Cloud in 2012 risks and performance must be achieved. Still, at a time of economic recovery, when organisations are seeking new paths to growth, both business and government leaders must seize this ideal moment to think hard about the possibilities a cloud operating environment presents.
What is Cloud? Cloud is a business imperative. It is more than just virtualised technology. It’s an amalgamation of many years of technology innovations and development that has evolved into a model for enabling convenient, on-demand access to a shared pool of virtual computing resources, including networks, servers, storage, applications and services. Cloud includes business services (applications) deployed and maintained over the internet on a pay-as-yougo basis. It provides agility like never before, taking people and latency out of systems, thus allowing companies to adopt new systems in days or weeks, rather than several months or years. Cloud service providers generally use
one of three cloud service models: Software-as-a-Service (Saas) — business operations over a network; Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) — deploy customer-created applications to a cloud; or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) — rent processing, storage, network and other computing resources. Cloud deployment models for organizations moving to cloud environments include: Private — a ‘closed’ environment for a single organisation hosted by a third party; Public — a shared environment used by many organisations; or Community — perhaps the most interesting and potentially transformational of the three, which involves an environment shared by many organisations in particular industries, by geography, along similar supply chains or otherwise connected. In the community cloud model, agreed-upon rules establish cooperation between suppliers, providers, customers and the value chain that can become paradoxically businessenabling. This is where the rubber real-
ly meets the road, and provides opportunities for business models to change. It’s when involvement becomes not just a competitive advantage for those who join but a competitive imperative for similar organisations that hope to compete over the long-term.
What’s Driving Cloud Adoption? Shifting business models and the numerous cloud alternatives available to organisations are accelerating the adoption curve. Today, through business process outsourcing, a company can leverage an almost unlimited range of resources and business processes from any location. The cloud operates on a similar principle and has much the same advantages. Like other forms of business virtualisation, it offers large-business capabilities and processes at relatively low cost. Cloud allows a start-up organisation to access the same technology infrastructure and support as a Fortune 500 company. It permits a company to access all its information technology
On-demand self-service Usage-based billing
Cloud Environment=
Internet-based data access and exchange + Internet-based access to low cost computing and applications
Cloud Environment Characteristics: Internet accessibility
Elastic capacity
Pooled resources
Understanding the Cloud Operating Environment Cloud Service Models
Cloud Deployment Models
Platform-as-a-service
Private: Operated for a single organisation Public: Available to the general public or large industry group owned by an organisation selling cloud services Community: Shared by several organisations
Software-as-a-service Business operations over a network SaaS
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CFO india
Infrastructure-as-a-service
Deploy customer-created Rent processing, storage applications to a cloud other computing resources PaaS
January 2012
IaaS