How cloud computing models evolve and blend one-stop IT services into trends

"I think PAAs will be the ultimate goal of cloud computing," said Onisick, World Wide Marvell. The development of SaaS or proprietary software on a common, portable platform will help break down the infrastructure and make applications more portable, robust, and scalable. "The three models of the cloud computing model – infrastructure i.e. services (IaaS), Software as services (SaaS), and Platform as services (PaaS)-are evolving rapidly. The cloud service provider, however, tries to extend the top and bottom two directions of the pattern stack in order to provide a one-stop IT service.

Jeffrey Kaplan, the managing director of consulting firm Thinkstrategies Inc., believes that understanding history first helps to understand how three patterns evolve and blend. First, start with SaaS.

In 2006, Salesforce.com's strategy to attract the end users of its customer relationship management (CRM) SaaS service, rather than it, was beginning to bear fruit, and other software vendors began to emulate this subscription, Pay-per-use mode. As a result, business managers can buy their own software solutions directly, without needing to get them from the IT team.

"Then Amazon began to think: ' Why can't we use computing power in the same way? So the concept of IaaS was born. "Kaplan said:" The previous utility calculation is not successful because it is too complex, and Amazon has successfully realized the commercialization of computing power, allowing users to the hours or MIPS (the number of millions of instructions can be processed per second) as the benchmark to buy "

Soon afterward, Salesforce.com the idea that users would commercialize their software: "Maybe we should give users a development environment." Thus the PAAs was born.

IaaS tends to automate

Joe Onisick, a technical solution architect for system Integrator World Wide Marvell Inc., believes that one of the big trends in 2011 about IaaS is to automate evolution – a fusion architecture with automated scripting. IaaS may not be able to provide real-time system (orchestration) capability through the portal, but it can deliver rapid service delivery.

For example, when an application developer requires a server with specific processing power and memory, it can deploy the corresponding virtual or physical resources based on the underlying fusion architecture through automation tools.

For the difference between automation and compilation, Onsick that the real "build" capability allows developers to simply submit requests through the portal, and that subsequent approvals, change management, and infrastructure deployments will not involve the IT staff.

Another trend is the integration of IaaS and SaaS, such as HP's Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS), released last week. ECS operates on HP's converged architecture model to match the needs of customer business applications to their IAAS resources. HP hosts these workloads and provides services that Palo Alto company calls Computing as services (Computing as a service).

At the same time, traditional hosting companies, such as Savvis Inc. and NaviSite Inc., are transforming their server systems into virtual private clouds, according to Kaplan, while Rackspace U.S. IaaS service providers such as Inc. have added management services, including monitoring and technical support, to their cloud servers.

SaaS Stay

Due to the economic crisis, some companies have invested less time and money in software development and maintenance than before. Moreover, the software license is still one of the stubborn problems facing the virtual environment. Due to the above two points, Kevin Dobbs, executive partner of Montclair Advisors LLC (San Francisco), believes that the cloud computing model based on software ordering will stagnate, and that business software companies will be cautious about their actions.

Industry analysts believe that Oracle and SAP will continue to follow, deliver their products in subscription mode, and include cloud-like features such as self-service and chargeback. Looking at IBM, which already has SaaS products, unveiled a new partnership with LotusLive Public Cloud services last month, consolidating multiple e-mails, social networks, and collaborative services into IBM's cloud.

"The scale of the migration to SaaS is likely to last for at least 10 years and may now be just the second year," Dobbs said. ”

Henry Mayorga, the network technology director at Baron Capital Inc. in New York, says the trend may not be positive: "The subscription model is bad for end users." The manufacturer decomposes the product and then charges the components. For example, if I want to upgrade vsphere, I have to upgrade the corresponding management module first. The manufacturer moves the control component into a product that can be charged separately. Backup and replication software is also sold separately. It's all about income generation. ”

Forrester analysts believe that SaaS will only lead to chaos in the global software market in One-fourth areas. The company's Andrew Bartels and Liz Herbert expect SaaS to increase its share of total software spending from 7% in 2010 to 17% in 2013.

A CIO who asked to be anonymous, a high-end acoustic electronics manufacturer, said he had purchased SaaS services for training and learning management systems – an area where SaaS would break the status quo, as Bartels and Herbert said. In addition to human resources management, areas with similar effects include CRM, it management, and secure SaaS services.

Although the initial SaaS model is vague enough, the trend is still in place. Last week, an enterprise resource planning SaaS service provider in San Mateo, Calif., announced a partnership with the accounting and consultancy firm Baker Tilly Virchow Krause LLP, which provides professional services (or "cloud computing consulting practices") for accountants.

He thinks the future belongs to the PAAs.

"I think PAAs will be the ultimate goal of cloud computing," said Onisick, World Wide Marvell. The development of SaaS or proprietary software on a common, portable platform will help break down the infrastructure and make applications more portable, robust, and scalable. ”

Some companies are working on building a development platform for cloud computing services so developers don't have to focus on the underlying facilities or operating systems, such as Microsoft's Azure and Google's engine services. "Some people think Amazon also offers PAAs services, but it doesn't provide a development environment." "Kaplan said.

Microsoft's Azure cloud can support applications developed through the PHP scripting language and Java language, just as in. NET environment. Similarly, salesforce.com an extension of its force.com development platform by acquiring Ruby on Rails provider Heroku last December. Montclair Advisors's Dobbs believes that many PAAs products will emerge in 2011, including Apprenda Inc., Corent Marvell Inc., Engine Inc., Facebook Inc., and Products from companies such as Intalio Inc. and Nimbula Inc. Products that are already or will be available are Adobe BAE Inc. 's Flex, Intuit Inc's IPP, NetSuite's SuiteCloud, Oracle Corp. 's Fusion, relational NX Longjump of Inc. and Wolf of Wolf frameworks.

"With the Development of portability and standardization of the products of these cloud providers, the PAAs model will become increasingly popular." "Onisick said.

Progress in this area includes the OpenStack project funded by NASA and Rackspace, which has more than 50 companies joining the project, including the recently-joined Cisco.

Three ways to strike at the same time?

There are also companies that are fully aggressive in three modes, such as IBM, which have an IaaS for the data center, a lotuslive SaaS service, and a PAAs platform based on its middleware stack. HP has hardware for IaaS and is trying to turn system management into a SaaS model, but the company has no PAAs-related moves at the moment. Dell acquired several SaaS service providers last year and has IaaS products through acquisitions of Perot Bae.

Geoff Woollacott, the business manager and senior analyst at Marvell Business, Inc., said of the companies ' actions, "the impact on the business remains to be seen." "Woollacott is embarking on a simple, standardized definition of IT services, such as water and electricity.

Woollacott said: "It is easier to sign a contract with Con Edison than to build and carry the power plant, and similarly, ' It's like the current ' concept will reduce the overall cost." ”

For IT managers, all they have to do is find the Con Edison company in the Cloud computing field.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)