Dr. Andrew Sutherland, senior vice president, Middleware Oracle EMEA, says that cloud computing has been flagged as the new mantra to address these old challenges, yet there are dozens of definitions of what it actually entails, as well as confusion about public and private clouds and how they relate to security, risk and compliance.
Public clouds ensure a lower upfront investment, no infrastructure setup and minimal management, but not without its security risks. On the other hand, private clouds eventually translate into lower total costs, easier integration and greater control to ensure quality of service and data integrity.
He says that technology such as Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs)/shared services, grid/dynamic resourcing, virtualisation as well as management and automation are starting to address the challenges businesses face.
“Cloud computing consists of three different kinds of services - Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), all making up different aspects of the 'cloud',” he explains
SaaS refers to applications delivered as an on-demand service to end-users through a browser. “Some are commercial applications delivered by public cloud providers, while others are commercial and custom applications delivered via an enterprise's private cloud. Our company is a SaaS provider and offers a growing number of applications as well as hosted and managed applications. We call these offerings Oracle on Demand.”
IaaS refers to server, storage and networking hardware delivered as a service. This infrastructure hardware is typically virtualised using a grid computing architecture, so virtualisation, clustering and dynamic provisioning software are also included in IaaS. The company is not an IaaS provider per se, but works with providers, such as Amazon Web Services, in order to give enterprises the flexibility to choose to deploy the company's technology in either their own private cloud or public clouds.
PaaS refers to an application development and deployment platform delivered as a service to developers who use the platform to build, deploy and manage SaaS applications. The platform typically includes databases, middleware and development tools, all delivered as a service via the Internet. A virtualised and clustered grid computing architecture is often the basis for this infrastructure software. “The company is a PaaS enabler, not a provider, but it does offer enabling technology to PaaS and SaaS providers to build their own service offerings, known as the Oracle Platform for SaaS,” he adds.
Private PaaS is a natural strategy for enterprises. Its centralised IT approach offers agility, quality of service and efficiency, and, because it is private, departments within organisations have control over their cost structure, application control over their security. It is the easiest evolution of existing expertise and best practices in the industry to a private cloud environment.
Sutherland says, “PaaS provides the best balance between minimising what users build and maximising their flexibility and control of the platform.”
He adds there are a variety of entries on the path to a private cloud infrastructure. Companies can consolidate and centralise their IT, automate capability management, create reusable components, or start by enabling a self-service component to drive the establishment of a private cloud.
“A private cloud is an architecture that is centralised, shared, with self-service resources that are internal to the enterprise, allowing departments to efficiently deploy and run application. The company provides a comprehensive offering that is easy to set up, integrate and operate and offers high performance, automation and self service,” he concludes.
