozilla Firefox........................................................................................12
Figure 11: Mobile View (1)...................................................................................................................13
Figure 12: Mobile View (2)...................................................................................................................14
Figure 13: Mobile View (3)...................................................................................................................15
Figure 14: Functionality Testing...........................................................................................................16
Figure 15: Storage Testing....................................................................................................................17
Figure 16: Compatibility Testing...........................................................................................................17
Figure 17: Compatibility Testing (2).....................................................................................................18
Figure 18: Customer Feedback Form...................................................................................................19
Figure 19: Customer Feedback............................................................................................................19
Figure 20: Feedback email...................................................................................................................20

Introduction to Existing Solution

In the early times, every company has its servers and their networking architecture, these
whole terms come under the name of On-premise architecture. The company in which I have
been recently hired is already working on on-premise architecture. Let us define what is on-
premise architecture, On-premises architecture is comprised of data, software, and
applications that are installed and operated from an in-house server and computing
infrastructure. It utilizes the organization’s native computing resources. (Owner, On-Premises
2024)
The company has deployed its servers with high-quality RAMs and with high-capacity
storage disks to tackle storage-related issues. Their servers play the role of the backbone of
their company’s computation tasks. Servers are not only limited to computation and storage;
they also serve as the source of information and hub for routing their messages. In case
employees have to collaborate on a shared folder or the same file, those folders or files are
stored on the servers, and if anyone wants to modify that he/she just goes on the server
accesses that file and changes, and then again push on that specific location.
If we want to discuss on-premise security, we can explain it as the company has installed
their defined firewalls and antiviruses to secure its resources and also they can save their data
from any external hacker. The other important term is the maintenance team, whose
responsibility is to maintain their network and their all resources including servers.
The company has designed its networking structure using any specific topology to meet the
organization’s needs. There are several costs and responsibilities of the organizations
including labor costs, maintenance costs, and power consumption costs. In conclusion, we
can say that there are several pros and cons of the on-premise architecture including cost-
related issues and security strengths.
1.1 Aims and Objectives of Cloud Solution
The company wants to deploy a pilot project for testing the cloud services, I have been hired
by the company as an IT support technician, The IT Director is a knowledgeable person and
he wants to shift the whole company's servers and architecture to cloud services. Companies
want to reduce their Labor as well as power consumption costs. Moreover, they also want to
shrink their physical place to minimize rental expenses. In this section, we will discuss about
the aims and objectives of shifting organizations from on-premise architecture to cloud
services.
 Security Attainment: In cloud technology, it is the cloud provider's responsibility to
secure users' data and also it is considered that cloud providers have deployed high-
security standards and up-to-date security frameworks. So, we can say that it is secure
and we can rely on it.
 Scalability Achievement: The core concept or characteristic of the cloud is
scalability; scalability means the shrinking and expanding of cloud services according
to the company’s needs. In other words, we can say that cloud is scalable we can
expand or shrink cloud services according to our needs.
 Testing Availability: Availability means that when a user wants to access the services
it should be there to entertain. Cloud services only require an internet connection to
reach them, so we can say that they are available everywhere, where there is internet.
Cloud services are accessible with few requirements so we can say that these services
are easily accessible and available.
  Cost efficiency (pay-as-you-go): Cost efficiency means that the cloud is efficient
regarding cost. Cost efficiency and scalability have a strong connection, cost only
increases when we increase our resources, and scalability means shrinking and
expanding cloud services, so when we shrink the resources, the cost will also reduce
and when we expand our resources cost will automatically increase.
1.2 User Requirements
User requirements can be defined as the requirements that are required by the user they want
to attain in the system after successful deployment. This section will describe some of the
users’ requirements which should be included in the designed solution.
 Fast and reliable collaboration: The users are my company employees and my IT
Director is the person who wants these things in the solution, They want such type of
solution that should offer shared resources in which anyone with the authorization can
make changes and also can download and upload their work on that collaborated
solution.
 Scheduling Facility: To make things effective and manageable, the company
manager wants to design such type of solution in which users should be able to
schedule their important tasks and also, they can share their busy and free schedule
with their colleagues.
 Scalable Solution: Another important requirement is the scalability. The core concept
or characteristic of cloud is scalability, scalability means the shrinking and expanding
of cloud services according to the company’s needs. In other words, we can say that
cloud is scalable we can expand or shrink cloud services according to our needs.
1.3 Technical Requirements
Technical requirements can be defined as the requirements that are only considered by the
designers of the solution or the technical persons, who can be from the IT department. Now
let us define the technical requirements based on the user's requirements which type of things
should be technically present in our designed solution.
 Collaborative platform: Technically we can say that our company’s requirement is
such a type of platform that should be collaborative, which means users can log in to
the solution in which they can access the shared folders or files and can do their tasks
in those shared files or folders. Technically we have to deploy our solution at such a
platform where we can add or remove the members and also give them limited access.
 Storage: It is not enough that the users can collaborate, another important thing is the
storage facility, users should be able to store their files and folders on the solution’s
storage facility. So, we have to provide a storage facility in GBs or TBs to store the
organization’s files and folders.
 Calendar Integration: For scheduling their important tasks and holding meetings it
is important to integrate calendars with the solution so that users can arrange and hold
the events virtually.
 1.4 Literature Review
There are several solutions available in the market, I have searched and then I have chosen
One Drive as a solution de to some advantages. Let us describe some of the other available
solutions present in the market:
 Microsoft Azure: The Microsoft Intelligent Cloud delivers AWS-like cloud
computing services through the Azure Cloud in over 116 Availability Zones. The
Azure cloud delivers over 200 cloud services in the form of Infrastructure-as-a-
Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), as well as
Edge and Serverless computing. (Slingerland 2023) this is also one of the best
solutions that can be adopted by organizations.
 Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS offers hundreds of services. These include
Virtual Private Cloud, EC2, AWS Data Transfer, Simple Storage Service, DynamoDB,
Elastic Compute Cloud, AWS Key Management Service, AmazonCloudWatch,
Simple Notification Service, Relational Database Service, Route 53, Simple Queue
Service, CloudTrail, and Simple Email Service. (Chand 2024) It is also one of the best
choices for cloud solutions.
 Salesforce: A California-based software company, Salesforce Inc., offers a fully-
loaded cloud computing platform that enables enterprises to accelerate application
production through multiple cloud services, such as Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud,
and Service Cloud. Salesforce provides a unique solution for Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) in the cloud. The cloud-based CRM suite allows users to access
cutting-edge functionalities without the need to deploy costly IT infrastructure.
(simplilearn 2023)
1.5 Gantt Chart
For every project, there should be a time management chart that shows effective time
management, Gantt charts, and one of the effective time management approaches to manage
the time according to tasks and time assigned to them. In this section, we will provide a Gantt
Chart to show effective time management of our task.
 Figure 1: Gantt Chart

Justification of the Plan

There are several solutions available in the market, I have chosen Microsoft On-Drive as a
solution for the deployment of the pilot project for the company. Microsoft One Drive
provides a 5GB free storage to the users on signup. This is one of the best options features of
the one-drive that makes it attractive and offers more services with the storage.
One Drive offers a collaboration facility with MS Word-type documentation web view and
spreadsheet web view that motivates the users to create a shared folder in which they can
create files that would be accessible to all users of the department. This collaboration facility
enables the users to read, write, and view their files so that they can update each other on any
specific topic.
Calendar collaboration is an important and attractive feature offered by One Drive, with the
help of this facility, users can manage their events and they can also arrange meetings
keeping in mind the bust schedules of the employees. The scheduling facility also enables
them to track the tasks of the company and to fulfill that they should be completed on time.
One of the most important features is security-related concerns, MS One drive is the product
of Microsoft it is their duty to manage and make it secure, So we can say that it is the most
important feature that also makes it proficient and adoptable for companies. Security always
remains as core feature and need of every organization so that organization data should
remain secure and accessible to only authorized people.
 2.1 Risks and Mitigation of the Risks
Although One Drive is the best solution for our organization it should remain in mind that
there are several kinds of risks related to the One Drive as a cloud solution. In this section, we
will describe some of them:
 Security Risks: When we talk about the security of any system, then we come to talk
about authorization risks. In other words, we can say that authorization is the process
of validating any unauthorized user to access our system and data. Malware is also a
common and most important attack on security. To mitigate these risks it is important
to educate people about social engineering. It is also a good practice to use multi-
factor authentication. Regular audits can also decrease the risk of Security breaches
and attacks.
 Data Loss Risks due to Untrained Employees: inexperienced and untrained
employees do not have much knowledge about One Drive. This factor may affect the
whole efficiency of work. To avoid this type of risk it is always recommended to first
train your employees and then your organization's efficiency may be increased. Data
loss risk means that when we are working in collaborative platforms, there are
chances that when one adds something to one file another may intentionally or
unintentionally delete that file. So that we have to create a backup of every file.
 Availability Risks: Availability risks mean such types of risks in which there are very
rare chances but the risk is a risk. Availability risk means that in case of a complete
outage of the service, the resources will not be available to the employees. So the
company has to make a backup of the power to run the computers and the system
perfectly.
 Use of Resources without Need: Sometimes we order something that is always in
excessive quantity and beyond our needs, in that case, we are using extra resources
that are not needed by us. In cloud technology, there are such types of resources that
we do not need but we are paying for them. To mitigate such type of risk it is
recommended to continuously monitor the cloud platform so that we can avoid such
type of overruns.

Development of the Cloud-Based Solution

The most important part has been arrived in which we are going to show the proof of
developing the cloud-based solution for our organization.
3.1 Signing up for One Drive Account
The first part of the key step is signing up for the One Drive account:
 Figure 2: Signing up for One Drive

3.2 Dashboard of the One Drive

Here we are providing the real presentation of the first screen that appears after the successful login
to the One Drive:

Figure 3: One Drive first Screen

3.3 Creating Shared Folder:

Figure 4: Creating a Shared Folder

3.4 Adding Members to the solution

Figure 5: Adding members to the shared folder

3.5 Creating Document and Spreadsheet Files in Shared Folder

Figure 6: Creating Document and Excel file

3.6 Calendar Integration

Figure 7: Calendar Collaboration

 Figure 8: Calendar Integration

3.7 Accessibility Check from Two Other Browsers (Microsoft Edge)

Figure 9: Accessibility from Microsoft Edge

3.8 Accessibility from another browser (Mozilla Firefox)

Figure 10: Accessibility from Mozilla Firefox

3.9 Mobile Accessibility

Figure 11: Mobile View (1)

Figure 12: Mobile View (2)
Figure 13: Mobile View (3)
Testing
After the deployment, it must be properly tested to verify that it would work properly. Testing
is the last stage of the system which verifies whether it would properly work or not. Now let
us verify our system with the help of some basic testing techniques:
4.1 Functionality Testing
Functionality testing means that we have to verify that our designed solution is working or
not for the purpose it was developed. Like our main purpose was to provide a collaborative
solution that would offer the user to view and create a new file in the shared folder.

Figure 14: Functionality Testing

4.2 Storage Testing

Storage testing is to test whether our designed solution provides the needed storage to the
user or not. Microsoft One Drive offers 5 GB of Free Storage to its users. Let us see where it
is located in the One Drive dashboard.
 Figure 15: Storage Testing

4.3 Compatibility Testing

Compatibility Testing means that to check whether our designed system is accessible from
other browsers and other operating systems or not. In this testing, we will try to log in to our
system from other browsers and also from mobile we will check whether it is accessible from
there or not.

Figure 16: Compatibility Testing

Figure 17: Compatibility Testing (2)
User Feedback
User Feedback is one of the key features that play an important role in the success of any
system. To get feedback from users we have designed a feedback form and then asked the
users to fill the form to get their suggestions:

Figure 18: Customer Feedback Form

5.1 Response of the users

Figure 19: Customer Feedback

 5.2 Contacting with customers

Figure 20: Feedback email

Optimization
According to the law, it is recommended to optimize the system based on customer feedback
and testing. So, we have also optimized our system in the following prospects:
 Access Optimization: One of our customers has asked for optimization in access
management, as we have optimized our system access and now we are able give only
access to our person who should be able to edit the system.
 User Interface Optimization: The product is only successful when its users can
easily use it. Our user interface for getting files, folders, and calendars must be easily
accessible to the users. It should have an easy and attractive interface that any user
without any hesitation and pain can see when his/her meeting is scheduled and when
he/she has free time or busy time.
 Performance Monitoring: We have optimized our system on behalf of the
performance to check whether it gives the best solution or not. Implement monitoring
tools to track system performance dimensions, like response rate and latency.
Analysed performance tests to find bottlenecks or areas containing loopholes. To
improve the overall performance of the system we have fine-tuned configuration
settings, such as cache management, file compression, and network optimization.
 Security Optimization: Usernames and passwords are the best approach to get
security standards. As I have managed the whole system for more than two weeks, I
came to conclude that multifactor authentication and also two-factor authentication
including verification using an OTP for login is best for security purposes. Moreover,
to ensure proper security measures, it is recommended to regularly audit the security
cautions and always be up to date on the security measures.
Conclusion
On-premise is an old, more customizable, and secure IT resources approach that is mostly
used by companies. On-premise architecture comprises on company’s servers, networking
approach, and maintenance team. Cloud technology is the alternative to the on-premise
architecture. Cloud technologies provide all facilities that are covered by the on-premise
architecture and also much more. Cloud provides some delivery models that make it unique
and adaptable. It provides infrastructure, platforms, and software as services in the form of
delivery models. Adopting cloud technologies impacts the organization in positive form but
also there are some negative impacts on the organizations. Legal and ethical issues also
impact the organization upon adopting cloud technologies.
One Drive was the best solution for the pilot project deployment in our company. Our
approach to solving the organization's problem is quite suitable for this problem. One Drive is
a product of Microsoft which is a well-known company in the IT world as it provides
documentation applications, and many more. Our client needed a solution that should include
a storage facility, calendar collaboration, file-sharing option, and secure communication. So,
we have designed our solution using One Drive to meet the above-mentioned user’s needs. To
fulfill the security needs there are many options of joining through links or only additions by
the admin that enhance its usability. There are chat room options and file-sharing options
through which members can collaborate. Calendar sharing option is the key feature that
enables members to share schedules and arrange events.
Concluding this solution we have tested our solution and also gained feedback from the users.
Feedback from the users was completely helpful as users were able to give their suggestions.
After successful feedback and suggestions, we have optimized our solution in different
prospects like security, storage, collaboration, and visibility. At last, we came to finalize a
solution that is completely tested and bug free solution through which users or organizations
can run their business.

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