Latest News from Srinivasan Sundara Rajan

End-to-End Cloud Offerings for Large Enterprises

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:00:00 EDT

With cloud adoption becoming a de-facto option for small and medium enterprises, large enterprises are relatively slower in their adoption of cloud. The main reason is that large enterprises have a very complex existing IT setup and no single offering from various cloud providers has yet to satisfy all their needs. However we find the recent announcements and offerings from IBM provide a perfect platform for large enterprises to on board to Cloud to make their businesses more agile. The below reference architecture provides an overview of how the large enterprises would like to position their cloud-enabled IT so that they get best of their traditional operations while merging with the benefits of cloud.

Information Delivery 2.0 - Reference Architecture

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:15:00 EDT

With the enablement of new sources of data flow into the enterprise, it is time to look at the issues of Information Delivery 1.0 of the current enterprises. Disparate Data Sources, most enterprises have grown multiple database platforms and even within a platform, multiple databases for various reasons. Enterprises taking a lot of pain and effort on ETL towards synchronizing the data. Enterprises are slowly incorporating big data, unstructured data in their information delivery scope, but don't have clear means to integrate them. Rich Media content (audio, video, music and other binary content) are finding their place, but the real context of that content is identified more by the metadata and not by the content.

iPad3 vs Windows 8 - and the Winner Is...Cloud

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 05:15:00 EDT

As evident from various social media interactions, blogs, tech news sites and other Google searches, the two events that clearly brought the attention of every one happened in quick succession. Interestingly there are huge discussions about the issue of ‘Windows 8 vs iPad 3,' while the former is an operating system, latter is a tablet device, yet the discussions are pointing to the fact that Windows 8 will facilitate other non-iPad tablet manufacturers to pose a serious challenge to iPad3. Analysts claim that while Apple iPad3 is expected to increase the market size further in the tablet field, Windows 8 has enough features to induce a new Windows 8 tablet market that can pose a serious challenge to iPad 3. As it always happens in any kind of competition between innovative products, only time and their respective marketing strategies will provide the final results.

Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting as a Service

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:45:00 EDT

This is a continuation of my series of articles on Industry SaaS. This term ‘Industry SaaS' can be interchangeably used with BpaaS (Business Process as a Service). However, the term ‘Industry SaaS' meaning a Software as a Service meant for a specific industry is stressed for wider attention, as the term BpaaS has yet to mature with a clear definition. Business Planning and Forecasting refers to the set of activities where business is planned against the strategy and what forecast activities or results of the organization may occur from operational execution during a particular time period. The following are the functions of this business process.

Data Mining and Data Virtualization

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 06:45:00 EDT

Data Mining helps organizations to discover new insights from the existing data, such that predictive techniques can be applied towards various business needs. Data Virtualization is becoming part of Main stream enterprise data access strategy, mainly from the angle of it abstracts the multiple data sources and avoids complex ETL processing and facilitates the Single Version Of Truth, Data Quality and Zero latency enterprise. If value adds like Data Mining engine if can be built on top of the existing Data Virtualization platform, the enterprises will be benefited further.

Enterprise 2.0 and the Voice of the Customer

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:45:00 EDT

The concept of Enterprise 2.0 is quickly emerging. We are seeing exclusive conferences from industry leaders on the idea of Enterprise 2.0 to educate the traditional enterprise in adopting the latest collaboration and social business technologies. Enterprise 2.0 is defined as extending the traditional enterprise with enhanced collaboration enabled by a new generation of social media tools, so that enterprises collaborate and share information between customers, vendors and employees. This will result in a real-time gratification of results so that all the parties involved benefit and the customers will benefit the most. However, this concept can be best understood if the use cases of the traditional enterprises have been explained in the context of Enterprise 2.0 so that the level of agility brought by the social enterprise is clearly visible.

An SCM Case Study: Social Networking in the Enterprise

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 07:45:00 EST

We are in a era where the consumer social networking in the form of face book and twitter are part of every one life. While there are several usages seen for the value proposition of these social networking tools in one’s personal life . However not much tools and the associated use cases are not seen for the effective usage of social networking in enterprise, which in a way should be facilitator for high productivity within the enterprise. While the advantages of this platform are obvious, one issue may be lack of proper platforms which understands the enterprise application integration scenarios from the system processes point of view while providing a human touch to complete the enterprise social computing.

Big Data and Cloud Computing in Academics

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 11:00:00 EST

Analyzing massive amounts of unstructured content and extracting information out of them is necessary for many industry verticals and particularly important for academics. The following points highlight the growing needs for information delivery in the field of education and research. With the increased costs of higher education and other federal-related restrictions on travel from other countries, higher education is turning more toward the virtual class room and this trend will increase in the future. This means that there are an increasing number of students who will look for information over the virtual classrooms and by other means such as social media, access through smart devices, etc. The more unstructured the data, the greater the need to process them toward meaningful content for students

Five Mistakes to Avoid in Enterprise Cloud Adoption

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 10:15:00 EST

While the adoption is a good sign, it also brings with it the risks as some of the early cloud projects have started to fail. Up until now we have only hear good things about Cloud, but now we are getting data on how Cloud did not lived up to expectations. This kind of information may create fear, uncertainty and doubt in the minds of enterprises. However enterprises should do a careful analysis of any perceived failures of Cloud projects, rather than simply blaming it on the Cloud as a concept. Most of the good transformation initiatives always find their resistance in the past, and Cloud is no exception. Enterprises should analyze whether any negative perception about a Cloud project true or is due to resistance from a few. However, for cloud integrators to avoid risks, the following points needs to be considered.

From SOA Abstraction to SaaS

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:15:00 EST

Service Oriented Architecture: Service Oriented Architecture is the first attempt in aligning the IT with the business and this is now almost a default architecture for all the new applications created in today's enterprise. Definition of SOA emphasizes the following, Service-Oriented architectural style has the following distinctive feature , It's based on the design of the services - which mirror real-world business activities comprising the enterprise (or inter-enterprise) business processes. Service Identification Approaches: While it is always easier to think the new applications from the point of view of business and design them to represent the business view, but most enterprises in their journey to SOA have faced with the challenge of accommodating a huge set of legacy components and applications which are already developed over the years and are working fine for specific needs. This has made enterprises to adopt multiple approaches towards SOA.

Cousins of Cobol in Big Data Analytics

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 07:15:00 EST

In this article I would like to look at a few tools which are overlooked when it comes to Big Data analytics. Organizations that have already heavy investment on Mainframe and would like to continue with the utilization of Mainframe can consider these tools for further expanding their Big Data Analytics reach.

Knowledge Management as a Service - More Players

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:30:00 EST

This is the continuation of my series of Articles on Industry SaaS . This term ‘Industry SaaS’ can be interchangeably used with BpaaS (Business Process As A Service). However the term ‘Industry SaaS’ meaning a Software As A Service meant for a specific industry need is stressed for the wider attention , as the term BpaaS is yet to mature with a clear definition. Most enterprises need a Knowledge Management Portal, that allow various employees to share best practices, ‘How To’ Documents and other knowledge related content and ensure that the knowledge obtained by a few employees is kept in a common repository. The following are the typical components of a enterprise knowledge management portal.

COBOL in Big Data Analytics

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 07:45:00 EST

Purpose of analyzing Cobol for some of the future enterprise needs is not go back to old age. However the whole point of Cloud platform is about choice and freedom to enterprises. Which means that enterprises can take their own decision in this regard. However considering the natural fitment of Cobol language in file processing and the batch processing and with the new supporting features like private Clouds, we can consider this as a worthy option. More over considering the huge installed code base and a lot of business critical logic exist in Cobol this analysis has more meaning than any other legacy programming language.

Cloud Computing: Knowledge Management as a Service

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:00:00 EST

As identified in my earlier article about Enterprise Search in Hybrid Cloud Computing Model, this particular use case of knowledge management is a natural fit for a cloud platform. However, the following aspects are aligned to the Cloud model. Knowledge Management systems may have large storage needs and can utilize a cloud storage model Search patterns may vary and may experience sudden spikes and better to be supported with an elastic computing model Most of the knowledge management workflow and search capabilities are generic in nature and a SaaS application can easily fit that for a majority of enterprises Knowledge Management Access Patterns goes well with BYOD ( Bring Your Own Device) strategies of large enterprises as an enterprise knowledge worker may access the information at any point and from anywhere.

More Use Cases for Big Data Analytics

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:00:00 EST

With the initial start in research work and in social network sites Hadoop is now becoming a big part of enterprise IT landscape. Recent announcement from Microsoft about embracing Hadoop as part of its Windows Azure High Performance Computing initiative and Oracle also announced support for Hadoop with new options like, Oracle Loader support for Hadoop processed Data. There are more situations like Hadoop can be utilized for measuring the development productivity for large development teams as explained in this article.

Cloud Computing: Facilities Work Order Management as a Service

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:15:00 EST

This is the continuation of my series of articles on Industry SaaS . This term ‘Industry SaaS' can be used interchangeably with BpaaS (Business Process as a Service). However, the term ‘Industry SaaS' meaning Software as a Service meant for a specific industry need is stressed for wider attention, as the term BpaaS has yet to mature with a clear definition. Most large manufacturing enterprises will have a facilities division that is responsible for various infrastructure jobs within the enterprise whether in the office space or in plants or warehouses. Typical activities conducted by the facilities department are like building a new room inside the premises or fixing an existing infrastructure. Most of the work done by the facilities department is termed as jobs and most enterprises have a job management system to track these jobs for completion and report on them. This application is generally referred to as Facilities Job Management application. The term ‘Job' & ‘Work Order' are used interchangeably in this context. Most large manufacturing enterprises will have a facilities division which is responsible for various infrastructure jobs within the enterprise whether in the office space or in plants or ware houses. Typical activities conducted by the facilities department are like, building a new room inside the premises or fixing a existing infrastructure.

On-Premise Data and Cloud Computing Integration Patterns

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 07:45:00 EST

There should be an increased confidence for cloud consumers to utilize various SaaS offerings and BpaaS offerings in the cloud. However, there are a few customers who are also interested in utilizing the COMPUTE (i.e., processing) power that is massively scalable on cloud while keeping their STORAGE (i.e., data) on the data center (i.e., on-premise). This article tries to analyze those data integration patterns for enterprises to keep their data inside the data center and utilize the processing power of cloud. Again this is just another option for enterprises. Enterprises should be confident in the security initiatives by major vendors and try to move nonstrategic applications fully into cloud to utilize its best powers.

Cloud Computing: Labor Contract and Negotiations as a Service

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:00:00 EST

This is the continuation of my series of Articles on Industry SaaS . This term ‘Industry SaaS’ can be interchangeably used with BpaaS (Business Process As A Service). However the term ‘Industry SaaS’ meaning a Software As A Service meant for a specific industry need is stressed for the wider attention , as the term BpaaS is yet to mature with a clear definition. It is always difficult to cover every other offering under Labor Contract Negotiations management as a service in one article, also as mentioned the aim is not to rank the providers, if any other important offering under this service is missed out please write to me for covering them in the coming articles.

Supplier Evaluation as a Service

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:00:00 EST

This is the continuation of my series of articles on Industry SaaS. The term ‘Industry SaaS' can be used interchangeably with BpaaS (Business Process as a Service). However, the term ‘Industry SaaS' meaning a Software as a Service meant for a specific industry need needs more attention, as the term BpaaS has yet to mature with a clear definition. Most organizations need an automated tool to select suppliers and evaluate them. These systems form an important part of Supply Chain process, as they aim at evaluating the supplier's capabilities and other compliance information about the supplier, which will be a key supporting evidence in organization's sourcing policy. These tools normally will have a supplier self-registration portal to authenticate and on-board suppliers, and have provisions for suppliers to enter their profile, business classification, address, etc. As mentioned in the beginning portions of this series of articles, the aim is to identify the areas within the enterprise business process that can be served using a SaaS/BpaaS Model. Like the earlier Business Processes, this Supplier Evaluation is also a good candidate to move on to SaaS Service Delivery Model. However we are not seeing very many players with this offering On Supplier Evaluation As A Service, Please write to me if any other player is providing a Similar Service using a Cloud Base Solution.

Enterprise Asset Management as a Service

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:00:00 EST

This is a continuation of my series of articles on industry SaaS. This term ‘Industry SaaS' can be interchangeably used with BpaaS (Business Process as a Service). However, the term ‘Industry SaaS,' which means a Software as a Service meant for a specific industry need, is stressed for a broader attention, as the term BpaaS has yet to mature with a clear definition. Enterprise Asset Management as a Service Enterprise asset management is the business processes and enabling information systems that support the management of an organization's assets, both physical (such as buildings, equipment, infrastructure, etc.) and non-physical.

BpaaS Interoperability as a Service

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:00:00 EDT

In my previous article on Need for BpaaS Consortium, I stressed the need for interoperability as a number one concern for the enterprises to adopt SaaS and in particular BpaaS. I pitched for the need for a generic body or a consortium that can act to address the interoperability concerns so that the consortium can do activities. While the independent body can definitely increase the confidence of enterprises in adopting SaaS & BpaaS, but looking from another angle, the concept of BpaaS interoperability has created new opportunities for service brokers by tapping the potential opportunities in this space.

Industry SaaS Offering Series - Part 2

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:39:50 EDT

As we started this series on SaaS, BpaaS offerings it is encouraging to see more players in the space. Chemical Inventory Management is chosen as a starting point. We request the enterprises to contact these providers directly and evaluate them as per their processes. Another important thing is that these segments (SaaS, Business Process as a Service) will bring the much-needed innovation scope for the overall enterprises that are dependent on them, which means the overall economy growth lies in the success of this model. To support the adoption of this model, we started with the Industry SaaS Offerings series, which can lead to a Business Process as a Service model. The first topic chosen is about Chemical Inventory Management and Compliance Reporting. We also mentioned that the listing of individual offerings may be difficult to cover in one attempt and we may need to have many updates to that posting.

Cloud Computing: Is There a BpaaS Consortium?

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 07:00:00 EDT

We are seeing very clear predictions about the growth of SaaS (Software as a Service) market in the next several years, also very close to the concept of SaaS enterprises are looking for BpaaS (Business Process as a Service) which aims at end to end delivery of a complete business process, which is ideally satisfied with a single SaaS offering or a combination of multiple SaaS Offering. Interoperability Concerns : While this gives a rosy picture about the growth of the SaaS and BpaaS towards lifting the entire tech industry and the associated business, we are seeing some great concerns in terms of adoption.

Priorities for CIOs in 2012 IT Budget Allocations

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 07:30:00 EDT

It is time for most heads of IT to think about the budgets for 2012. While the traditional portfolio wise allocation will still be continued in most enterprises, it is also time to think about prioritizing the budget allocation in new areas. As Cloud related investments will be top in CIO’s mind, the following areas are analyzed in this context. • Desktop Virtualization • Server Consolidation • Application Consolidation

Cloud Computing: Industry SaaS Offering Series

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:15:00 EDT

Independent research firm studies expects the global cloud computing market to reach $241 billion in 2020 compared to $40.7 in 2010. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offers more growth opportunity than any other segment in the still largely vague market for cloud computing services. SaaS will retain its position as a leading segment in cloud computing with SaaS market growing three-fold to $92.8 billion by 2016. In these series of articles we wanted to analyze various enterprise business process needs and how SaaS at this time is satisfying them. This will provide enterprises a clear path towards adopting SaaS with a open mind set.

Cloud Computing Application Management and Lean ITIL

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:45:00 EDT

Currently Enterprises spend a fortune on Application Management so that there is no break on regular day to day operations, While Cloud brings lot of intangible benefits like increased business agility, more scope for innovation,the real selling point to the CxO at the beginning stages are the benefits that can be obtained through Application Management. Cloud adoption by enterprises is a important step to go forward, however the benefits have to be fit into the current models of calculating operational costs and hence the driving the concept of LEANT ITIL is a good value proposition for enterprises to adopt Cloud. As evident the benefits will return the better ROI and enterprises will spend more on innovation.

The Role of Enterprise Architects in Cloud-Enabled IT

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:05:39 EDT

The core tenants of a EA in a traditional Enterprise IT like Strategic Planning, System Architecture , Software Engineering Remains the same between a traditional enterprise and a Cloud Enabled Enterprise at a high level However the implementation aspects of each of these building blocks of EA are different for a Cloud Enabled Enterprise However EA has to think a lot of about Non Functional Requirements like Security, Scalability, Availability when it comes to a Cloud Implementation While PaaS gives lot of flexibility, the traditional aspects of Software Engineering like best design patterns still holds good I summarized that the EA Role changed from building to Every thing from Scratch to a Strategic Broker of Consuming Services towards betterment of business.

Sprinting into Cloud Computing

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:00:00 EDT

Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for Project Management that is driven using the Agile principles. Scrum methodology differs from document deliverable-centric, traditional waterfall methodology. Scrum also banks on real-world progress of the project. In Scrum, projects are delivered into smaller work packages known as sprints, which are typically one week, two weeks or three weeks in duration. At the end of each sprint, stakeholders and team members meet to assess the progress of a project and plan its next steps. This allows a project's direction to be adjusted or reoriented based on completed work, not speculation or predictions.

Making Sense of Multi-Tenancy Without Cloud Computing

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:00:00 EDT

Multi-Tenant Software Architecture is the new architectural pattern in the industry, whereby a single instance and single code base of a software has been architected in such a way that it serves the needs of multiple customers aka tenants in a transparent way to the tenants. This concept has gained popularity with the Cloud and SaaS (Software as a Service), since such a design enables service providers to scale out their software to a large number of consumers without really consuming compute resources exponentially. This way consumers not concentrating on the lower infrastructure details of software are able to consume them at a cheaper cost. Well that is all about the success of Cloud Computing in the real world. However, for an organization to adopt Cloud immediately or in the near future is a different area, but the concept of multi-tenant architecture and design is proving to be a worthy one to consider even with for an on-premise application. The following points convey the value proposition of multi-tenant architecture in the data center without Cloud too.

Traditional vs Big Data Analytics

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 08:45:00 EDT

Major IT companies acquiring analytics software and application providers has been the order of the day. We have seen the words ‘Big Data Analytics' being used in many solutions for the enterprise. ‘Big Data' is the general term used to represent massive amounts of unstructured data that are not traditionally stored in a Relational form in enterprise databases. The following are the general characteristics of Big Data. In the past, the term ‘Analytics' has been used in the business intelligence world to provide tools and intelligence to gain insight into the data through fast, consistent, interactive access to a wide variety of possible views of information.

Why Developer Adoption of Cloud Is Important?

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 02:22:00 EDT

Cloud Computing holds a unique distinction of sorts, since most other earlier IT related innovations like SOA, BI Analytics or WEB and others are thought out and driven by software developers before it reaches the CIO, CFO and the business, whereas Cloud Computing found early adoption from the CIO/CFO and business communities more than developers. Various research findings from top cloud players indicate that businesses and CIOs adopt cloud much faster to the level of 5X faster than the IT community. This fact is ascertained by the various marketing materials from cloud vendors. In that context, involvement of developer community toward cloud Adoption will provide the full push for the complete enterprise adoption of Cloud and ultimately business realizing its benefits.

Enterprise Search in a Hybrid Cloud Computing Model

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:00:00 EDT

With the information explosion, the petabyte enterprise needs search capabilities within the organization. Cloud provides a perfect platform towards that. The growth in unstructured content further iterates the need for Cloud platform. As evident from the above discussion, this could be a starting point for organizations towards enterprise search on a hybrid cloud model. These figures are truly astronomical but they are real considering the amount of content generated by the various devices, digital media, social networking and other sources. However, what is the usefulness of such vast quantities of data unless users can search them in a manner that will be useful to the information needs of the enterprise. Hence the Enterprise Search strategy for the large enterprises assumed significance a lot earlier.

What You Can Do When Thunder Strikes Your Cloud

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 10:00:00 EDT

In spite of the hype that a Cloud system or application will never fail, we are still seeing cases of cloud system failures. The recent ones being Lightining strikes in Dublin taking the Amazon, Microsoft Clouds down for a while. While this may cause some Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt on Cloud, the underlying fact remains that transforming an application to Cloud means not just setting a switch for the enterprises, but there needs to be lot more planning and the best practices that are proven in the traditional data center are still valid. The following are some of the best practices in prevent the Cloud outages. These are beyond the basic disaster recovery provisions given by the most cloud providers.

Best Practices for Cloud Workload Management

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:00:00 EDT

The biggest issue for the today's enterprises is the ways and means of measuring their computing / processing workloads that need to run their business and then work on the ways and means of optimizing the same. Workload is the amount of work assigned to, or done by, a client, workgroup, server, or Internetwork in a given time period. For example if we take a manufacturing organization, a workload can be a combination of: Interactive or Network Intensive Workloads: The amount of online entry of sales orders, program planning, warranty claims that are referred to a help desk and similar interactive applications. Content or Storage Intensive Workloads: The amount of huge content management systems that stores TBs of data, especially engineering drawings, CAD, CAM related.

Data Virtualization - RDBMS vs Middleware

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:00:00 EDT

As discussed in my previous article, Data Virtualization is the new enterprise data integration pattern for the petabyte enterprise that depends on Cloud for a dynamic allocation of resources to satisfy information needs. We have also seen several attributes of data virtualization that fits the needs of the new enterprise. As an illustration of data virtualization at work, we have demonstrated the usage of SQL Server as a data virtualization engine that utilizes the relational database engine as a data virtualization server and delivers the results. However, utilizing the existing RDBMS as a data virtualization engine is not the only option and we can utilize specialized engines outside of RDBMS as a data virtualization engine. This concept is not new.

Data Virtualization in SQL Server

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 09:00:00 EDT

With the explosion of data , large enterprises have to rethink on the data abstraction and distribution strategies and may need to augment the traditional data integration patterns with data virtualization options. Sql Server being the popular database and whose Cloud version Sql Azure is already available is chosen as an example, because we expect these features to be available in the Cloud shortly and it provides a path for Data virtualization on Cloud.

Windows Azure Marketplace, “Denali” and SaaS Pricing

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:15:00 EDT

We all know that the SaaS model of Cloud Computing delivers software as a service over the Internet, eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computer and simplifying maintenance and support. As SaaS providers grow, especially the providers for the same kind of service grow, this will result in a healthy price war much to the benefit of the cloud consumer, which is the whole goal of industry's research in this area. Function point measures the functionality that ‘User Requests and Receives' which is the underlying intent of a SaaS usage by a cloud consumer. Also the function point is technology independent so is Cloud from a Cloud Consumer point of view, adopting function points to SaaS makes it even more relevant.

Cloud Computing: Server to Smart Device - The Changing Enterprise Menu

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:45:00 EDT

Remember the older web applications and client server applications of the last decade, most enterprise business users are used to logging on to individual applications with their credentials or use single sing on mechanisms and they are presented with a Menu of individual screens based on their authorization levels, and users individually click their screen entries to perform their activities. Enterprise Application Menu: Remember the older web applications and client/server applications of the last decade? Most enterprise business users are used to logging on to individual applications with their credentials or using single sign-on mechanisms, and then being presented with a menu of individual screens based on their authorization levels. Users individually click their screen entries to perform their activities. With the productivity gains perceived with Tablets + Gadgets + Cloud, enterprise users don’t have to be restricted with the current application specific menus, rather the new enterprise user can pick and choose the Gadgets of interest and install in their smart device to complete the business process desired. Rather the Enterprise Menu is shifted from the Server To The Smart Device.

Cloud Transformation Factory

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:30:00 EDT

The idea to industrialize Information Technology operations like an assembly line in a factory is not new. In software development, typically a software factory is about forming a specialized organizational structure that creates an assembly of subdivisions each of which specializes in aspecific aspects of software development, and the overall organization works much like an assembly line in a manufacturing industry. Several of the software vendors like Microsoft have implemented support for software factories in their integrated development tools like Visual Studio. As part of Patterns and Practices, Microsoft has come up with a vision for software factory realization of many of the common software development paradigms. One such being the Smart Client Software Factory.

Time for the Windows Azure Tablet?

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 10:15:00 EDT

Several industry predictions point to an explosion of tablets as the most favored productivity device for the enterprise and the consumer. The analysts have predicted a worldwide increase in usage for tablets. The biggest advantages of tablets is that they are lightweight yet powerful enough for carrying out enterprise class productivity operations, and weighing much more than a smartphone in terms of enterprise productivity needs. While the tablets are another dimension of improvements in client devices from the desktop era to today, their popularity is closely aligned with the growth of the Cloud Computing paradigm.

Multi-Tenancy Misconceptions in Cloud Computing

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:45:00 EDT

Many of IT groups within the large enterprise including CXOs view multi tenant applications as the one that host disparate group of individuals or organizations. So the common misconception is that multi tenancy is all about resources shared by more than one organization. This leads to many discussions on Multi Tenancy Cloud, cut short by the stake holders with the statement that ‘We Don’t Need Multi Tenancy’. This article discusses why enterprises are still Multi Tenant due to these reasons.

Cloud Computing: SaaS and Standards

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 10:00:00 EDT

Real benefits of the Cloud Computing model will go beyond the Dynamic infrastructure and on demand computing. For the enterprises saving 10% of the Server Cost is important but that is not their core need, rather adopting Common industry standards for service end points, data exchanges and availability of SaaS model very specific to their community will hold the highest value proposition for them. This will not really impair the healthy competition between them, because the over all industry needs confidence of the consumer and solving their problems together will help them in this recession economy.

Microsoft Office Access and Cloud Computing

Wed, 11 May 2011 10:00:00 EDT

Microsoft Office Access is one of the most popular thick client / client server application development tool that is prevalent in the enterprises today. Its simplicity to use, fitment for quick departmental applications and ability to be home grown by the business users without dependency on IT and still a poor man’s adhoc reporting tool, all makes MS Access a permanent place in most enterprises. Mostly Microsoft Access is used as a desktop thick client application and with increased usage of Cloud Platform it would be helpful to analyze the options for Microsoft Office in Cloud.

Cloud Computing: Amazon Elastic Block Store & Storage Management

Mon, 02 May 2011 10:42:00 EDT

Much has been written about the Amazon failure that really put the enterprise adoption to Cloud a bit on the back foot. Amazon's outage was caused by a failure of the underlying storage - the Elastic Block Storage. The Elastic Block Store (EBS) is a distributed and replicated storage optimized for consistent and low latency I/O from EC2 instances. EBS runs on clusters that store data and serve requests and a set of control services that coordinate and propagate I/Os.

Lessons from the Amazon Cloud Outage

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:00:00 EDT

Amazon Cloud down event is a wake up call about how Cloud can be utilized, there is no automatic switch that ensures all the fault tolerant needed for the systems. However this has reinforced the strong fundamental principles with which applications needs to be built in order to be resilient. This incident cannot be seen as a failure of the Cloud platform itself and we have lot of room for improvement and to avoid these situations in future.

Cloud Computing: The Importance of Community Clouds

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 14:00:00 EDT

Community Cloud is the cloud infrastructure that is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise. With that in mind, we are yet to see larger community clouds across industry verticals. However Community Cloud adoption will be a key success factor for many industries which are at cross roads worldwide. Some of the reasons mentioned below will prove why Community Clouds are important in the current volatile global economy.

Cloud Foundry and Windows Azure Myths Dispelled

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:00:00 EDT

Enterprises are looking for Cloud to move their Development and Testing activities which deviates the core goals of the enterprise towards setting up middle ware and configuring servers. PaaS (Platform As A Service) grows into popularity mainly from the fact that Developers can concentrate more on the functionality rather than the infrastructure aspects. New PaaS offering called Cloud Foundry from VMware is exiting, however there are some feeling about how Cloud Foundry would be a Windows Azure Killer and game changer. We tried to analyze those points against Windows Azure and found them to be not true and these platforms together can serve enterprises depending how the existing landscape of enterprises are laid.

Java EE 7 and Cloud Computing

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:00:00 EDT

Java EE 7 is the next version of the major enterprise platform has been approved by the JCP board recently. We find significant support for Cloud Adoption in the proposed platform. This platform analyzes how Java EE could be a major Cloud Platform much like .net has been positioned in the form of Windows Azure.

Multi Tenancy and the Oracle VPD

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EDT

Success of SaaS applications will be measured by the Time To Market, which means that faster we roll out our application we capture the market better. This can be achieved only if the best of the Out Of the Box features available in the product vendors are utilized, so that the much-needed security, auditing and performance of the application are maintained.Oracle’s VPD / FGA are one such feature which needs to be analyzed , if you plan to deploy your multi-tenant application on Oracle platform.

The Automobile Industry and Cloud Computing

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EDT

We found a recent news item that automobile maker Toyota is going to team up with the Microsoft Azure Cloud Platform to deliver various services related to automobile building activities. Microsoft and Toyota are supposed to stick $12 million in Toyota Media Services to develop diagnostic and GPS data for cars, developing a whole global cloud platform for "telematics" by 2015. Toyota means to open the platform to other carmakers. Growing enterprise adoption of Cloud Platform is good news, especially for the automobile industry which is at a crossroads and trying to become profitable again. This will be a very good choice. Soon other OEMs will be taking similar measures.