Cloud 9: Nine Reasons to Take the Cloud Seriously_White Paper

www.encanvas.com

Cloud 9 NINE REASONS TO TAKE

THE CLOUD SERIOUSLY

OCTOBER 2010

WHITE PAPER

2 © 2010 Encanvas Inc.

WHITE PAPER | Cloud 9: Nine Reasons to Take the Cloud Seriously

Contents

Overview......................................................................................................... 3

Introduction .................................................................................................... 4

The 9 Good Reasons ........................................................................................ 6

Conclusion .................................................................................................... 11

Contact information ...................................................................................... 12



Overview

Private sector businesses and Government departments around the world are under

pressure to achieve the improbable - deliver improvements in the quality of services

to citizens while finding sizeable cashable efficiency savings. Cloud computing is a

paradigm shift in the way information management systems are architected and is

heralded as the saviour of IT budgets. So what are the practical operational

advantages of Cloud technology?

This paper examines nine very good reasons why it makes sense to take cloud

computing seriously.

The IT industry has put its

marketing machine behind

cloud computing making it

one of the biggest IT hype

curves ever. So does the

cloud have a silver lining?



Introduction

What is the cloud? The cloud is used in computing context as a metaphor for a virtualized computing

system that is seemingly always available to users anywhere and at any time.

Instead of procuring and maintaining web server platforms internally,

organizations and individuals are able to procure their computing resources on a

pay-for-use basis.

The essential difference between virtualized cloud computing infrastructures and

traditional web hosting is the ability of this new genre of platforms to pool

resources between different tenants and applications (so-called multi-tenant

applications). A componentization of hosting resource building blocks means that

if one tenant requires more computing capacity while another wants less, the

platform is able to bring its capacity to bear as required. This means that

utilization of computing resources is optimized while the experience for tenants is

that applications can seemingly scale forever without thoughts or concerns over

processing capacity, memory capacity or other such non-trivial matters that

whilst important are not core to their business.

With the cloud comes a new bag of technologies Discussions on cloud computing inherit topics related to the advancement of

web-based technologies that have occurred over recent years such as the

emergence of Web 2.0 applications and AJAX web programming that enable

more fluid user interface experiences. Adoption of programming innovations and

smarter ways of using known technologies – finding better ways to create

applications, deploy applications, secure applications etc. – means that cloud

computing is no longer simply about infrastructure and hosting, it represents a

collection of new technology-led approaches.

Cloud computing versus web

server hosting – what’s the

difference?



The fundamental pillars of cloud computing are:

Infrastructure as a Service Delivering the multi-tenant hosting environment

and providing appropriate levels of backup,

storage, security provisioning, processing capacity,

resource pooling etc. – supplied to tenants on a

pay-for-use basis. Examples include Amazon EC2,

theRackspaceCloud and Microsoft Azure.

Platform-as-a-Service Applications platforms are a new concept in

computing. They are software platforms that

manage the life-cycle of applications design,

deployment and operation in a single integrated

platform that are charged to customers on a pay-

for-use basis. Examples include Salesforce.com’s

Force.com, Encanvas Secure&Live, Microsoft Azure

AppFabric and Google AppEngine.

Software-as-a-Service These are applications delivered to customers on

the cloud in the form of a service made available

on a pay-for-use basis. There are a number of

organizations that now provide SaaS platforms that

house a number of applications. Examples include

iGoogle, Zoho, Squork, Salesforce and 37signals.

Types of cloud In a little over a year since the beginning of its hype-curve , the IT industry has

begun to make sense of definitions of what a cloud i. Types of cloud have

emerged all of which are using the same platform architectures but are providing

deployment options geared to suit differing user communities. These are:

Public Cloud Cloud platforms that share their resources with

public tenants where tenant might be an individual

or organizations.

Private Cloud Cloud platforms that are provided by a cloud

service provider for the exclusive use of an

organization for their community of tenants.

Custom Cloud A custom cloud is a platform based on cloud

technologies deployed by an organization itself

rather than hosted by a third party. This scenario is

more prevalent in highly secure environments such

as defence and government installations where the

likelihood of third parties accessing data is of too

great a risk to consider.

A cloud for every occasion…



The 9 Good Reasons

1. Clouds cost less The obvious benefit of cloud computing are associated with infrastructure savings

when compared to traditional in-sourcing of hosting for business applications.

For organizations that insource their information systems hosting, it means

largely removing (not off-setting) costs such as:

No on-site hosting hardware and software

o Associated procurement costs

o Configuration costs

o Maintenance costs

o Power costs

o Upgrade costs

o Disaster recovery and backup provisioning

No associated staff costs

o Recruitment

o Salary and benefits

o Training and technical qualifications

o Succession

o Associated risks brought about by dependencies on staff skills

(people leaving or sick that possess essential knowledge of how

hosting platforms are configured and how they operate…)

No facility related costs

o Physical office space

o Site security

o Site heating and lighting

In addition to cost reductions, virtual hosting brings additional advantages of

reducing risk by:

Removing knowledge bleed (particularly implicit knowledge – the

knowledge people carry around in their heads)

Removing risk of a fire or natural disaster that destroys the hosting site

Removing risk of loss of data due to external attack, mistakes or

interventions

Adopting a cloud computing service can mean that organizations inherit

technology leadership and competencies they could scarcely afford for their

business directly but benefit from the economies of scale enjoyed by vendors to

pursue excellence in IT hosting approaches with the revenues to fund innovation

at a faster pace.

Cloud computing gives

organizations of any size

access to the latest

technology for their

information management

systems. In this way it

democratizes IT.



Is Cloud Computing good news for organizations that use external hosting?

Arguments for cloud hosting services are compelling when compared to

traditional in-sourcing. But what about organizations that have already migrated

to hosted service provision? How do the economic benefits of the cloud stack up

then?

For organizations that are already to some extent ‘virtual’ it comes down to scale

of economies and the agility of cloud computing to enable EVEN more

virtualization.

The cloud enables the outsourcing of more applications and greater optimisation

of shared resources so that organizations have the opportunity to port more

applications to a hosted model, and they’re able to call on more resources as they

need them (on-demand) without having to anticipate a ceiling in capacity brought

about by the capacity limits of the hosted environment. For organizations that

have already adopted hosting services then, the economies are not as clear-cut

but the scope for economies is greater.

2. Clouds are easier to manage Once applications are up and running on the cloud, day-to-day governance and

management is easier.

Modern cloud computing platform offer very sophisticated administration

dashboards and performance intelligence to enable tenants to easily understand

their utilization.

Porting to the cloud normally reduces the number of technology vendors and

partners required to support the enterprise. This means associated costs of

managing vendor relationships are reduced.

3. Clouds help to make corporate IT cost less and are easier to budget Through cloud computing, organizations are lowering their total IT costs to less

than 1% of total business income (so if you’re spending more than that on IT it’s

worth considering. Adopting cloud services means tenants don’t pay for what

they don’t use. Traditional internally hosted solutions have meant in the past that

organizations have had to buy much more processing capacity than they really

need on a day-to-day basis ‘just-in-case’ of growth and to cope with peaks and

troughs in demand. It’s also been difficult for IT managers to configure their

hosting applications in such a way that applications are able to share available

processor, memory and storage between applications and between departments.

This has meant organizations are housing, powering and maintaining many more

servers and much higher levels of capacity than they need with many assets being

heavily under-utilized. And when growth occurs, the incremental cost of

additional computing capacity is already known and can be built into budgeting

models.

While the rewards of moving

to cloud computer are fewer

for already virtualized

operations, there are still

economic advantages to be

realized.

Cloud computing removes

the need for just-in-case

processing power.



4. Clouds are greener Removing internal hosting delivers savings in power consumption resulting from

server power usage, site lighting etc. In addition to these obvious economies,

cloud computing means that information management is accessible to workers

wherever they are located because cloud architectures only typically require

workers to have a computing device with a browser.

With these basic tools, workers can login to systems from anywhere and

discharge their roles. Commuting to the office is only required when face-to-face

meetings are the only option.

5. The cloud gets applications right-first-time and makes them easier to deploy Platform as a Service (PaaS) technologies are changing the way organizations

design, deploy and operate their applications. In the case of PaaS technologies

like Encanvas Secure&Live, business analysts are equipped to integrate with data

sources, design and deploy applications without any IT skills deeper than basic

database and process understanding.

Removing the need for programming and the use of so many different application

development tools enables business analysts to work collaboratively with

business sponsors and users to fashion applications precisely for their purpose

without having to procure ready-made applications (that are often overly

specified or difficult to customize) or instigating a high risk and very expensive IT

project that would ordinarily have required a project manager, a number of IT

experts and many days of cross-browser compatibility testing and re-working.

Creating applications is a back-room - as has been the adopted approach for

many decades of corporate IT - is known to result in compromise because the

cost of making changes to original design concepts is so expensive)

Having created applications using a single integrated design environment, the

process of deploying them is controlled from a similarly uncomplicated

dashboard. One business analyst can normally produce as many applications as a

business function needs, as quickly as they’re needed. This agile applications

design and deployment approach removes the so-called ‘long-tail’ of demand for

business applications from business professionals charged with achieving

business outcomes or running departmental functions who have traditionally

found themselves resorting to self-authored spreadsheet and MS Access style

database because of a lack of access to robust IT and relational database systems.

Adopting PaaS solutions means that information management systems offer the

agility to stay in-tune with organizational needs and IT can drive innovation and

process excellence across the enterprise.

Platform-as-a-Service

solutions enable IT skills to

be embedded into business

improvement teams to drive

innovation in processes.



6. The cloud is easier to access Applications deployed on Platform-as-a-Service systems like Encanvas

Secure&Live are available to workers, partners and customers through secured

access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from any computing device that operates a

browser. Organizations do not need to concern themselves with provisioning for

hosting support as cloud platforms are maintained by vendors around the clock.

7. The cloud is easier to use and support Developments in Web 2.0 and Rich Internet applications running in web browsers

that adopt AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) programming techniques

mean that PaaS vendors are able to serve up user experiences far superior to

traditional desktop applications. Features such as repeater panels, conditional

panels and action oriented animated transitions enable applications designers to

author ‘single-page’ views instead of multi-page hierarchical menus. Authored

pages provide a very fluid look and feel - as important content flies into view as

needed whereas page elements that are not required remain hidden so not to

confuse the user with information overload. Cloud applications typically adopt a

common design ethos and look-and-feel so users become quickly familiar with

the intuitive design layouts. This reduces training costs.

PaaS solutions like Encanvas Secure&Live are specifically engineered to enable

many hundreds of applications portals from a single integrated administration

cockpit with full governance over user and group authentication, viewing

permissions, data structures, languages and reports. This scale of applications

engineering would not have been possible prior to cloud computing for many

technical reasons – version control, cost of applications design, security

provisioning, testing and tuning overheads, IT skills and resource capacity etc.

Moving to the cloud means that organizations can dramatically reduce their IT

skills dependencies and the cost of IT to service their operations.

8. The cloud makes data and systems easier to share Many organizations today want to share their data and information systems with

colleagues, industry partners – even customers. Hosting content and systems on

a cloud means that intellectual ownership of content and data remains intact but

applications required for collaboration and cooperation are easier to engineer. In

one case cloud computing technologies are being adopted in the transport and

traffic management sector to create regional (and virtual) traffic control systems

where many different authorities are pooling their data, systems and resources to

deliver regional services at a fraction of the traditional cost. Each organization

participating in the scheme retains their own brand credentials for ‘their space’

on the web while data systems and applications operate in a single common-to-

all platform.

Platform-as-a-Service

solutions make information

systems accessible 24x7.

Equipped with access to their

social networks, information

systems and analytical tools,

workers can be as productive

when working remotely as

they are in the office.



9. The cloud is safer Original strategies for data security have focused on preventing nasty people

from accessing secured containers of data. The problem with this model in

today’s business environment is that organizations are working more closely with

their customers, supply-chain and industry partners and contracted employees.

In order to maintain coherent security framework and governance over site

access users, user groups and data, a new approach to security has to emerge.

Class-leading cloud computing platforms adopt an inclusive security model which

means data itself is protected rather than the containers of data. Systems like

Encanvas Secure&Live and Microsoft’s AppFabric enable the formation of

federated security models so that users outside of the enterprise firewall can

offered the benefits of controlled viewing and editing permissions for data

sources that remain secure and well governed.

Corporate databases controlled by IT are thought to contain only 60% of

corporate information. The remainder of content is typically held in unstructured

forms like paper, on hard-drives of workers – or worse still in people’s heads. The

ability afforded by PaaS platforms to create applications as they’re needed means

that fewer ‘shadow systems’ are created and maintained by workers on Excel

spreadsheets, Access databases and PowerPoint presentations. This not only

makes data more secure but makes it more re-usable and easier to share.

Another key priority for security professionals is to cascade the responsibility of

managing data security through the enterprise. IT professionals have found

themselves the gate-keepers and trustees of corporate information. The problem

with this approach to security is that IT as a functional entity often has limited

bandwidth to make decisions on security risk and threat. Departmental heads

are normally better placed to judge whether requests for data are valid and they

are also better placed to assess the risk associated with the request. But if

departmental heads are to take on more accountability for the data they make

available, they must have the tools and insights to understand user data

behaviors and easily apply security protocols so not to make mistakes. Modern

PaaS solutions provide administrative cockpits for senior officers to manage data

governance. It means that IT professionals can pass over the keys to corporate

data to accountable and responsible departmental managers that know their

systems, user requirements for data and associated levels of risk. This approach

makes more of the organization aware of security risks and the responsibilities of

every employee to protect corporate information assets and to comply with

regulatory requirements over the use and application of sensitive data.

Cloud computing gets more

corporate information under

the control of the

organization.

Cloud computing platforms

adopt inclusive security

models that return the

responsibility for data

governance to accountable

executives…



Conclusion

The idea that IT functions will achieve step-change reductions in operational costs

is unlikely to happen without harmonising the hundreds of software applications

organizations use down to a manageable number. Migrating the many

homemade and spreadsheet systems to a common ‘secure and live’ cloud

architecture presents immediate opportunities for short-term cashable

economies.

Platform-as-a-Service solutions like Encanvas Secure&Live provide a mechanism

to economically serve the long-tail of applications demand that exists within all

organizations today; improving internal customer satisfaction towards IT.

So if you’re looking to make the move to cloud computing, consider taking baby

steps first with situational and departmental applications - and just make sure

you’re able to reach the cloud before you leap!



Contact Information

About the Author

Previously holding a series of Sales and Marketing Management and Directorship

positions in the European IT industry, in 2002 Ian Tomlin co-founded the

International Management Consultancy NDMC Ltd whose portfolio of clients

includes some of the world’s largest public and private sector organizations.

With Nick Lawrie he co-authored ‘Agilization’, a guide to regenerating

competitiveness for Western World companies. Ian Tomlin has authored several

other business books and hundreds of articles on business strategy, IT and

organizational design including ‘Cloud Coffee House’, a guide to the impact of

cloud social networking on business and ‘Social Operating Systems’, an

exploration into the next generation of enterprise computing platform.

About Encanvas

Encanvas® software makes the workplace work better. We bring added value to

the Microsoft® enterprise platform by creating the technologies organizations

need to spend less and receive more from their software investments. We’ve

created the world’s first Integrated Computer-Aided-Applications-Design (CAAD)

Software Platform. Our Secure&Live™ platform enables the near-real-time

design, deployment and operation of applications without coding in workshop

environments all made possible by a single tightly coupled architecture. It

facilitates the massive scaling of portal architectures; so users can communicate,

share information and their applications in real-time while operating in ‘secure

spaces’ that protect systems, data, identity and intellectual property.

Encanvas Inc.

2710 Thomas Avenue, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82001 USA.

(Americas) +1 201 777 3398

(Europe) +44 1865 596151

www.encanvas.com

All information of whatever kind and which is contained in this documentation shall be called for the purposes

of this project ‘Confidential Information’ and remains the property of Encanvas Inc. All trademarks and trade

names used within this document are acknowledged as belonging to their respective owners.

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