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Q6-5 How Can Falcon Security Use the Cloud?

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Browsers in
Browsers in
Sales Dept
Browsers in
Sales Dept
Browsers in
Sales Dept Browsers in
Browsers in
Sales Dept Browsers in
Browsers in
Sales Dept Customer
Browsers in
Browsers in
Sales Dept Customer
Browsers in
Customer
Sales Dept Service
Service
Customer
Inventory Service
Service
Inventory Applications Inventory
Application
Application service requests
service requests Web Servers & responses
& responses
Database server Browsers in
service requests & Browsers in
Browsers in responses Accounting
Browsers in
Browsers in Accounting
Shipping Accounting
Browsers in
Shipping
Browsers in
Shipping
Browsers in
Figure 6-19 Shipping DBMS DB
Shipping
Web Services Principles Applied Database Server
to Inventory Applications
Using Web Services Internally
The third way that organizations can use cloud technology is to build internal information sys-
tems using Web services. Strictly speaking, this is not using the cloud because it does not provide
elasticity nor the advantages of pooled resources. It does advantageously use cloud standards,
however, so we include it here.
Figure 6-19 shows a Web services inventory application at a hypothetical online bicycle part
retailer named Best Bikes. In this example, Best Bikes is running its own servers on its own infrastruc-
ture. To do so, Best Bikes sets up a private internet within the company, an internet that is generally
not reachable from outside the company. Best Bikes writes the applications for processing inventory
using Web services standards; applications publish a WSDL; the Web services are accessed by other
applications within the company using SOAP; and data are delivered using JSON. Application users
access the inventory Web services using JavaScript that is sent down to the users’ browsers.
Users of the inventory Web services include Sales, Shipping, Customer Service, Accounting,
and other departments. Internal applications can use the inventory Web services like building
blocks. They can use the services that they need—and no more. Because the Web services are
encapsulated, the inventory system can be altered without affecting other applications. In this
way, systems development is more flexible, and it will be faster and hence less costly.
As stated, however, this is not a cloud. In this example, Best Bikes has a fixed number of serv-
ers; no attempt is made to make them elastic. Also, the servers are dedicated to inventory. During
idle periods, they are not dynamically reused for other purposes. Some organizations remove this
limit by creating a private cloud, as discussed in Q6-6.

Q6-5 How Can Falcon Security Use the Cloud?

Falcon Security is an innovative startup company with a small IT department. As such, it is unlikely
to have the resources necessary to develop a large server infrastructure. Instead, it is far more likely
to take advantage of cloud services provided by cloud vendors.

SaaS Services at Falcon Security

Software as a service requires little investment in the hardware and software system components.
The SaaS vendor administers and manages the cloud servers and makes the software available,
usually as a thin-client. Falcon will, however, need to transfer existing data, create new data,
develop procedures, and train users.