One of the things that holds back companies and developers from engaging with cloud resources is simply the fact that the cloud represents the unknown. However, once you get past that, there's another pressing issue that companies moving into the cloud face -- getting the various off-site applications to communicate and pass data between one another.
Already, trust issues dominate concerns about cloud computing. "The overriding feature of the cloud is that it breaks down barriers and boundaries," says Phil Wainewright, industry analyst with Procullux Ventures, Community Manager for Leveraging the Connected Web at ebizQ, and ZDNet blogger. "When that trusted perimeter fencing comes down and it's no longer there, people rightly feel exposed to the unfamiliar. Now for developers, what that means is they have to be aware, we're often taken for parameters that in a conventional behind the firewall environment you simply would have taken for granted but which you can't in the cloud environment."
Phil joined in a discussion with Alex Barnett, group manager of developer relations at Intuit, in a session titled "How the Cloud Changes the Way Applications are Developed," part of ebizQ's Cloud QCamp. (Listen to the Webcast here, read the transcript here.)
Alex observed that cloud computing has moved in to a "megatrend" stage, and many companies are enthusiastic about the model. In fact, among Intuit's own customer base, only about 12 percent are resisting the notion of cloud, he says.
But there's an elephant in the cloud computing room. That is, cloud applications don't talk to each other -- and this is creating big problems for end-users. "A problem that we hear from our small business customers is how do all these SaaS applications connect with each other, and speak to each other, and work with each other? And the fact is that they don't."
Alex says this connectivity is vital, because this is the way enterrpises have been developing their IT infrastructures for years. "Imagine in a project management application the project is now complete," he says. "How does a CRM and how does the back office systems now know that that's the case, and that they can invoice, and trigger other processes? The fact of the matter is that small businesses are less to have to do with a lot of the wiring themselves. And they just don't have those resources. What they end up is with a suite of applications from various different SaaS providers that don't connect each other, don't speak to each other, and they do a lot of manual work that's required by the business owners and end-users to try and kind of make sure that these processes are connected."
Another unknown factor is demand, Phil adds. "You need to build in scaleability in favor of a processes to make sure that you're not going to overload your internal systems or and just as bad, fail to meet contractual commitments that you've made to third parties. If you're interacting with external services, then you're going to have to work within commercial relationships, and contracts, and that means having the ability to monitor compliance with service level agreements, and also measure usage so that you can be sure your provider is delivering the service you've paid for and is charging you only for what you've used."
The same challenge applies to cloud providers, he continues. "Likewise, if you're going to provide your services out into the cloud, then you need to be equally measuring what you're providing and making sure that you're charging for it accordingly." All of this infrastructure is frankly a pain to look after, and may be compelling users to move to ready-made cloud infrastructures such as Platform as a Service.
Alex said Intuit is already moving in this direction, with a PaaS offering called the "Intuit Partner Platform." The solution enables multiple different applications that are part of the Intuit network to interoperate with each other.
As the cloud grows as a primary source of enterprise services, partnerships between providers is a smart idea because it will address the interoperability and data-sharing challenges that now have cloud computing confined to the JBOWS ("Just a Bunch of Web Services") realm.
(Listen to the Webcast here, read the transcript here.)
SPECIAL NOTE: We will be exploring many of the business issues shaping the new era of SOA in ebizQ's upcoming SOA in Action virtual conference, to be held October 28-29.
Already, trust issues dominate concerns about cloud computing. "The overriding feature of the cloud is that it breaks down barriers and boundaries," says Phil Wainewright, industry analyst with Procullux Ventures, Community Manager for Leveraging the Connected Web at ebizQ, and ZDNet blogger. "When that trusted perimeter fencing comes down and it's no longer there, people rightly feel exposed to the unfamiliar. Now for developers, what that means is they have to be aware, we're often taken for parameters that in a conventional behind the firewall environment you simply would have taken for granted but which you can't in the cloud environment."
Phil joined in a discussion with Alex Barnett, group manager of developer relations at Intuit, in a session titled "How the Cloud Changes the Way Applications are Developed," part of ebizQ's Cloud QCamp. (Listen to the Webcast here, read the transcript here.)
Alex observed that cloud computing has moved in to a "megatrend" stage, and many companies are enthusiastic about the model. In fact, among Intuit's own customer base, only about 12 percent are resisting the notion of cloud, he says.
But there's an elephant in the cloud computing room. That is, cloud applications don't talk to each other -- and this is creating big problems for end-users. "A problem that we hear from our small business customers is how do all these SaaS applications connect with each other, and speak to each other, and work with each other? And the fact is that they don't."
Alex says this connectivity is vital, because this is the way enterrpises have been developing their IT infrastructures for years. "Imagine in a project management application the project is now complete," he says. "How does a CRM and how does the back office systems now know that that's the case, and that they can invoice, and trigger other processes? The fact of the matter is that small businesses are less to have to do with a lot of the wiring themselves. And they just don't have those resources. What they end up is with a suite of applications from various different SaaS providers that don't connect each other, don't speak to each other, and they do a lot of manual work that's required by the business owners and end-users to try and kind of make sure that these processes are connected."
Another unknown factor is demand, Phil adds. "You need to build in scaleability in favor of a processes to make sure that you're not going to overload your internal systems or and just as bad, fail to meet contractual commitments that you've made to third parties. If you're interacting with external services, then you're going to have to work within commercial relationships, and contracts, and that means having the ability to monitor compliance with service level agreements, and also measure usage so that you can be sure your provider is delivering the service you've paid for and is charging you only for what you've used."
The same challenge applies to cloud providers, he continues. "Likewise, if you're going to provide your services out into the cloud, then you need to be equally measuring what you're providing and making sure that you're charging for it accordingly." All of this infrastructure is frankly a pain to look after, and may be compelling users to move to ready-made cloud infrastructures such as Platform as a Service.
Alex said Intuit is already moving in this direction, with a PaaS offering called the "Intuit Partner Platform." The solution enables multiple different applications that are part of the Intuit network to interoperate with each other.
As the cloud grows as a primary source of enterprise services, partnerships between providers is a smart idea because it will address the interoperability and data-sharing challenges that now have cloud computing confined to the JBOWS ("Just a Bunch of Web Services") realm.
(Listen to the Webcast here, read the transcript here.)
SPECIAL NOTE: We will be exploring many of the business issues shaping the new era of SOA in ebizQ's upcoming SOA in Action virtual conference, to be held October 28-29.
Cloud computing, the dynamic data center.
Cloud computing helps to increase the speed at which applications are deployed, helping to increase the pace of innovated networked computing. Service deployed applications; Cloud computing can be provided using an enterprise data center’s own servers, or it can be provided by a cloud provider that takes all of the capital risk of owning the infrastructure.
Cloud computing incorporates virtualization, data and application on-demand deployment, internet delivery of services, and open source software. Virtualization enables a dynamic data center where servers provide resources that are utilized as needed with resources changing dynamically in order to meet the needed workload.
The combination of virtual machines and virtual appliances used for server deployment objects is one of the key features of cloud computing. Additionally, company’s can merge a storage cloud that provides a virtualized storage platform and is managed through an API, or Web-based interfaces for file management, and application data deployments.
Layered Service providers offering pay-by-use cloud computing solutions can be adjacent to company’s equipment leases. Public clouds are run by third party service providers and applications from different customers are likely to be mixed together on the cloud’s servers, storage systems, and networks. Private clouds are built for the exclusive use of one client, providing the utmost control over data, security, and quality of service. Private clouds can also be built and managed by a company’s own IT administrator. Hybrid clouds combine both public and private cloud models which may be used to handle planned workload spikes, or storage clouds configuration. Dedicated audits for security policies are a must.
The benefits of deploying applications using cloud computing include reducing run time and response time, minimizing the purchasing and deployment of physical infrastructure. Considerations for Energy efficiency, flexibility, simplified systems administration, pricing based on consumption, and most of all limiting the footprint of the data center. Virtualized solutions: http://www.shopricom.com