Cloud Computing : On Cloud Nine

You can call it the next wave or dimension in enterprise computing. Many
companies are battling for their own space in the cloud. Welcome to the world of
cloud computingthe new lingo that is making the rounds across CIO meets to
media conferences. When software giant Microsoft announced its cloud OS on the
Azure platform, the world sat up and took a closer look at the likely impact it
would have. The basic premise of cloud computing is aimed at getting more RoI
from a client perspective as in a typical cloud environment, computing solutions
are delivered over a shared infrastructure consisting of application and
hardware and this makes for producing highly scalable IT solutions. Cloud
computing is defined by experts as a concept that leverages SaaS and Web 2.0 and
other web-based technologies and the same is hosted on the web, that is accessed
by users as well as developers.

Cloud computing, which is getting more publicity now. is not a new
phenomenon. For instance, in 2006, Amazon launched its Elastic Compute Cloud
called as EC2. This simple web service interface allows one to obtain and
configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides the user with complete
control over their computing resources and allows one to run on Amazons
computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot
new server instances to minutes, allowing users to quickly scale capacity, both
up and down, as per the computing demand scenarios. Amazon EC2 changed the
economics of computing by allowing one to pay only for capacity that one wants
to use. From a developer perspective, EC2 enables developers the tools to build
robust applications and create highly successful solutions with minimal defects.
The other great example of cloud computing is Google Apps.

All Aboard

With Microsoft launching its cloud OS, the market has become extremely
competitive with a huge opportunity waiting in the wings. Last year, IBM too
forayed into this space by announcing its Blue Cloud initiative. Blue Cloud,
built on IBMs expertise in leading massive-scale computing initiatives, is
based on open standards and open source software supported by IBM software,
systems technology and services. IBM Blue Cloud is supported by more than 200
IBM Internet-scale researchers worldwide and targets clients who want to explore
the extreme scale of cloud computing infrastructures quickly and easily. Other
vendors like HP too are in the cloud space.

The escalation of technology concepts like cloud computing is unfolding a new
premise in the way enterprise apps are delivered. Its a new dimension both from
a developer and end user perspective. The developer uses the collective
computing resources while the end user pays for what he wants as the apps are
delivered as a service.

Given the massive spending IT enterprises take on, there is great stress on
RoI in tangible forms. By moving to an Internet-based cloud infrastructure,
organizations can access the same powerful applications without deploying it in
premise. Moreover, they need not worry about hardware and software updates as
they are accessing the apps hosted in a data center.

Shrikanth G

shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in