Although PaaS is new, it’s rapidly gaining momentum, with growth projected at 48 percent annually by Technavio, the research firm, and topping $6 billion in value by 2016. If PaaS is treated as a strategic opportunity to align agendas across IT and across the business, it may well prove to be a ʺonce in a generationʺ opportunity to clarify, improve, and strengthen everything developers do.
As with any new technology or approach to doing business, PaaS will appeal to different groups for different reasons. The clear business value is that PaaS is added at the application layer. For ISVs, PaaS can help extend the availability of a traditional software product or enable organizations to add new capabilities to their existing IT spectrum. It’s also helpful to anyone wishing to achieve productivity gains, speed time to results, or reduce their costs. But like any technological shift, PaaS adoption requires changes in how people work and demands collaboration if it is to be as successful as possible.
A Tale of Two Enterprise Public Cloud Applications
This first person “in the trenches” enterprise Public Cloud story candidly examines the project from inception to delivery. Attendees will hear first-hand the real-world challenges, opportunities, lessons-learned, and what it takes to architect and implement a real-world application in the public cloud.
In his session at 14th Cloud Expo, Brian McCallion, founder of New York City-based consultancy Bronze Drum, will focus on the organizational, cultural, and technical hurdles to designing and implementing a strategic application in the Public Cloud in a regulated industry.
Open Source Innovations for Mobile Application Development
Enterprises need an API tier to meet the demands imposed by mobile technology. The impact of next generation of API servers on mobile and middleware development can be equated to the impact J2EE application servers like WebLogic, JBoss or WebSphere had on web development. It enables enterprises to surface business critical data residing in traditional back ends, databases and service tiers on-premises or on the cloud to multi-channel mobile apps.
An API tier is technology “super glue” that ties together endpoints of disparate enterprise systems, then exposing a uniform API to all clients. The clients include web browsers, mobile smartphones, tablets, and wearables. Each has its own set of capabilities and limitations and therefore unique user experiences. An API tier works on top of existing data and services to leverage existing systems in the context of mobile and next-generation clients. It acts as a natural bridge between front end and back end, providing for increased efficiency as well as rapid iteration to meet changing requirements.
IDenticard® Access Control to Exhibit at Cloud Expo New York
IDenticard® Access Control is a leading manufacturer of integrated access control solutions to protect employees, visitors, and facilities. Owned by Brady Corporation (NYSE:BRC), a $1.15 billion manufacturer of identification products, IDenticard Access Control draws on its 30 years of experience in security software development to provide innovative products based on its customers’ requirements and the needs of the marketplace. With an in-house engineering team, IDenticard Access Control has developed a patent-pending, revolutionary physical security solution that secures and monitors server rack access at the cabinet level. The system features easy-to-use dynamic mapping and customizable reporting capabilities to identify and track who accesses server racks and specifically where, when, and for how long.
MegaTrend Update: Cloud Computing
The continued march to cloud based services that connect to appliance-like devices now includes a full spectrum of options including private clouds, public clouds, edge clouds and blended clouds. This move to cloud capabilities is transforming business models and operating approaches. It is also having a direct impact on server sales globally.
Regarding security, we continue to believe that when security is engineered into your solution, cloud computing is a much more secure approach. There are issues, of course, with multi-tenancy, availability, confidentiality of data. There are also issues of requiring assurance of path to capability and a need to be able to apply more rules to every gate at line rate with no delay (for more see Centripetal Networks).
MegaTrend Update: Cloud Computing
The continued march to cloud based services that connect to appliance-like devices now includes a full spectrum of options including private clouds, public clouds, edge clouds and blended clouds. This move to cloud capabilities is transforming business models and operating approaches. It is also having a direct impact on server sales globally.
Regarding security, we continue to believe that when security is engineered into your solution, cloud computing is a much more secure approach. There are issues, of course, with multi-tenancy, availability, confidentiality of data. There are also issues of requiring assurance of path to capability and a need to be able to apply more rules to every gate at line rate with no delay (for more see Centripetal Networks).
Why cloud ERP adoption is faster than Gartner predicts
A recent study completed by Gartner titled Survey Analysis: Adoption of Cloud ERP, 2013 Through 2023 published on January 24, 2014, written by Nigel Rayner advises CIOs and application leaders of financial services institutions to “consider cloud ERP as a potential replacement for aging core ERP systems that are out of support or running on an old technology platforms (such as mainframes).“
The methodology is based on a survey of Gartner Research Circle members from North America, EMEA, APAC and Latin America from companies that range in size from $10M to $10B.
Key take-aways of the study including the following:
- Including the 2% that already have core ERP in the cloud, a total of 47% of organizations surveyed plan to move their core ERP systems to the cloud within five years. This is because their ERP requirements tend to be focused around administrative ERP (financials, human capital management and procure-to-pay …
My Own Private Cloud
Is the pendulum swinging back toward local datacenters running private cloud? Certainly some decisions I’m getting involved in indicate it is in my little part of the world.
But first let me ask, did the pendulum ever really swing toward public cloud? A survey conducted in Sept 2013 by Cloud Passage of SMBs and enterprises (more than 1,000 employees) found 21% deploying private cloud only and 13% deploying public clouds only, with 48% deploying both. The survey also found smaller businesses including public cloud more frequently.
Getting hard numbers on public vs. private is impossible. So given the one metric above and a few years’ experience writing and researching the topic, I’ll provide my take:
Initial enthusiasm was for public cloud taking over the world. The vision of Nic Carr’s The Big Switch prevailed in cloud-related articles and speeches , in which computer resources were delivered and measured like water or electricity. This school of thought believed that there was no such thing as private cloud – if it was on-premise, it wasn’t cloud.
VMware’s success in virtualizing a couple billion dollars worth of datacenters per year refuted the Big Switch vision. Even though proponents have always been careful to say that virtualization alone is not cloud, it sure feels that way when your local resources are suddenly much more productive and running much hotter.
The era of hybrid cloud ensued.
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Kant (but not Hegel) would be proud.
How Much?
I’ve long thought it would be very helpful if Jeff Bezos released the revenue figures for Amazon’s public-cloud offerings. Surely he considers the secrecy of this information as part of his competitive advantage.
More important, I’d like to know, as a potential customer, Amazon’s revenue and expenses, difficult as it may be to determine them. Because I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that not only should cost savings not be a reason to move to public cloud, but in fact, no such savings exist.
Total upfront cost aside, I made the opex vs. capex argument in favor of public cloud many times in the early days of a few years ago.
Think Local
But now, I’m tasked with building a cloud for a startup with ambitious goals. The firm has capex, in fact, wants to spend money on capital expenditure because it’s tangible and easily funded. In running the numbers, I’ve found that we may be able to build and operate our datacenter locally for less money over three years than to simply buy public cloud resources.
We’ll also have the additional benefits of stimulating a local economy (in rural Northern Illinois) that needs it badly, while tapping into a large fiber-optic network that was just laid down throughout the region as part of an $85 million government program. We have all the brick-and-mortar, construction expertise, and bandwidth we need here. We can provide jobs every step of the way, including once we’re up and running.
I’m evaluating a whole bunch (for lack of a more elegant, precise term) of alternatives for PaaS (to create the software that will drive the datacenter), and for a private-cloud infrastructure that makes performance and economic sense.
We can do this with just a single rack of servers to start – I’m not talking about recreating an NSA or Google site. But we can blast enough cyberkinetic energy into the tubes of the Internet to serve a very ambitious business plan with our own private cloud. If we need more, we have plenty of room, bandwidth (as I said already), and electricity.
And if we run short of processing at any step of the way, I’ll just give Jeff Bezos a call and see if he has some extra-large instances to sell to me on an occasional basis.
My Own Private Cloud
Is the pendulum swinging back toward local datacenters running private cloud? Certainly some decisions I’m getting involved in indicate it is in my little part of the world.
But first let me ask, did the pendulum ever really swing toward public cloud? A survey conducted in Sept 2013 by Cloud Passage of SMBs and enterprises (more than 1,000 employees) found 21% deploying private cloud only and 13% deploying public clouds only, with 48% deploying both. The survey also found smaller businesses including public cloud more frequently.
Getting hard numbers on public vs. private is impossible. So given the one metric above and a few years’ experience writing and researching the topic, I’ll provide my take:
Initial enthusiasm was for public cloud taking over the world. The vision of Nic Carr’s The Big Switch prevailed in cloud-related articles and speeches , in which computer resources were delivered and measured like water or electricity. This school of thought believed that there was no such thing as private cloud – if it was on-premise, it wasn’t cloud.
VMware’s success in virtualizing a couple billion dollars worth of datacenters per year refuted the Big Switch vision. Even though proponents have always been careful to say that virtualization alone is not cloud, it sure feels that way when your local resources are suddenly much more productive and running much hotter.
The era of hybrid cloud ensued.
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Kant (but not Hegel) would be proud.
How Much?
I’ve long thought it would be very helpful if Jeff Bezos released the revenue figures for Amazon’s public-cloud offerings. Surely he considers the secrecy of this information as part of his competitive advantage.
More important, I’d like to know, as a potential customer, Amazon’s revenue and expenses, difficult as it may be to determine them. Because I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that not only should cost savings not be a reason to move to public cloud, but in fact, no such savings exist.
Total upfront cost aside, I made the opex vs. capex argument in favor of public cloud many times in the early days of a few years ago.
Think Local
But now, I’m tasked with building a cloud for a startup with ambitious goals. The firm has capex, in fact, wants to spend money on capital expenditure because it’s tangible and easily funded. In running the numbers, I’ve found that we may be able to build and operate our datacenter locally for less money over three years than to simply buy public cloud resources.
We’ll also have the additional benefits of stimulating a local economy (in rural Northern Illinois) that needs it badly, while tapping into a large fiber-optic network that was just laid down throughout the region as part of an $85 million government program. We have all the brick-and-mortar, construction expertise, and bandwidth we need here. We can provide jobs every step of the way, including once we’re up and running.
I’m evaluating a whole bunch (for lack of a more elegant, precise term) of alternatives for PaaS (to create the software that will drive the datacenter), and for a private-cloud infrastructure that makes performance and economic sense.
We can do this with just a single rack of servers to start – I’m not talking about recreating an NSA or Google site. But we can blast enough cyberkinetic energy into the tubes of the Internet to serve a very ambitious business plan with our own private cloud. If we need more, we have plenty of room, bandwidth (as I said already), and electricity.
And if we run short of processing at any step of the way, I’ll just give Jeff Bezos a call and see if he has some extra-large instances to sell to me on an occasional basis.
HP’s New App Store Enables BYOD
HP today announced HP Access Catalog, a SaaS-delivered mobile app and content store that allows corporations to quickly and securely deliver resources across mobile and desktop devices to their employees anywhere.
IT organizations are facing pressure to deliver a marketplace experience to employees who expect access to content and apps from their device of choice. But non-business controlled exchanges and app stores lack enterprise security and control. Companies must also protect their apps from access by outsiders.