CLOUD BASED COMPUTING AND COMMUNICATION MODEL FOR ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL COMMUNITY

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are transforming existing realty in all aspects of human activities and has brought great opportunities to the development of agricultural sector as well. In definition; Cloud Computing is an internet based web-enabled service delivery system. The Cloud services can be accessed over computers or any other computing and communication device like tabs or smart phones. Ethiopia has agro based economy and the sector faces many challenges especially in the fields of information management and disseminations. Out of such challenges; one of the most important issues is- unavailability of centralized repository system that can handle high volume of unorganized agro research information resources available 24/7 at anywhere over internet of things. Further, access to this research data, information and knowledge is so important for any agency fostering the research and funding in the sector. This research has been started with a notion of exploratory research based assessment of the domain specific knowledge for adoption and deployment of the technology for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of data and information repository systems. Finally it was aimed to conclude with a smarter constructive model i.e. Hybrid Cloud computing model in the selected domain. In this research; first the review of related models in cloud computing domains were characterized, classified and analyzed for smarter adoption and decision making process. Secondly the service providers were classified based on available services over the cloud and assessment was done based on various parameters like cost, quality of services, scalability, availability and elastic provisioning of services etc. Afterwards domain specific features were analyzed for agro sectors. To design a most feasible cloud based computing and communication model for Ethiopian agro sector community, appropriate tools were analyzed and selected based on suitability parameters like openness, cost effectiveness, reliability based popularity and nature of architecture. Further this research study critically examines the issues related to organize, store, search, and share agro data, information and knowledge. Finally the research throws a concluding light on the roadmap of cloud implementation or deployment. As a final note; the study presents a conclusion and end up with possible recommendations for future works in the study domain.