Are we entering an era in which entire businesses can be run from the cloud?
At ebizQ's recent SOA in Action conference, Mike Kavis, CTO of M-Dot Network, which supports processing of digital coupons for retailers, described how his company runs everything from the cloud. Mike was joined in a panel session with Dave Linthicum, author of Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide, and AmberPoint's Ed Horst.
"We just started last November [2008], so we have this great opportunity to start with a blank sheet of paper," Mike explains. Having a blank slate has its benefits, he observes. "From the perspective of SOA, I don't have to deal with the legacy, the politics, all the fun stuff that's a challenge to SOA. And from the perspective of the cloud, I get to build the cloud from the start, without having to worry about trying to move legacy to the cloud."
M-Dot is aiming for an international reach - however, this requires capacity at strategic points throughout the globe. "Since were a startup, I don't want to raise millions of dollars to build data centers all over the world," Kavis explained. "I just leveraged the cloud."
In the process, M-Dot can concentrate on its core business, rather than running IT. "We're going to focus on the automation of the digital copupon redemption service, which is a very small piece. We're going to outsource and partner for everything else. SOA and cloud computing are going to change IT's role."
M-Dot has deployed two tiers of cloud computing, Kavis said. For many services, the company is tapping into Amazon Web Services. For handling sensitive data, the company manages its own internal cloud managed on a 3terra network. If the Amazon-based infrastructure were to go down, M Dot can switch operations to the private cloud, he explained.
"We're delivering on a hybrid cloud model," he said. "In the public cloud we're using Amazon, and do most of our processing there." To address issues such as regulatory and privacy mandates - as well as rules within individual countries - data is "locked down in a private cloud."
Another potential area is disaster recovery, Mike explains. "The beauty of the cloud for us is I'm going to need to have data centers all over the world. I can just basically run scripts and dynamically provision, and in a few minutes, fire up a virtual data center in another part of the country. If you look at this state of the economy -- just think what it would be like trying to fire up on-premise data centers."
Service oriented architecture plays an important role in cloud as well, Mike says. "It's so important to use a service oriented architecture to be able to deploy across the world, and meet the various requirements of different customers."
SOA principles complement the cloud, Mike explains. "If you start hard-wiring your architecture to the cloud, you're not going to be able to do some of things and meet some of the requirements. The service oriented architecture makes it more manageable."
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