ICT335 Cloud Computing: Business Case and Technical Models Tutor-Marked Assignment 2026, Singapore

ICT335 Tutor-Marked Assignment

This assignment is worth 18% of the final mark for ICT335 – Cloud Computing: Business Case and Technical Models.

Question 1

Objective:  

Apply business economics to test your knowledge and understanding in evaluating a cloud platform and to formulate the cost of hosting resources in a public cloud.

Question Details:

A university runs CourseHub, an internal learning platform. IT must decide whether to continue on‑premises or migrate to a single public cloud provider.

Workload requirement for cloud:

• Compute (monthly)
  o Baseline: 6 Compute Units (CU), running 24×7
  o Burst: 2 CU for 120 hours/month (exam periods / deadlines)
• Storage
  o Starts at 25 TB
  o Increases by +1 TB every quarter (every 3 months)
• Networking
  o Outbound (egress) to internet: 6 TB/month
  o Assume ingress is free

NOTE: 1 TB = 1024 GB, 1 month = 730 hours

On‑Premises Cost Model:

• Hardware cost (Month 0)
  o Compute server total cost: $70,000
  o Storage system total cost: $55,000
  o Network equipment total cost: $15,000
  o All hardware has 3-year depreciation cycle
• Monthly cost
  o Vendor support: 10% of CAPEX per year, paid monthly
  o Power & cooling: Compute $600 + Storage $300 + Network $100
  o Internet/WAN: $1,200/month

Cloud Cost Model:

• One-time Migration Cost (Month 0)
  o Migration (data migration + refactoring + testing/parallel run): $153,000
• Cloud monthly pricing
  o Compute
  – Baseline (6 CU, 24×7) uses 3‑year commitment: $0.50 per CU-hour
  – Burst uses on-demand: $1.20 per CU-hour
  o Storage
  – $0.012 per GB-month
  o Networking
  – Egress: $0.03 per GB

a) Perform 3-year financial analysis by calculating the CAPEX, OPEX and TCO for both onpremises and cloud scenarios. List all calculation steps.

(18 marks)

b) Make a recommendation based on economics: whether the university should migrate CourseHub to cloud?

(8 marks)

(Q.1 Total 26 marks)

Question 2

Objectives:

To demonstrate your knowledge and your ability to recommend Virtual Machine and Container technologies.

Question Details:

A healthcare provider is launching a new Online Appointment & Patient Records Platform.

The system consists of two major application components that must be deployed in the cloud:

1. Appointment Booking Web Application:

• A modern application developed using Python and Node.js
• Expected to receive fluctuating usage depending on time of day
• Needs to support rapid release of updates and patches
• May require multiple instances to handle peak booking periods

2. Patient Record Processing Module

• A legacy application developed many years ago
• Runs only on Windows Server 2012
• Uses a proprietary third‑party software library that depends on OS‑level services
• Stores patient medical records locally
• Must operate in an isolated environment due to strict healthcare data protection requirements

The organisation is deciding whether to deploy these application components using Virtual Machines (VMs) or Containers (e.g. Docker).

Evaluate the requirements of the organisation and provide a deployment recommendation: either Virtual Machine or Container technology, for each application component. Justify the proposed approach with a discussion of key considerations. For each consideration, compare VM and Container technologies, outlining their differences and addressing their applicability to this scenario.

(Q.2 Total 24 marks)

Question 3

Objectives:

To differentiate and distinguish the different types of public cloud services by testing your knowledge and ability to use a public IaaS.

Question Details:

a) Set up an Amazon Web Services (AWS) account, log into the console and create an EC2 Virtual Machine with at least the following characteristics

• Linux operating system
• At least 1vCPU, 1GB memory and 5GB of disk space
• Single Public IP

Deliverable: 

Screenshot/s clearly showing:

• The settings of the EC2 virtual machine, including the name and public IP
• How you are connecting to your EC2 virtual machine’s command line. Run a command in the command line to display the host name. The screenshot should clearly show the virtual machine name/ID or public IP that matches the virtual machine settings.

(3 marks)

b) The EC2 virtual machine in (a) will be used to install a web application (not in scope of this assignment). Configure the relevant AWS resources to allow HTTPS traffic to this virtual machine.

Deliverable:

Screenshot/s of the AWS resource configuration for the above requirement.

(3 marks)

c) Set up a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account, log into the console and create a GCE Virtual Machine with at least the following characteristics

• Linux operating system
• At least 1vCPU, 1GB memory and 5GB of disk space
• Single Public IP

Deliverable: 

Screenshot/s clearly showing:

• The settings of the GCE virtual machine, including the name and public IP
• How you are connecting to your GCE virtual machine’s command line. Run a command in the command line to display the host name. The screenshot should clearly show the virtual machine name/ID or public IP that matches the virtual machine settings.

(3 marks)

d) The GCE virtual machine in (c) will be used to install a web application (not in scope of this assignment). Configure the relevant GCP resources to allow HTTPS traffic to this virtual machine.

Deliverable:

Screenshot/s of the GCP resource configuration for the above requirement.

(3 marks)

e) Set up a Microsoft Azure account, log into the portal and create an Azure Virtual Machine with at least the following characteristics

• Linux operating system
• At least 1vCPU, 1GB memory and 5GB of disk space
• Single Public IP

Deliverable:

Screenshot/s clearly showing:

• The settings of the Azure virtual machine, including the name and public IP
• How you are connecting to your Azure virtual machine’s command line. Run a command in the command line to display the host name. The screenshot should clearly show the virtual machine name/ID or public IP that matches the virtual machine settings.

(3 marks)

f) The Azure virtual machine in (a) will be used to install a web application (not in scope of this assignment). Configure the relevant Azure resources to allow HTTPS traffic to this virtual machine.

Deliverable:

Screenshot/s of the Azure resource configuration for the above requirement.

(3 marks)

(Q3 Total 18 marks)

Question 4

Objectives:

To differentiate and distinguish the different types of public cloud services by testing your knowledge and ability to evaluate a public SaaS.

Question Details:

A mid-sized financial organization has engaged you as an external consultant to study, recommend and propose a solution for migrating their on-premises email server to the cloud.

They are considering the change due to ageing server hardware, system downtime, high cost of technology maintenance, weak spam filtering and inconsistent email access speeds.

The following are some of the key considerations:

• The organization has users across ASEAN, Japan, Korea, China, Europe and USA.
• While users are currently only allowed to access emails via the email client on their workstations, management would like to do away with this and encourage the use of a web-based interface, with capabilities of emailing from authorised mobile phones.
• Due to increasing password vulnerabilities, the proposed solution should deploy more advanced security measures for authentication.
• The proposed solution should have strong data protection.
• All existing emails must be migrated to the proposed solution.

a) Discuss FIVE (5) key benefits of adopting a public SaaS email solution. Be sure to relate to the issues faced by the organization.

(10 marks)

b) Compare SaaS email products for these requirements, present your professional opinion and your proposal to the company.

Whenever possible or appropriate, support your recommendation with facts, figures, screenshot/s as required. Please cite and reference as required.

(22 marks)

(Q4 Total 32 marks)

—- End of Assignment —-