7/30/2019 Buyers Guide to Cloud Computing

1/7

a whitepaper fromComputerWeeklyCW+

Companies that use an on-demandsupplier are also buying access tohighly secure enterprise datacentrefacilities, skilled staff specificallytrained to support givenapplications and infrastructure,

scheduled back-ups, built-in redundancy and easily shared applicationsfor supporting cross-organisational business processes, to mention justsome of the benefits. Cloud platforms also provide relief for in-housetest-and-development teams with resource constraints. This seven-pageBuyers Guide to Cloud Computing details the kinds of cloud offering thatCIOs and senior IT professionals will need to take into account as theyplan future outsourcing, hosting and application strategies.

Contents

Putting platforms in the cloud page 2

Cloud computing is not just about applications. Cliff Saran looks at

the maturity of infrastructure as a service.

Can cloud computing push up profit? page 4

James Staten explains what to look for in infrastructure-as-a-cloud

services and how they can boost your business.

Cloud computing and the benefits of elasticity page 6

Corby Borough Council is using Amazons EC2 virtualised server

architecture for its online portal application to save on IT investment

and reduce the cost of interactions with customers, writes

Arif Mohamed.

The realities of cloud formation page 7

Bob Tarzey, director of analyst f irm Quocirca, gets to the bottom of

the industry hype on cloud computing.

These articles were originally published in Computer Weekly magazine in June 2010.

To print this document, select Shrink to printable area or similar in your print menu.

CW Buyers guideCloud Computing

1

W

D i s n e y / e v e r e t t / r e x F e a t u r e s

Cloud computing: the skys the limitfor on-demand IT architecture

buyers guide

7/30/2019 Buyers Guide to Cloud Computing

2/7

>

2

buyers guide

O

f all the types of cloudservice, the cloud

application market is themost mature. Salesforce.com, for instance, has more than72,500 customers, making it themost successful cloud applicationprovider with its pay-per-usecustomer relationship management(CRM) software.

But not every business wants toreplace a core application with oneoperated in the cloud. CRM is rela-tively easy to migrate to a cloud offer-ing, but enterprise resource planning(ERP) and production systems are notas straightforward.

Businesses have two choices: use

IT infrastructure in the cloud, orbuild applications based on a cloud

Putting platforms in the cloudCloud computing is not just about applications. Cliff Saran looks at the maturity of infrastructure as a service

platform provider takes care of thehardware and virtualisation bit thatgoes under the covers.

The cloud platform tackles themanagement issues of cloud infra-structure by providing an applicationserver and operating system environ-ment for the cloud.

Gillett says examples includeAzure from Microsoft, GoogleApplication Engine and SalesforcesForce.com platform. But he warns,Platform as a service is quite newand immature, with the possibleexception of Salesforce.comsForce.com platform, which was cre-ated a few years ago, although it is a

much narrower platform than themore general platforms.

Salesforce.com recently tied upwith VMware to offer a virtual

Java cloud. With VMforce, users donot need to manage IT and they donot require a software stack toinstall, patch, tune, or upgrade.

Salesforce.com claims users simplydrag and drop Java apps to VMforceto deploy.

Gillett says that while the platformallows users to run Java applicationson the Force.com platform,

businesses will need to assess howwell VMforce lets people build appli-cations that run independently of the

Platform as a service allows people to

write applications without having to

worry about servers or storage

CW Buyers guidecloud computing

platform. Amazon EC2 is an exampleof the former approach. It simply pro-vides a way for users to rent virtualservers, provision them remotely,and install applications, middlewareand databases onto these servers.

Users do not have to buy their ownhardware and can scale their process-

ing requirements up and down easily.In effect, Amazon EC2 is a bit like aflexible hosting provider. Users donot buy physical rack space in a host-ed datacentre, instead buying virtualservers and storage pools as andwhen they need them. But IT depart-ments buying cloud infrastructurestill need to manage servers.

Cloud platform

Platform as a service allows peopleto write applications without havingto worry about servers or storage, andIT infrastructure, says Frank Gillett,principal analyst at Forrester

Research. I just write my applica-tion to the platform and the service

7/30/2019 Buyers Guide to Cloud Computing

3/7

7/30/2019 Buyers Guide to Cloud Computing

5/75

Cloud outsourcing options