Många studenter behöver en web-baserad tjänst som de kan uppnå målet inom sina studier. Många studenter inom IT-området måste ladda ner mängder av programvaror och satsa relativt mycket pengar på sina datorer för att ha tillräckligt utrymme och processorkraft att köra olika program under sin studietid. Studenterna behöver en smidig, mångsidig och flexibel internetbaserad plattform som de kan komma åt när som helst, var som helst och från vilken enhet som helst. Dessutom är användbarhet hos plattformen en viktig aspekt för att supportera studenternas arbete. Bluemix är en Plattform as a Service (PaaS) - en typ av molntjänst. På Bluemix kan människor inom IT-området skapa, ändra, uppdatera och lagra sina applikationer med olika programmeringsspråk och de kan lägga olika tjänster till sina applikationer smidigt och snabbt. Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att utvärdera användbarhet av molntjänstplattformen Bluemix och undersöka vilken nytta som användare kan få när de använder plattformen. Den huvudsakliga målgruppen utgör studenter inom IT-området. Data har samlats in med hjälp av olika tekniker till exempel användartester, observation, tänka-högt (Think Aloud), intervju och enkät. Undersökningen visar att molntjänstplattformen Bluemix har god användbarhet fastän det finns några punkter som inte följer principer för god användbarhet. Dessutom är den en plattform som många testpersoner (studenter) önskar kan användas på universitetet. Nyckelord: Användbarhet, molntjänst, PaaS, SaaS, Bluemix, designprinciper, användartester, ITutbildning

Det finns många fördelar med att använda molntjänster och molnmarknaden har växt fort de senaste åren. Men när molnleverantörsmarknaden är så pass konkurrens utsatt är det inte lätt att välja vem man vill vända sig till, och det finns ofta anledningar till att vilja byta leverantör. Det finns många saker som kan låsa in en kund hos en leverantör, ofta på grund av att det skulle bli alldeles för dyrt att flytta, kanske för att ditt system inte är kompatibelt med någon annan leverantör, eller för att ett avtal hindrar dig från att flytta delar av systemet. Detta är vad man brukar kalla för leverantörsinlåsningar (vendor lock-ins). Många vill idag flytta system till molnet, men få är tillräckligt kunniga i vad det innebär och vad som kommer krävas från kunden. I den här studien vill vi belysa problemet och erbjuda vägledning till hur man kan minimera leverantörsinlåsningar.

This thesis is concerned with the analysis of Cloud Computing as a solution for corporate information system and also its component for customer relationship management as a separate application in small and medium-sized companies. This thesis is also engaged in the research of small and medium-sized companies on the Czech market and finds the attitude of companies to applications run due to Cloud Computing solutions and what they think about Cloud Computing as such. The main objective of this work is to analyze the possibilities of this relatively new platform and highlight the the benefits and potential risks of their use. The work is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the theoretical plane of Cloud Computing, where the basic concepts and limitations are defined and from which I will result my thesis. The second part is divided into four chapters. In the first subsection the ERP systems are compared, which are offered as a free version or as an Open Source suitable for use on Cloud Computing platform. In the second subsection the CRM systems are compared as a separate applications offered online as SaaS . The third section is devoted to the market research, which is focused on attitude and use of Cloud Computing applications in small and medium-sized companies . The final section offers the recommendations for MSP in the transition to Cloud Computing.

This master thesis deals with the analysis of the possibilities of Cloud Computing for information system solutions in small and medium businesses. The main objective is to analyze these options, identify key areas for the transition to the cloud and propose an approach to develop Information system in this direction. The main contribution of this work is the practical experience which is involved in a view of the problems being solved and an emphasis on aspects that have been verified in practices. The main text of the work is divided into five chapters. The first chapter defines the basic concepts and limitations on which further work is based. The second chapter deals with the current form of IS in SMEs, its description and identifying problems. The third chapter analyzes the Cloud Computing from the perspective of the suitability of various models for SMEs, identifies the major trends that affect the Cloud Computing and describes some basic elements on which Cloud Computing is based. It also analyzes the issue of security. The fourth chapter deals with the state of Cloud Computing market and identification of key problem areas which need to be solved in various stages of market development. The last chapter uses several case studies to show a meaningfulness and readiness of Cloud Computing for running information system. In the end the recommended approach to the adoption of cloud services is defined.

Windows Azure Platform is product of the Microsoft company aimed to host web applications. With this product, Microsoft is reacting on the new trend in IT -- cloud computing. This diploma thesis deals with all the aspects of developing and running PHP applications on Windows Azure Platform. Thesis is divided into two parts -- theoretical and practical. In the theoretical part, Windows Azure Platform is described in detail. The description consists of it's main parts, position in the world of cloud computing, price and main competitors. In the practical part, migration of school PHP application developed during 4IT445 course from LAMP platform to Windows Azure Platform is described. Except the migration itself, the benefits of new platform to application are described. In the thesis conclusion, development and running applications on both platforms is compared. The target of the thesis is to write first complete Czech text about running PHP applications on Windows Azure Platform and to help PHP developers to chose which way to go.

This thesis is focused on cloud computing and its impact on enterprise resource planning information systems. The historical background of cloud computing is discussed in the first of the thesis. After that, analysis of all possible services and types of cloud computing are provided. In this first part of this thesis, there is also an analysis of cloud computing providers who provide one of the possible cloud computing service - Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS). This thesis evaluates IaaS providers based on suggested methodology. According to this methodology each provider is ranked and the provider with the highest score is used as a provider for outsourcing infrastructure for a new model of information system which is suggested further in the thesis. The next part of this thesis provides a detailed view on cloud computing service closely related to software distribution - Software as a Service(SaaS). This focuses on key features of this approach, there is a discussion about differences between ASP and on-premis approach. At the end of this part there is a detailed discussion about SaaS benefits and risks for customers as well as software vendors. Having discussed all necessary theoretical background a local software company providing mainly on-premise enterprise resource planning information system is described. After all threads and opportunities of this company are analyzed it is suggested to provide a new option of distributing one of its information system to customers - in the form of SaaS. Based on the decision in the previous part, one of the information systems offered to customers is chosen and reengineered in order to allow distribution over the Internet as SaaS. While changing the architecture of the information system, the main focus is to reduce initial costs. A necessary features which need to be changed are analyzed from three perspectives - technological, process and economical. In all of these perspectives there is a discussion about problems which need to be kept in mind. Each problem is analyzed and the solution options are discussed. Towards the end of each problematical part there is a recommendation for the company in order to reach the set goals. The final part is comparing the on-premise system and the SaaS system. The comparison is provided in the customer example. There are calculations for each solution and a discussion about potential attractiveness of a newly designed information system for potential customers.

This thesis is dedicated to the issue of project management and its support using software tools. It is focused on analysis of existing solutions and designing a new mobile application for Android platform. It summarizes basic principles of making mobile applications for Android OS. Designed application uses some properties of cloud computing for scaling and synchronizing data easily.

This master thesis analyses and investigates how to speed up the deployment of a suite of services to a Platform as a Service. The project use IBM’s Cloud Pak for Applications together with Red Hats OpenShift to provide insights on important factors that influences the deployment process. In this thesis, a modification was done on the installer such that the deployment instructions were sent in parallel instead of sequentially. Except for the parallel suggestion, this thesis also investigates different options on how constraints could be applied to the CPU and what the consequences are. At the end of this report, the reader will also see how the deployment times are affected by cluster scaling. An implementation of the parallel deployment showed that the installation time of Cloud Pak for Applications could be decreased. It was also shown that the CPU was not utilized fully and that there exists significant CPU saturation during the deployment. The evaluation of the scaling analysis showed that, in regards of this thesis, it is more beneficial both timewise and cost-wise to scale horizontally rather than vertically.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) has produced a huge impact on how we can offer easy and scalable software that adapts to the needs of the users. This has allowed the possibility of systems being capable to easily configure themselves upon the demand of the customers. Based on these features, a large interest has emerged to try and offer virtualized Hadoop solutions based on Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) architectures in order to easily deploy completely functional Hadoop clusters in platforms like Amazon EC2 or OpenStack. Throughout the thesis work, it was studied the possibility of enhancing the capabilities of KTHFS, a modified Hadoop platform in development; to allow automatic configuration of a whole functional cluster on IaaS platforms. In order to achieve this, we will study different proposals of similar PaaS platforms from companies like VMWare or Amazon EC2 and analyze existing node orchestration techniques to configure nodes in cloud providers like Amazon or Openstack and later on automatize this process. This will be the starting point for this work, which will lead to the development of our own orchestration language for KTHFS and two artifacts (i) a simple Web Portal to launch the KTHFS Dashboard in the supported IaaS platforms, (ii) an integrated component in the Dashboard in charge of analyzing a cluster definition file, and initializing the configuration and deployment of a cluster using Chef. Lastly, we discover new issues related to scalability and performance when integrating the new components to the Dashboard. This will force us to analyze solutions in order to optimize the performance of our deployment architecture. This will allow us to reduce the deployment time by introducing a few modifications in the architecture. Finally, we will conclude with some few words about the on-going and future work.

One of the most important attribute a cloud service provider (CSP) offers their customers through their cloud services is scalability. Scalability gives customers the ability to vary the amount of capacity when required. A cloud service can be divided in three service layers, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as- a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Scalability of a certain service depends  on  software licenses on these layers. When a customer wants to increase the capacity it will be determined by the CSP's licenses bought from its suppliers in advance. If a CSP scales up more than what was agreed on, then there is a risk that the CSP needs to pay a penalty fee to the supplier. If the CSP invests in too many licenses that does not get utilized, then it will be an investment loss. A second challenge with software licensing is when a customer outsources their applications to the CSP’s platform. As each application comes with a set of licenses, there is a certain level of scalability that cannot be exceeded. If a customer wants the CSP scale up more than usual for an application then the customer need to inform the vendors. However, a common misunderstanding is that the customer expects the CSP to notify the vendor. Then there is a risk that the vendor never gets notified and the customer is in danger of paying a penalty fee. This in turn hurts the CSP’s  relationship with the customer. The recommendation to the CSP under study is to create a successful customer relationship management (CRM) and a supplier relationship management (SRM). By creating a CRM with the customer will minimize the occurring misunderstandings and highlight the responsibilities when a customer outsources an application to the CSP. By creating a SRM with the supplier will help the CSP to maintain a flexible paying method that they have with a certain supplier. Furthermore, it will set  an example to the remaining suppliers to change their inflexible paying method. By achieving a flexible payment method with the suppliers will make it easier for the CSP to find equilibrium between scalability and licenses.