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Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT
always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without
investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new
software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use
service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing
capabilities.
Cloud computing is at an
early stage, with a motley crewSaaS (software as a service) providers such as
Salesforce.com. Today, for the most part, IT must plug into cloud-based
services individually, but cloud computing aggregators and integrators are
already emerging.
This type of cloud
computing delivers a single application through the browser to thousands of
customers using a multitenant architecture. On the customer side, it means no
upfront investment in servers or software licensing; on the provider side, with
just one app to maintain, costs are low compared to conventional hosting.
Salesforce.com is by far the best-known example among enterprise applications,
but SaaS is also common for HR apps and has even worked its way up the food
chain to ERP, with players such as Workday. And who could have predicted the
sudden rise of SaaS "desktop" applications, such as Google Apps and
Zoho Office?
The idea is not new, but
this form of cloud computing is getting new life from Amazon.com, Sun, IBM, and
others who now offer storage and virtual servers that IT can access on demand.
Early enterprise adopters mainly use utility computing for supplemental,
non-mission-critical needs, but one day, they may replace parts of the
datacenter. Other providers offer solutions that help IT create virtual
datacenters from commodity servers, such as 3Tera's AppLogic and Cohesive
Flexible Technologies' Elastic Server on Demand. Liquid Computing's LiquidQ
offers similar capabilities, enabling IT to stitch together memory, I/O,
storage, and computational capacity as a virtualized resource pool available
over the network.
Closely related to SaaS,
Web service providers offer APIs that enable developers to exploit
functionality over the Internet, rather than delivering full-blown
applications. They range from providers offering discrete business services --
such as Strike Iron and Xignite -- to the full range of APIs offered by Google
Maps, ADP payroll processing, the U.S. Postal Service, Bloomberg, and even
conventional credit card processing services.
Another SaaS variation,
this form of cloud computing delivers development environments as a service.
You build your own applications that run on the provider's infrastructure and
are delivered to your users via the Internet from the provider's servers. Like
Legos, these services are constrained by the vendor's design and capabilities,
so you don't get complete freedom, but you do get predictability and
pre-integration. Prime examples include Salesforce.com's Force.com,Coghead and the new Google App Engine. For extremely lightweight development,
cloud-basedmashup platforms abound, such as Yahoo Pipes or Dapper.net.
One of the oldest forms
of cloud computing, a managed service is basically an application exposed to IT
rather than to end-users, such as a virus scanning service for e-mail or an
application monitoring service (which Mercury, among others, provides). Managed
security services delivered by SecureWorks, IBM, and Verizon fall into this
category, as do such cloud-based anti-spam services as Postini, recently
acquired by Google. Other offerings include desktop management services, such
as those offered by CenterBeam or Everdream.
A hybrid of SaaS and
MSP, this cloud computing service offers a service hub that users interact
with. They're most common in trading environments, such as expense management
systems that allow users to order travel or secretarial services from a common
platform that then coordinates the service delivery and pricing within the
specifications set by the user. Think of it as an automated service bureau.
Well-known examples include Rearden Commerce and Ariba.
The integration of
cloud-based services is in its early days. OpSource, which mainly concerns
itself with serving SaaS providers, recently introduced the OpSource Services
Bus, which employs in-the-cloud integration technology from a little startup
called Boomi. SaaS provider Workday recently acquired another player in this
space, CapeClear, an ESB (enterprise service bus) provider that was edging
toward b-to-b integration. Way ahead of its time, Grand Central -- which wanted
to be a universal "bus in the cloud" to connect SaaS providers and
provide integrated solutions to customers -- flamed out in 2005.
Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT
always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without
investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new
software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use
service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing
capabilities. This type of cloud computing delivers a single application through the browser to thousands of customers using a multitenant architecture. On the customer side, it means no upfront investment in servers or software licensing; on the provider side, with just one app to maintain, costs are low compared to conventional hosting. Salesforce.com is by far the best-known example among enterprise applications, but SaaS is also common for HR apps and has even worked its way up the food chain to ERP, with players such as Workday. And who could have predicted the sudden rise of SaaS "desktop" applications, such as Google Apps and Zoho Office?
The idea is not new, but this form of cloud computing is getting new life from Amazon.com, Sun, IBM, and others who now offer storage and virtual servers that IT can access on demand. Early enterprise adopters mainly use utility computing for supplemental, non-mission-critical needs, but one day, they may replace parts of the datacenter. Other providers offer solutions that help IT create virtual datacenters from commodity servers, such as 3Tera's AppLogic and Cohesive Flexible Technologies' Elastic Server on Demand. Liquid Computing's LiquidQ offers similar capabilities, enabling IT to stitch together memory, I/O, storage, and computational capacity as a virtualized resource pool available over the network.
Closely related to SaaS, Web service providers offer APIs that enable developers to exploit functionality over the Internet, rather than delivering full-blown applications. They range from providers offering discrete business services -- such as Strike Iron and Xignite -- to the full range of APIs offered by Google Maps, ADP payroll processing, the U.S. Postal Service, Bloomberg, and even conventional credit card processing services.
Another SaaS variation, this form of cloud computing delivers development environments as a service. You build your own applications that run on the provider's infrastructure and are delivered to your users via the Internet from the provider's servers. Like Legos, these services are constrained by the vendor's design and capabilities, so you don't get complete freedom, but you do get predictability and pre-integration. Prime examples include Salesforce.com's Force.com,Coghead and the new Google App Engine. For extremely lightweight development, cloud-basedmashup platforms abound, such as Yahoo Pipes or Dapper.net.
One of the oldest forms of cloud computing, a managed service is basically an application exposed to IT rather than to end-users, such as a virus scanning service for e-mail or an application monitoring service (which Mercury, among others, provides). Managed security services delivered by SecureWorks, IBM, and Verizon fall into this category, as do such cloud-based anti-spam services as Postini, recently acquired by Google. Other offerings include desktop management services, such as those offered by CenterBeam or Everdream.
A hybrid of SaaS and MSP, this cloud computing service offers a service hub that users interact with. They're most common in trading environments, such as expense management systems that allow users to order travel or secretarial services from a common platform that then coordinates the service delivery and pricing within the specifications set by the user. Think of it as an automated service bureau. Well-known examples include Rearden Commerce and Ariba.
The integration of cloud-based services is in its early days. OpSource, which mainly concerns itself with serving SaaS providers, recently introduced the OpSource Services Bus, which employs in-the-cloud integration technology from a little startup called Boomi. SaaS provider Workday recently acquired another player in this space, CapeClear, an ESB (enterprise service bus) provider that was edging toward b-to-b integration. Way ahead of its time, Grand Central -- which wanted to be a universal "bus in the cloud" to connect SaaS providers and provide integrated solutions to customers -- flamed out in 2005.
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