Introduction
When an organization moves from in-house emailing platform to cloud, it is quite challenging for the organization to handle the change as it is exposed to certain risks. In this report, the case of UniSA has been discussed which has been planning to move on premise Exchange solution 2013 to cloud email service. In this report, the change impact and stakeholder analysis has been done to assess the implications of the change. Also, it includes detailed vendor analysis which will be followed for selection of appropriated cloud vendor
Discussion
Analysis of current environment
UniSA (University of South Australia) has a good number of student’s enrolment every year, so it has decided to upgrade its on premise Exchange solution into cloud so that greater reliability could be gained. Currently, the university has been using the on premise solution for carrying out communication among various departments and with students as well.
Overview of the change
UniSA is interested in moving its on premise Exchange solution to cloud email service. This change will be going to replace the calendar events of staff and student with timetabling system. Also, this change will be going to create the student and staff email boxes automatically. This change is going to impact the business operations of UniSA as there will be migration of data from on premise to cloud service provider.
Stakeholder identification analysis
For identification of the stakeholders of this cloud migration project, the stakeholder identification analysis will be done in two steps
• Identifying key stakeholders and their interests
In this step, the stakeholder analysis matrix will be constructed to find out the stakeholders associated with this change.
|
Stakeholder |
Role |
|
Higher management |
Their role is to lead the change of on premise Exchange solution to cloud email service. |
|
Staff members |
Their role is to help in deciding that what should be migrated on cloud |
|
Research team |
Their role is to use the cloud service for communicating their research work |
|
Students |
Their role is to use to the cloud email service in a wise manner as guided by the university’s tutors. |
Assessing the influence and importance of identified stakeholders
For assessment of influence and importance, power-interest table will be used in the following way.
|
Stakeholder |
Authority |
Interest |
|
Higher management |
High |
High |
|
Staff members |
Moderate |
High |
|
Research team |
High |
High |
|
Students |
Low |
Lows |
Change impact analysis
The change impact analysis is a technique that is used for understanding the implications of change that will be imposed on UniSA and key stakeholders of the change. For analyzing the impact of changes, a tool, PLM will be used.
PLM is a configuration management tool that will be applied with the migration of on premise Exchange solution to cloud email service provider. This tool will
• Track all of the changes that will be done on the UniSA infrastructure due to migration.
• It will allow to follow and analyze the technical changes that will be taking place and will track it too.
• It will provide a complete history of the modifications that is to be done in the configurations and data of UniSA throughout the migration.
• It will create report of non-compliance areas and the changes that is to be made across the board.
Stakeholder relationship/risk analysis
The stakeholder relationship analysis mainly includes the various types of risk that can arise due to stakeholders of UniSA cloud migration project. For this purpose, risk analysis framework will be constructed.
|
Risk |
Stakeholder involved |
Impact on stakeholder |
Likelihood |
Degree of impact |
|
Senstivity of research material is a risk associated with this change where the loss of Intellectual Property of UniSA can be a huge loss |
UniSA’s researchers |
They can lose their research work |
High |
High |
|
Loss of control from the accessibility and maintenance of data can be another risk where this cloud migration will be opposed by higher authorities |
Higher management of UniSA |
They will lose control over maintenance of university’s data |
Moderate |
Moderate |
Communication plan
|
Stakeholder’s involved |
Purpose of engagement |
Mode of engagement |
Frequency |
|
Higher management and IT staff |
· To discuss the changes that will made into infrastructure of UniSA. · To discuss benefits of moving to cloud email service |
Group discussion |
Twice a week |
|
Higher authorities and staff |
· To train for using new cloud email service · To discuss the change strategy that will be used |
Group discussion |
Thrice a week |
|
Board members and cloud vendors |
To select the cloud vendor for cloud email services |
One to one interviews |
Twice a week |
|
Cloud vendors and IT staff |
To clear and discuss implementation of cloud email service |
Group discussion |
Thrice a week |
Proposed Governance Framework
In order to ensure that UniSA is doing the things in right way, in short, the IT strategy of the university is well aligned with its business operations, COBIT v5 will be used for assurance. It is the framework which is used for corporate governance that is driven by IT platforms. Moreover, it also includes governance of Cloud service. The control objectives of COBIT framework will ensure that their cloud email services and other IT services are running reliably and securely.
Detailed Vendor Analysis
Criteria for selecting right cloud vendor for cloud email services are
• Certifications and standards: Often the providers which comply with quality frameworks and standards are preferable ones. For example, a good cloud email service provider follows ISO, NIST, IEEE and DMTF standards.
• Clear SLA: This is essential criteria to prevent from vendor lock ins. The service providers having clear SLA are the preferred ones as they have clear terms and conditions.
• Data governance and security: UniSA must select that cloud email service provider who have a strict data governance scheme followed at its place.
Conclusion
Overall, it can be concluded that this report contained the description of change that UniSA is going to have. Following are certain recommendations for them
• Office 365 would be suitable for them as Microsoft is a reliable and recognized brand having strict security policy.
• UniSA must select cloud email service provider who have a strict data governance framework.
