IT as a Service

Cloud computing is a general term for computing services delivered over the Internet, as opposed to computing services hosted inside your own network; on your own premises. These computing services can be as simple as Internet based email or as complex as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application. Cloud computing offers cost savings, because users don't have to invest capital budget to purchase hardware and software, nor expend the operating costs of electric power, space and cooling for the hardware and employee costs of maintaining the hardware and software. The major differences between cloud based computing services and in-house or on-premise computing services are that cloud computing is: On-demand  "use it only when you need it"; Elastic  "you can have as little or as much as you need". Shared "your computing services are shared with other users". T... (more)

Brief Summary of IaaS, PaaS, SaaS

In this posting, I summarize my prior three posts on the three cloud computing offerings: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). I concentrate how the three offerings differ with respect to flexibility, maintenance and portability. One of the greatest challenges companies face when moving to the cloud is security. Thus I will devote an entire blog post in the future, to security concerns. Flexibility How much flexibility do you have with each offering? What can you change or modify within each cloud offering to suit you... (more)

Inspecting the PaaS Landscape

There has been a lot of press around the notion of Platform as a Service (PaaS). It seems like a week doesn't go by without an announcement about a PaaS platform. In this article, I will try to explore the various types of PaaS platforms and distinguish between them. PaaS or Platform or a Service can be further divided into the following categories: iPaaS -> Proposed and defined by Gartner as "Integration PaaS". I will talk more about this in a later post. aPaaS -> Application PaaS which can be thought of platforms that are offered on the cloud intended to offer blocks for build... (more)

A Private Cloud Delivers IT as a Service

A private cloud delivers business functions as services and empowers go-to-market, while virtualization virtualizes computing resources supporting the private cloud. They are two different concepts, address different issues, and operate at different levels in enterprise IT. A private cloud goes far beyond virtualization and virtualization is not a private cloud. To conclude this two-part series as listed below, here are the specifics regarding a private cloud vs. virtualization. Part 1: Cloud Computing Goes Far Beyond Virtualization Part 2: A Private Cloud Delivers IT as a Servi... (more)

The Top 150 Players in Cloud Computing

Cloud Expo Early Bird Savings A robust ecosystem of solutions providers is emerging around cloud computing. Here, SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Journal expands its list of most active players in the fast-emerging Cloud Ecosystem, from the 'mere' 100 we identified back in January of this year, to half as many again - testimony, if any further were needed, to the fierce and continuing growth of the "Elastic IT" paradigm throughout the world of enterprise computing. Editorial note: The words in quotation marks used to describe the various services and solutions in this round-up are in e... (more)