Reqs for Cloud Apps

We talk about the cloud and its benefits all the time. But to get the benefit of cloud adoption, there are certain requirements. In nutshell-- you need a Cloud application but do you know what you should look to ensure that you make the right choice?

Before making the decision, ensure:

a) Whether the application is multi-tenant in true sense. The main benefit of the cloud applications is that many could access the application without any issues or creating problems for each other. It’s like staying in an apartment with many tenants that too in harmony.

b) Is the solution really scalable? You as an organization would grow, and can the solution keep in pace with your growth? Hence scalability becomes a major requirement.

c) Can it integrate seamlessly? Unless it integrates without any issues with your business critical applications and into your organization, there won’t be much help in using the solution.

d) How secured is it? You would not want any security breaches or intrusion into your systems. So security forms a critical concern.

e) Can it be deployed easily and quickly? Faster deployment saves money and time, and ensures that your systems are up for business faster.

f) Do you have control over it?

Personal Cloud to beat the PC

Tech Research Firm, Gartner recently declared, "The personal cloud is poised to eclipse the PC as the hub of consumers' digital lives by 2014 as rapid growth in the use of apps and services introduces a new paradigm for how people store, synchronize, share and stream content."

Michael Gartenberg, Research Director at Gartner mentioned, “The personal cloud isn't a single offering, but a reflection of consumers' expectation that their content will flow seamlessly as the result of a combination of services that overlap the consumer, business and government domains. It encompasses content storage, synchronization, sharing and streaming, as well as context-based access.”

Competition in the personal cloud market to grow in the following areas:
Mobility and Location: Contextual devices and platforms are evolving, giving consumers the ability to access relevant information from the location of their choosing on their favorite devices.
Platform Independence: The result of the move from PC to the cloud will be that the core purchase driver for consumers will shift from the operating system to the nature and function of the personal cloud services available to a platform. Platforms will not be judged solely by number of apps, but also by the availability of core personal cloud services for business and personal needs, for both content creation and content consumption.
Seamless Synchronization: Since the personal cloud comprises different service offerings, seamless synchronization will be essential for success. At the simplest level, this means synchronization of content stored locally and mirrored to a given service. This content could be office documents and music and video collections, but could also extend to other types.

Cloud for Consumers

Google is finally out with Google Drive, the cloud based service for users.

It joins the competitive market of cloud storage providers like Microsft SkyDrive, Amazon Cloud Drive and Apple iCloud.

 Personally, I have been using Skydrive, and have no issues as such with it. I have seen that Amazon Cloud Drive also works fine. Additionally, Apple users love iCloud for its easy to use facility.

Google does seem to be a late entrant to the game. And then with the failure of Buzz, Orkut and not so well received Google+, the company must be betting on it.

But focusing on things like free 5 MB space won't do good for Google, as Amazon has been giving the same since long.

I have not really looked into the product to see how exactly is it different from the others. Like me, I am sure rest of the users would be looking for the extra something that would prompt them to choose one cloud storage solution over the other.

But I am thrilled! And am sure, we are going the Cloud Way--and that the right way, that is!

Cloud is Clean

Greenepeace's recent act in Seattle "How Clean is Your Cloud" seemed to have missed out on a major advantage of Cloud adoption. Its been proved the Cloud usage enhance efficiency- both in process and as well as power usage. Just imagine the amount of power that Cloud adopting organizations would have used if they had not moved to cloud. Be it SaaS, IaaS, PaaS or Public, Private, Hybrid cloud- it ensures less usage of power. 

So in a sense cloud saves power and enables organizations to cut down on power usage!

WLAN Management moving to Cloud

WLAN Management is slowly moving into the Cloud. Earlier it was deemed as a difficult and risky proposition. But the early adopters have already shown the benefits and those exciting results have prompted others to take up the same strategy of moving WLAN Management to the Cloud.

Well the benefits which are pretty obvious:
a) You can cut cost, and useless expenditure on setting up the infrastructure.
b) It enables you to maximize value.
c) It's scalable, hence if you grow fast and your technology requirement and bandwidth grows--it's no hassle.
d) You have more flexibility as you are not tied to a specific location.
f) Your dependency on having a physical location and all the asscociated costs also goes away.
e) Availability and Capacity Management will no longer be an issue, a Cloud based solution can ensure better reliability and 24x7x365 availability

If you have seen more benefits, please feel free to share with me.

Cloud makes sense for web based sites

Almost all the web based sites, from the large enterprises to SMEs, are today adopting Cloud! And why not? The Cloud makes perfect fit for the web based sites---whether for applications or infrastructure or platform usage.

The most important for these sites are scalability and speed, and what else but cloud provide them with the best scalability and speed model. You can quickly get the resources to keep in pace with the growth of your enterprise via the Cloud model. Moreso it enables prompt and immediate access—almost real-time. And in addition, you pay what you need—hence, do away with useless and expensive investment!

Cloud Ushers a Fundamental Change

A question was recently posed to me - “What fundamental change has Cloud ushered in?”

Well, my answer was simple - “The major change that the Cloud has brought in is that today there is paradigm shift in the way we use the computing resources?”

You may say that every new technological change in the IT industry starting from the mainframes to client-server peiod has brought in a similar wave- a change in the way we use computing resources.

True, but the changes and benefits that has been brought about by Cloud are vast. It enables sharing, cuts down cost, allows cost effective access to expensive applications and infrastructure, improves efficiency, makes everything scalable, increases the time to adopt new technology and applications, and pretty much changes the way we conduct our business.

I support Cloud. Do you?