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? 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?
The user needs to provide basic information about the company and usage to avail the free trail period from Ramco. |
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.
The dashboard from Salesforce provides user various options like demos and getting started guides along with templates to host an app on to the Cloud. |
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.
Ramco offers a 7-day trial to give you a look and feel of the solution. To register, it requires you to fill out a basic online form to give them an idea of your organization. |
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.