IDC predicts that worldwide Cloud services market will be worth about $43 billion by 2012. And Cloud service adoption will grow at 27% CAGR, which is almost five times that of the traditional on-premise IT expenditure model. Moving your data or services, applications, etc on to the public Cloud is a conscious yet difficult decision to take. The preceding article on what to move to the Cloud will help clear the air to a large extent. After deciding what you want to move to the Cloud comes the next big challenge —how to go about it?
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Though the procedures and practices involved in moving to the public Cloud infrastructure are different for each vendor or Cloud service providers (CSPs), there are some common basic steps to follow. Here, we guide you to cut through the initial hiccups you might face in procuring public Cloud offerings.
Moving to the SaaS
Availing Software as a Service may be the most difficult job to decide, because it has the maximum number of options to choose from. There are some very popular SaaS providers out there, including Salesforce.com with its CRM offering, Google and Microsoft with their entire Apps portfolio. Deciding to use the services of such established players may only be a matter of choosing the right partner to do it for you, defining the SLAs, and of course negotiating on the rates. Here again, you would want to calculate the savings that would result from moving to a SaaS provider. A few things to consider here are:
- How much are you paying for the software licenses locally and how much would you end up paying by moving to the SaaS model?
- How much additional Internet bandwidth will you need for the new service? Your bandwidth requirements would most certainly go up by moving to the SaaS model. How much would they go up by depends upon the number of users and the service itself. On top of that, you’ll need to factor in the cost of providing QoS and backup links, so that the users get uninterrupted and quality service.
- Many SaaS service providers provide their services through a partner, and not directly. So, while the SaaS service itself might be from a reputed brand, but if the partner isn’t competent enough, you’ll be in for trouble. Hence, after choosing a SaaS service provider, you’ll need to choose the right implementation partner as well.
- How easy is the service to use? Does the SaaS provider offer a free online demo to give you a look and feel of their offering before you decide to use their services?
Ramco’s on Demand ERP
We tried Ramco’s on demand ERP solution from their website, ramcoondemand.com. The company offers a 7-day trial to give you a look and feel of the solution and its performance. To register, it requires you to fill out a basic online form to give Ramco an idea of your organization. You need to specify your industry, number of locations, and your contact info. Registration doesn’t directly take you to the 7-day trial, instead, the company gets back to you to discuss your requirements, post which a demo is set up.
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| The user needs to provide basic information about the company and usage to avail the free trail period from Ramco. |
The on demand ERP currently caters to engineering, automotive, travel and transport, industrial & manufacturing, power generation, wholesale distribution, and dairy industries. It offers an extensive range of modules, ranging from financial management, accounts receivable/payable, manufacturing, inventory management, cost planning and control, CRM, sales, purchase, business analytics, reports, human capital management, fixed assets management, logistics, and service management. There is also the option of getting to know the solution, its offerings, etc through the info available on the website. The website offers to contact the desired for which you have to provide the contact number. Once you provide the contact number, the people from the Ramco company will contact you and you can take the deal forward by negotiating your terms and conditions.It would have been nice if the company had provided a live online system to the users to play around with. Currently, they have some online flash demos to give you a look and feel of the various modules.
Salesforce.com
This company doesn’t need an introduction, as it’s one of the most popular SaaS based CRM service providers. We tried 30-day free trail of their services. Registration was pretty simple and straightforward. Moreover, unlike Ramco, here the company offers a live demo to give users an actual look and feel of the solution. After registering, it makes your email id as your user name and prompts you to change your password. After this, it allows you to set up your email to work with Salesforce. The demo supports Gmail account or MS Outlook. You can even import your contacts from Gmail, Outlook, etc. Besides, it has online video tutorials built in so that you can view them anytime to understand it better. Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Chatter and Force.com are some of the offerings by Salesforce, being offered as a service for different price points.
Moving to PaaS
Some of the most talked about entities in the Cloud space comprise big CSPs providing various platforms on to the Cloud for the user or developer community to develop their applications on the Cloud. Microsoft Azure , Google AppEngine and EC2 are some CSPs providing PaaS capabilities to developers and enterprises.
Google AppEngine enables you to build and host web apps on the same systems that power Google applications. AppEngine offers fast development and deployment, simple administration and you don’t need to worry about hardware, patches or backups and scalability. To use the PaaS services from the Google AppEngine provider, you need to sign up for an AppEngine account, download the SDK and proceed further by reading the getting started guide which provides the user basic info about developing and hosting apps on the Google infrastructure. Microsoft Azure works in a similar manner. The user needs to sign up using his Windows Live Id, download the SDK tools and register to gain access to services to the Microsoft platform. We have a separate article on how to develop on MS Azure platform in the developer section of this issue. To read more about how to use AppEngine, you can go to this link: http://ld2.in/hu.
Moving to IaaS
As we know that any new IT initiative from an existing enterprise or a startup involves a analysis of the cost and manageability of the IT infrastructure which is required to host the hardware. Though IT hardware infrastructure is getting greener and meaner but is not getting any cheaper. The huge costs associated with procuring and managing the infrastructure may often lead to many startup ideas vanishing in the air. This is where IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) model comes in. Using IaaS has various benefits like almost zilch fund required for setting up the IT infrastructure which generally amounts to more than 80% of the initial cost. Subscribed and scalable IaaS from a renowned vendor can help an organization function effectively. CSPs providing IaaS offer consultancy and help set up the server requirements for an organization. Dedicated virtualized storage and servers as a service just mirror the idea of an outsourced data center with the organization having to worry least in their performance and maintenance. Maximum usability and on demand scalability are some of the features being provided by these CSPs which make the deals rather lucrative.Â
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The content for this article is sourced from PCQuest Visit their website: www.pcquest.com
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