Journey to the Cloud

BANGALORE, INDIA: Cloud computing is coming and businesses need to be ready. The transition to public or private clouds is gaining pace as companies realize the potential for transforming business capabilities and driving new innovative services.

In fact, while cloud services are still in a nascent stage, IDC estimates that the market was already $16 billion worldwide in 2009 and is expected to reach $55 billion by 2014.

Also Read: Cloud computing: Who has what in their cloud box

To put this in context, cloud-related IT spending was only four per cent of the total IT market in 2009, however, is expected to increase to 12 per cent of the total IT market by 2014.

Cloud computing is all about creating a solution that delivers a new class of distinctive services and business value while keeping IT investments costs at a minimum. Companies that embrace cloud computing have access to a massive amount of computing resources including storage, applications and data.

These capabilities were previously too costly for small and mid-size companies to implement on premise, but the cloud now provides the opportunity to access affordable yet sophisticated business management software and create new business connections.

For large enterprises with established software and mature IT infrastructure, cloud computing provides significant opportunities to improve IT operations, efficiency and time-to-value.

Before making a commitment, companies need to establish a road map to implementing cloud-based solutions and addressing important areas such as data integrity, data consistency, rigorous compliance, and unifying business processes across the company.

For technology providers such as SAP, enabling new technology adoption has been a key value driver for its customers. With both private and public clouds, companies are turning to SAP to help them deploy applications on cloud-based infrastructures or help them take their existing infrastructure to the cloud. 

Comprehensive, Flexible Approach

Cloud computing represents a fundamental shift in how applications and services are developed, sold, maintained and consumed. That is why it is imperative for vendors and IT service providers to take a comprehensive, flexible approach to help their customers drive greater innovation, integration and collaboration across three essential areas of cloud computing: software-as-a service (SaaS); platform-as-a-service (PaaS); and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).

SaaS enables companies to access applications on demand to meet their broad requirements, while PaaS provides an integrated business process platform with open and flexible deployment capabilities to help companies build and run applications on premise.

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On the IaaS side of the equation, while consumers do not manage or control the underlying infrastructure in this case, they do have control over operating systems, storage, deployed applications and some networking components. Instead of having to invest in the actual infrastructure, companies are being billed on a consumption basis.

Cloud adoption is expected to accelerate at a rapid pace over the next decade. As such, the prevailing belief is that the best way to help companies prepare and successfully exploit the cloud is to provide a comprehensive portfolio of on-demand and on-premise solutions, as well as significant innovations and benefits from partner ecosystems. 

In addition to accessing the public cloud, companies can also opt to virtualize their own data centers and run their systems on a private infrastructure cloud. Virtualization has become an established opportunity to reduce TCO through increased operational efficiencies.

However, companies choosing this path require reliable and easy-to-use cloud management technologies and services in order to best virtualize and manage their on-premise systems.

Journey to a Hybrid Environment



Based on the belief that a hybrid environment will emerge in which organizations source some services externally through the cloud while continuing to use their own systems, technology providers need to help customers embrace a cloud strategy based on their unique needs.

On their journey to cloud adoption, organizations can use the following according to their needs:

A tailored portfolio of on-demand solutions: Seek out comprehensive portfolios of transactional, collaborative and analytic on-demand business solutions. The best on-demand solutions available in the market today are built to seamlessly integrate into existing on-premise infrastructures to allow for hybrid deployment topologies, thus protecting a customer’s investment from the past.

An open on-demand platform for broad ecosystem co-innovation: To ensure long-term success in cloud computing, look for technology providers that believe in accelerating efforts to create and nurture a vibrant ecosystem of partners to help build, sell, deploy and manage cloud-based solutions.

Open platforms provide capabilities for partners and customers to build and deploy transactional, collaborative and analytic solutions that provide either customer-specific extensions or general add-on capabilities.

A trusted partner who ensures that customers with on-premise solutions fully exploit the cloud-based advantages: For example, technology provider SAP offers management tools, enabling technology and value-added services to manage on-premise SAP solutions in private or public clouds.

SAP has also formed partnerships with Wipro, IBM and Highbar in India to jointly create cloud infrastructure offerings in ERP, CRM and for the infrastructure and real estate industry respectively. This ensures joint customers to gain the full advantage of cloud technologies.

Cloud Benefits



Regardless of their location, companies that quickly embrace the cloud will have a significant advantage over their competitors.

Cloud adopters will have immediate access to a huge pool of diverse computing resources. This capability not only provides companies with the ability to respond quickly to shifting business conditions but also the opportunity to drive new innovations at a reduced cost and faster time to market.

The scale and distributed nature of the cloud also provides unprecedented opportunities for new connections between people, businesses and experiences that were previously constrained by traditional applications and communications. With a well-defined road map and a partnership with a trusted technology provider, companies can start reaping the benefits of cloud computing today, and are well positioned to pass up the competition tomorrow.

The author is director, of SAP Business ByDesign at SAP India.