Recommendations on Academic Topics for Dissertations and Thesis Projects pertaining to modern challenges in IT Infrastructure and Systems

This is in continuation to my previousarticle in which I have recommended some areas of latest challenges in the field of wireless communications

. In the modern world, Information Technology and Communication Technology are very closely integrated to form total solutions. Hence, many academic topics for dissertation and thesis research projects can comprise of problem areas addressing both these technologies when investigated in the context of corporate business solutions, solutions for government organisations and public infrastructure services. Some of the solutions in IT are widely debated as they are being claimed to be the future of computing infrastructures. I have come across hundreds of white papers that attempt to establish the feasibility of these technology solutions. These white papers, mostly sponsored by original equipment manufacturers, solution providers and service providers, have been very effective in outlining the benefits of these new solutions and their high level design details such that corporate business owners have started taking interest in them. But the ground level implementation plans and their challenges are yet to be analysed, tested and ratified. The academic community can find numerous opportunities in establishing the validity of these new solutions. The students should focus on studying the realisation of business benefits claimed by the OEMs and Solution Providers such that the other side of picture evolves clearly. I hereby present an outline of these solutions for the benefit of students undertaking higher studies in IT systems.

Green Data Centres: This is also referred to as sustainable data centres by many analysts. The detailed specifications of designing and deploying green data centres have been released by many companies and independent technology analysts. The primary target of green data centres is to achieve "conservation as much as possible" energy conservation, space conservation, cost conservation, resource conservation, etc. The designers try to implement systems that are as lean as possible. But Gartner reports have warned about threats of crossing conservation thresholds that can result in reduced performance, reduced productivity, reduced disaster recovery capability and above all, reduced capacity and flexibility to take on the business growth challenges. Unfortunately, the consulting world is closely affiliated to the OEMs and Suppliers and hence all designs and solutions are normally biased to achieve sales targets. Hence, I suggest that students should come forward and undertake dissertations and thesis research projects to study the designs, implementation plans and maintenance/running/upgrading challenges of green data centres. A number of topics can evolve especially if the studies are focussed at the local geographies where the students are residing.

Virtualisation Solutions: Virtualisation has become the buzz word when future solutions for IT enabling of businesses are discussed. This refers to the technology in which multiple virtual machines can run on a single hardware as if they are independent computers used by independent users. Some strategists argue that virtualisation is one of the key deliverables in deployment of green data centres. The products from Microsoft, VMware, and Red Hat can enable end to end implementation of virtualisation solutions. Many companies have already started implementing virtual servers in their data centres hosted on blade server hardware. With all the buzz around, very few have employed structured research procedures to determine whether the self hosted virtualisation solutions are able to deliver to the business as per the claims made. I suggest that the students should come forward and employ empirical techniques like Phenomenography to investigate the actual business benefits achieved by corporations by implementing in-house virtualisation. A large number of topics can evolve in this problem area. The focus should be on cost reduction as well as improvement in productivity and performance of the business. Gartner reports have warned about many negative effects of virtualisation if the corporate strategies, performance objectives and corporate governance/information security objectives are not included in the architectures designed by the solution providers.

Cloud Computing: This is evolving as a service facilitating IT resources on demand by virtue of applications and business services hosting on Virtual IT Infrastructures. Many OEMs have already launched cloud computing services to corporations across the world like IBM Blue Cloud, Google Apps Cloud, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Microsoft Cloud, etc. These service providers claim that the customers can get any IT resource on demand storage capacity, memory, network bandwidth, application license, etc. The market is developed to such an extent that millions of customers are already availing these services. The students have mammoth opportunities to study the benefits of cloud computing to businesses across the world. A large number of case studies is possible because the concept has gained popularity across the globe.

Unified Threat Management (UTM) Solutions: Unified Threat Management services framework is a new innovation in the world of Internet Service Providers using network and host based security products operating on cloud computing platforms. This framework is expected to create new waves of user expectations, service offerings, revenue models and client engagements that have not been tapped till date due to lack of empirical models. The SMEs and Corporations looking forward to transitioning their IT systems to Cloud Computing platforms can hire UTM solutions from an ISP connecting them to the Cloud Computing vendor. One can imagine AOL, AT&T or British Telecom connecting a large client with globally dispersed users to Google Apps through UTM protected networked links from client desktops/laptops to Google servers whereby all the security controls are taken care of by UTM devices implemented by these ISPs. This is an emerging area that requires enormous research efforts, especially from students. I suggest that students should undertake studies on comparison of UTM solutions with traditional in-house security implementation of corporations.

Recommendations on Academic Topics for Dissertations and Thesis Projects pertaining to modern challenges in IT Infrastructure and Systems

By: Sourabh Kishore

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