Application Architecture Due Week 8 And Worth 50 Points

Application Architecture Due Week 8 and worth 50 points

Write a 3-4 page paper in which you: Explain what type of architecture the new payroll application should use and why. Identify what types of technology will be involved in the architecture and explain the purpose of each technology. Create a graphical representation of your recommended architecture. Identify and describe any potential ethical issues that could arise in connection with the new architecture.

Paper For Above instruction

The development of a payroll system for a large, geographically dispersed organization requires careful consideration of the architecture to ensure efficiency, scalability, security, and reliability. Given the company's structure—with multiple offices across the United States connected to a central data center—selecting an appropriate architectural style is crucial. A cloud-based, distributed microservices architecture emerges as the most suitable approach, combined with robust networking and security technologies, to meet organizational needs and operational challenges.

Choice of Architecture: Microservices in a Cloud Environment

The recommended architecture for the payroll application is a microservices architecture hosted on a cloud platform. Microservices involve decomposing a monolithic application into smaller, independent services that communicate over well-defined APIs. This approach offers significant advantages for large-scale organizations, including scalability, flexibility, ease of maintenance, and improved fault isolation (Newman, 2015).

Hosting this architecture in a cloud environment, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP), provides scalability to handle workload fluctuations, high availability, disaster recovery capabilities, and reduced infrastructure management overhead (Mell & Grance, 2011). Cloud platforms also facilitate integration with other organizational systems, making it easier to extend and adapt the payroll system as the organization evolves.

Technologies Involved and Their Purpose

1. Cloud Computing Services: The core infrastructure includes computing instances, storage services, and databases. These allow the payroll application to be scalable and reliable, ensuring continuous operation across all offices (Armbrust et al., 2010).

2. Microservices Frameworks: Technologies such as Docker containers and Kubernetes orchestrate deployment and management of the individual services. Containers encapsulate service components, ensuring consistency across environments, while Kubernetes simplifies scaling and management (Burns et al., 2018).

3. API Gateway: An API gateway, such as Amazon API Gateway or Kong, manages incoming requests from various offices, routing them to appropriate microservices. It also handles security features like authentication, rate limiting, and monitoring (Pautasso et al., 2017).

4. Secure Network Connectivity: Wide Area Network (WAN) connections, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), and Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) configurations secure communications between regional offices and the central data center or cloud environment, encrypting data in transit (Zhou et al., 2016).

5. Database Technologies: A combination of relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) for structured payroll data and NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB) for unstructured data provides flexible, reliable data management (Stonebraker & Çetintemel, 2005).

6. Security Technologies: Identity and Access Management (IAM), multi-factor authentication (MFA), encryption (at rest and in transit), and intrusion detection systems ensure data privacy and security compliance (Mirkovic & Reiher, 2004).

7. Monitoring and Logging Tools: Platforms like Prometheus, Grafana, and ELK stack enable real-time health monitoring, logging, and troubleshooting, crucial for maintaining system integrity (Cho, 2018).

Graphical Representation of the Architecture

[Since this is a text-based response, a detailed description is provided in lieu of an actual diagram.]

The architecture starts with regional offices each communicating via a secure WAN or VPN to the cloud-based core system, which hosts the microservices. The microservices include functionalities such as employee records, payroll processing, tax calculations, and reporting. An API Gateway manages external and internal requests, routing them securely to the appropriate services. Databases are hosted in the cloud, connected to the microservices through secure channels. Monitoring tools continually oversee system health, sending alerts when issues arise.

Potential Ethical Issues

Implementing this architecture raises several ethical considerations. Privacy and data security are paramount; protecting employee sensitive information from unauthorized access is essential. Data breaches could lead to identity theft or financial fraud, necessitating strict security protocols. Transparency about data collection and usage policies must be maintained to ensure ethical compliance. Biases embedded in payroll processing algorithms could inadvertently disadvantage certain groups, highlighting the importance of equitable design. Additionally, there are concerns regarding surveillance and monitoring—balancing organizational oversight with employee privacy rights is critical. Ethical issues also include ensuring accessibility for all users, preventing discrimination, and maintaining compliance with legal standards such as GDPR or CCPA.

In conclusion, adopting a cloud-based microservices architecture supported by advanced security and networking technologies provides a scalable, flexible, and secure solution for the organization's payroll system. Addressing ethical considerations proactively ensures that the system not only serves organizational needs but also respects employee rights and complies with legal standards.

References

  • Armbrust, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph, A., Katz, R., Konwinski, A., ... & Zaharia, M. (2010). A view of cloud computing. Communications of the ACM, 53(4), 50-58.
  • Burns, B., Grant, B., Oppenheimer, D., Brewer, E., & Wilkes, J. (2018). Borg, Omega, and Kubernetes: Lessons learned from three container orchestration systems. Communications of the ACM, 61(5), 50-59.
  • Mell, P., & Grance, T. (2011). The NIST definition of cloud computing. National Institute of Standards and Technology, 145, 6-50.
  • Mirkovic, J., & Reiher, P. (2004). A classification of DDoS attack and defenses. In Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols, 5(4), 219-228.
  • Newman, S. (2015). Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems. O'Reilly Media, Inc.
  • Pautasso, C., Zimmermann, O., & Lehmann, J. (2017). RESTful web services vs. “big” web services: Making the right architectural decision. In Proceedings of the 17th international World Wide Web conference (pp. 805-814).
  • Stonebraker, M., & Çetintemel, U. (2005). "One size fits all": An idea whose time has come and gone. In Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Data Engineering (pp. 2-11).
  • Zhou, J., Qi, H., & Zhang, Y. (2016). Secure communication over wide area networks using virtual private network (VPN). Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 64, 313-322.

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