The Three Cloud Definitions Refined
It is so interesting how people call anything that is not based on on-premises computing as cloud these days. Rent an off premise server and suddenly you are “on the cloud.” Host your web site with an outside Internet Service Provider (ISP) and your web is “in the cloud” The evolved definition accounts for any approach where IT is not on your premises and users connect via the network to an infrastructure you do not own. You can further break down the cloud into three categories:
1. Software as a Service (SaaS) - Application hosted in an off-premise data center users connect to and pay for in a utility model. Customers don’t own the license or hardware; rather, they connect to the application over a public or private network.
2. Platform as a Service (PaaS) - A PaaS model means the servers, storage, and development environment for a specific custom application are hosted by a specific supplier, such as the ecommerce web engine owned by Amazon. Customers write and host their applications on that provider’s network, paying by the megabyte and CPU cycle.
3. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - This is a virtualized infrastructure in the sky – sometimes without even an operating system – you connect to and do with it whatever you wish. IaaS is essentially a co-location strategy where the IT assets are virtualized and provided to you in a unit consumption model.
This was abstracted from this article from baseline.
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New Survey Casts Shadow On Cloud Computing Adoption
15% of corporate customers planning to use cloud in the next year.
A network world article shared results of a survey:
About 15% of corporate customers are considering cloud computing over the next year
The survey of 300 corporations worldwide found that 38% are undecided or unsure about whether they will adopt cloud services, and another 47% said they are not considering implementing cloud in the next year. Security is the biggest roadblock.
85% of corporate customers will not implement a private or public cloud in 2009 due to security concerns.
The findings may be surprising given the industry’s current obsession with cloud computing, but the numbers aren’t too far off the findings of other surveys. Forrester recently found that 25% of enterprises with at least 1,000 employees are using or plan to use hosted virtual server offerings such as Amazon EC2, and that fewer than 20% of smaller companies plan to do so.
Earlier this year, Gartner said that cloud application infrastructure technologies are not yet mature and that adoption right now is limited mostly to “pioneers and trailblazers.”
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Cloud Computing Can Save Time and Money: MIT CIO Panel Conclusion
MIT Sloan’s CIO Panel identified cloud computing as a near term opportunity to reduce costs and provide flexible scaling. Cloud computing treats computing resources as a utility rather than a physical asset. Like electricity, with cloud computing you can obtain more when you need it.
“The benefits of cloud computing start and end with the dollars you can save.”
When costing, cloud computing resources need to be sized in a more flexible way. It isn’t how many servers… it is how much memory and how much storage and how much bandwidth
One of the hindrances is the myriad of terms used to define cloud computing.
It is so confusing, I have seen people using software as a service as a synonym for cloud computing. While SAAS may use the cloud, it is not necessarily the cloud. And a cloud can be used without a vendor software application… as a way to obtain computing horsepower when needed.
See network computing world for more details.
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
Software as a Service vs. Service Oriented Architecture vs. Cloud Computing
I have seen a lot of confusion as to the definitions and interrelations between these three technologies. So…
Definitions:
Software as a Service: Software provides an application on-demand. There is no implied language, development methodology, or tool specifically attributed to SaaS. Some development methods may be more appropriate (such as Java and C#) since SaaS applications often provide the user interface a browser .
Service Oriented Architecture: (SOA) provides methods for systems development and integration where systems group functionality around business processes and package these as interoperable services. A SOA infrastructure allows different applications to exchange data with one another as they participate in business processes. Some organizations offer software as a service running on the organization’s private infrastructure as well.
Cloud Computing: Cloud computing is Internet (cloud) based use of computer technology where dynamically scalable resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure (the Infrastructure as a Service cloud) that supports them...virtualized. Some call this “IT Infrastructure as a Service.” Some vendors refer to the “private cloud,” which is essentially virtualized local servers. Gotta love the buzzwords.
SaaS applications may use the cloud but they are not the cloud.
SOA architectures may or may not be delivered via SaaS but they are not generically SaaS.
Cloud applications may or may not be delivered as SaaS
SEER Estimates All These Technologies
SEER, by virtue of its parameters and knowledge bases, estimates all these categories of computing. But they are not synonyms.
SEER for Software captures the effort, schedule and risk of using a Service Oriented Architecture for development and maintenance.
SEER for Software captures the effort saved by using SaaS rather than software development,while SEER for IT captures the cost or savings of using SaaS rather than organic hardware.
SEER for IT captures the effort, schedule and risk of using / supporting / operating cloud computing versus SaaS computing.
PS This blog is published with a locally installed version of WordPress software. It is not SaaS, not the cloud (running on specific server resources we pay for) and not SOA. A blog could be delivered as SaaS or via the cloud.
PS2: I curse WordPress constantly... full of problems. But if it was SOA it would just share the problems more widely. SOA does not solve software development issues. SOA does potentially provide reuse which can get applications developed faster… By the way,with all the excitement over automatic updates with SaaS, that says you can’t depend on your computer doing today what it did yesterday.
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
5 top IT Spending Priorities In Tough Times
Infoworld identified the 5 top spending priorities in tough times.
1. Storage: Disks and management software
2. Business intelligence: Niche analytics
3. Virtualization: Optimizing resources
4. Security: Data and end points
5. Cloud computing: Business solutions
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
The Cost of Cloud in the Sky Computing Part 1
Looking at ways to increase IT infrastructure without worrying about power, heat, space and other constraints…. Cloud in the sky computing (or cloud computing) may be an upcoming solution. Cloud in the sky essentially is buying.
Cloud computing can be defined as: an environment offering variable computing capacity and storage resources with dynamic provisioning and billing to support such real-time demands – a highly elastic response to demand changes along with a seemingly infinite pool of available resources.
Costs in Cloud Computing are generally measured in a usage-based formula. A cloud may be in the public or or corporation specific, behind their firewall.
Amazon Web Services is an example. Costs, as I understand them are about $0.10 per hour of usage plus storage costs at $.15 per gig per month for a clone of an HP Tower server. If an application is hosted and not used there is no cost. Not bad. I suppose we could add to the advantages that they back up the whole system without you worrying about it. On the other hand, your data is out of your control.
Galorath recently did a study of the costs / benefits of force.com, Salesforce’s environment with some similarities to Amazon. I need to find out if our results are publishable. But I can tell you we found force. com to be attractive in the appropriate environment.
We will use SEER for IT to do a general analysis of cloud versus local computers soon.
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
Project Prediction Infographic
