SNHU assignment IT courses. Washington University
- 1. IT 482 Project Two Strategic Plan and Mission The operations plan for the new HCM processes and cloud solutions align with the organization’s mission by allowing the workers to be more effective, providing a more flexible service for clients and revolutionizing the business to meet current standards upheld by leading global brands. This is possible through strategic planning where the organizational objectives are set by ICS's mission statement. The plan is focused on migrating 75% of ICS’s critical technology infrastructure to the cloud within 3 years. The operational plan will define the parties responsible for different tasks, the necessary resources to achieve those tasks, and the risks involved with mitigation measures provided. ICS will also need to set aside a budget that ensures the project has the necessary support to be successfully actualized, and that other business objectives are achieved. The budget ought to include support for the next five to ten years to ensure that it is sustainable and profitable in the long term. This is because strategic planning is inherently long-term and focused on the whole business rather than a few elements. Some of the questions that the strategy aims to answer include; Where does the organization want to be? How will it get there? How will it be supported after getting there? These are some of the core factors that will be needed to ensure the operational plan is successful. Something else that will need to be accounted for is the documentation of all
- 2. activities and periodically re-evaluating the progress against an initial list of objectives, requirements and outcomes. The project manager will use these documents to delegate tasks amongst the service acceptance team, evaluate progress and determine points of improvement to ensure a successful outcome. Business Continuity One tactic that can be used to protect personnel and assets in the event of a service interruption is migrating to the Oracle HCM Cloud in phases within an agile environment (Kalem, Donko & Boskovic, 2013). The service acceptance team can identify the workloads and resources that need to be moved first, in addition to the order in which elements of the current system will be moved. This way of transitioning will maintain the performance and reliability of critical business resources and operations. It is impractical to In addition to doing the process in phases, ICS ought to ensure that the five global data centers in Dublin, Chicago, Albuquerque, Singapore and Tokyo keep operating at full capacity before the cloud system is fully functional. Rather than running all the necessary systems, ICS can identify mission-critical applications and systems that can be operated in the data centers while the cloud system is being configured. Another tactic that can be considered is the development of a continuity plan whose main aims are to ensure that downtimes are resolved as quickly as necessary and that critical data is backed up in one of the data centers. Further risk can be mitigated by developing a training program for employees to be well- versed in supporting business operations in the event of unforeseen circumstances. Employees can benefit from being able to retrieve data from backup systems, addressing customer requests and computer security protocols. The latter will be particularly important if security controls are
- 3. negatively impacted during the migration. The migration will be a lengthy process and not one that occurs instantly. Using an agile methodology will allow the implementation of the Oracle HCM Cloud to be broken down into more manageable chunks of work. These chunks will allow the organization to schedule testing and maintenance breaks that will collectively ensure that the system works as intended. Vendor Management The process of engaging with Oracle vendors has to be systematic and intentional. First, the organization can contact Oracle and other cloud service vendors to source critical information on pricing and implementation into legacy systems. ICS can use telephone calls and email correspondence to compare the package offered by Oracle to that provided by other cloud service providers. A final selection of the system to implement will be based on price suitability and the ability of the vendor to meet the standards required by ICS. The organization can then request a list of minimum requirements to support the cloud infrastructure as needed by the Oracle HCM cloud system. This will allow ICS to ensure that all resources are in place and can be concurrently phased in as the existing infrastructure is phased out in stages. ICS will also need a way to reduce vendor-related risks such as underperforming metrics and other aspects of due diligence. The organization ought to share business goals with the chosen vendor and select a vendor management team which can frequently evaluate the performance and suitability of the cloud system of ICS processes. ICS will also need to draw up a service contract with the chosen vendor to ensure that they are protected in case of challenges with the implementation of the cloud service (Hulsen, 2019). All of this is possible once the service acceptance team draws up a reference database for all vendor-related information. This
- 4. will allow all involved participants to have ready access to all relevant information, which will facilitate quick decision-making. Compliance and Standards Organizations are expected to demonstrate legal compliance and adherence to industry standards because violations can lead to loss of reputation, lawsuits, or even fines and penalties. Accordingly, ICS must ensure that the selected vendors comply with the following laws and industry standards. a. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)- the act comprises several sections including the financial privacy rule and the safeguards rule. Compliance with the financial privacy rule will ensure that the organization regulates how it collects and discloses private financial information (Smith & Bartholomew, 2017). Considering that ICS offers its services to the finance industry, it must ensure that all private financial information from its clients is regulated from unauthorized access. The financial rule also safeguards the organization’s reputation by ensuring that its client’s non-personal information is not shared with third parties without consent. Similarly, the safeguards rule requires organizations in the financial industry to develop and implement information security plans describing how they protect personal information. Therefore, complying with GLBA is a requirement for the vendors approved to provide cloud services. b. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)- the compliance standard regulates how organizations, including those in the finance and retail industries like ICS, protect personal data. Specifically, ICS must ensure that the vendors to provide cloud services comply with GDPR to secure personal data for its offices within the EU (Solove &
- 5. Schwartz, 2020). Violating this standard might result in data breaches where clients’ personal data, such as their names, ID numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and bank details are leaked to the public. In addition to negatively affecting ICS’s reputation, cybercriminals could use the leaked data to commit crimes, indirectly affecting their client’s reputations as well. c. PCI-DSS standards- a requirement for the organization that engages in processing, storing, or transmitting credit card information. ICS offers its services to companies in the retail industry that utilize credit card transactions. Accordingly, ICS should ensure that the vendors guarantee security by preventing credit-card-based fraud. This way, the companies can prevent data breaches and related cybersecurity attacks that are likely to compromise cardholder data. SLAs and NDAs The IT operations plan for the new HCM processes and cloud solution will likewise accommodate service level agreements (SLAs) and nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) to mitigate issues that might impact IT operations and systems planning. Firstly, SLAs are necessary as they set the expectations between the client, i.e., ICS and the service provider, describing the services and products to be delivered (Rao, 2016). The proposed IT operations plan will accommodate SLAs to ensure that the vendors are approved to provide the cloud services. For instance, cloud services include Software as a Service (SaaS) and storage features. Consequently, having the SLA will promote transparency and will ensure that all parties are aware of the consequences of any violations.
- 6. Secondly, NDAs are legal contracts that ensure that parties in a contract comply with requirements and maintain a confidential relationship with regard to sensitive data. ICS provides its AI solutions to companies in the finance and retail industries, meaning that it collects personally identifiable information (PII) from its clients. Accordingly, ICS must ensure that the approved vendors sign nondisclosure agreements that will ensure the vendors do not misuse any data they process and store on its behalf. Dove et al. indicate that violating the NDAs will result in legal repercussions for the vendors. Furthermore, NDAs might impact IT operations and systems planning considering that ICS is a global technology innovator and implementor of AI solutions. As such, the vendors must sign the NDAs to guarantee ICS that they will secure and not misuse ICS’s proprietary data, information, and technology solutions. Violating the NDAs will also result in legal repercussions against the vendors.
- 7. References Dove, E. S., Joly, Y., Tassé, A. M., & Knoppers, B. M. (2015). Genomic cloud computing: legal and ethical points to consider. European Journal of Human Genetics, 23(10), 1271-1278. Hulsen, D., (2019). Vendor due diligence done right. Retrieved from <https://rfp360.com/vendor-due-diligence/> Kalem, S., Donko, D., & Boskovic, D. (2013, May). Agile methods for cloud computing. In 2013 36th International Convention on Information and Communication Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics (MIPRO) (pp. 1079-1083). IEEE. Rao, B. T. (2016). A study on data storage security issues in cloud computing. Procedia Computer Science, 92, 128-135. Smith, A. M., & Bartholomew, L. C. (2017). Fair Credit Reporting Act and Financial Privacy Update—2016. The Business Lawyer, 72(2), 475-486. Solove, D. J., & Schwartz, P. M. (2020). Information privacy law. Aspen Publishing.