White Paper How to get your application running in the Cloud effortlessly For Application Integrators, Solution Providers and System Integrators Executive Summary Functionalities, flexibility and low prices of cloud services are a great opportunity for Small and Midsize Technology Integrators. However, required knowledge acquisition is a hurdle for this kind of companies. Fortunately cutting-edge software tools for cloud management can help them. Three Key considerations must be taken into account to choose the right cloud management solution. Index · · · · Cloud hosting, the ‘big opportunity’ The ‘know-how’ challenge How to bypass the ‘know-how’ gap Conclusions 1 2 3 4 Cloud hosting, the ‘big opportunity’ Whether we are talking about a freelance programmer developing a Magento (1) ecommerce portal, or a SMB consulting firm involved in an ERP deployment project: both need those applications up & running on servers as part of their project deliverables. The question is: should these servers be in the cloud? The offer of Cloud hosting is tempting: highly available Internet connected servers, with no initial investment needed and no hardware management cost associated, at an affordable price invoiced in a pay-per-use model without a minimum commitment time. As a result, it offers a big opportunity for any company whose product or service has software applications as a key chain component. This is the case with Small and Midsize Technology Integrators, whose added value is analysis, customization, training and support around business process applications rather than infrastructure management. Cloud infrastructure (virtual servers, storage and connectivity), also called IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), has nowadays the best prospect amongst all cloud services: an annual growth rate between 30%-40% in the 2013-2016 period (B). In addition, a price war waged in recent months by The Big Players (Amazon (1), Google (1), Rackspace (1) and Microsoft (1)) makes the use of this kind of services even more profitable. Low prices and widespread usage are putting cloud infrastructure well on the way to becoming a commodity. Therefore, the question is no longer whether servers should be in the cloud but which cloud provider should be used to make use of the opportunity. “Low prices and widespread usage are putting cloud infrastructure well on the way to becoming a commodity” Gartner(1) predicts that cloud Infrastructure will achieve a (CAGR) of 41.3% through 2016 (A). Google (1) is seeing a 32% reduction in prices of its GCE cloud platform in Q1/2014 (C). The ‘know-how’ challenge for Small and Midsize Technology Integrators Web-served business applications Cloud adoption has boosted the number of applications with a web based interface. Even business applications traditionally used from desktop installed software are now web served. This architecture provides cheap deployment, short time-to-market and multidevice availability. Technology Integrators are always busy delivering key added value for their clients in the form of analysis, customization, training and support of business applications. Although not a core business activity for them, they also need to face an array of collateral tasks: to provide, install, configure and operate the underlying infrastructure of servers needed for those applications to run. The current scenario of numerous cloud providers and an endless list of new or evolved business applications present a major challenge for this kind of companies. They must learn how to work with multiple technologies and keep up to date with new or evolved business applications. Furthermore, they have to do it as quickly and cheaply as possible in order to spend less time on collateral tasks and focus on bringing clients their own value-added services. There are presently two options for them to achieve this: Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and purchase of third-party services. When adopting a DIY approach the company assigns one (or more) team member/s the task of getting trained. This approach usually leads to repetitive steep learning curves, a longer time spent finishing tasks and increased risk of errors, thus creating a negative impact on operational efficiency along with hidden costs. When choosing the purchase of third-party services the company ensures high-quality results but at a much higher cost: outsourced professional services costs, supplier relationship management, internal administrative costs, etc. All of these must be added onto the client’s invoice while maintaining competitive prices and thus lowering business profit. There are plenty of ERP’s and CRM’s software tools, Content Management Systems, Knowledge Management and elearning platforms, Document Management Systems, BI suites, etc. Almost all business processes have a counterpart web-based software suite ready. Neither of the two options seems the right way to approach the knowledge hurdle. Is there any magic-formula to get this work done? “Traditional ways to acquire knowledge are no longer valid in the cloud era” White paper: How to get your application running in the Cloud effortlessly © cloudjutsu 2014 All rights reserved 2 of 4 How to bypass the ‘know-how’ gap: the magic of ‘click-and-go’ A few years ago some cloud infrastructure providers tried to face the know-how problem by offering application packs (virtual servers with the application already installed on it), ready to be run on their own infrastructure. It was a step forward although ultimately insufficient because it didn’t eradicate the need for learning about multiple provider technologies and knowledge required for later operation of applications. But things have changed over recent years thanks to API’s and IT Automation tools wide adoption. Cloud-hosted infrastructure can be fully software-managed using a provider API; in this scenario, cloud services brokerage has arisen in the form of web applications, from which end-users can work with multiple cloud providers at one time. On the other hand, IT Automation tools make it possible to build software that automatically executes actions in an unattended way allowing for a dramatic reduction in costs related to manual tasks. Both advantages together allow for the creation and management of cloud infrastructure, installation and configuration of necessary software, management and operation of the whole setup and, when no longer needed, its removal. All with almost no human intervention. And yet, are non-IT expert teams, like those of most technology integrators, prepared to take advantage of these tools? Probably not. We’ve to climb another stair yet! Nowadays, a whole new generation of web based applications takes another step forward to expand cloud adoption beyond IT-Pros community. These cloud management solutions merge API’s and IT Automation wrapping its complexity with an extremely easy-touse interface. Small and Midsize Technology integrators can themselves now work with multiple providers from a unique access point, get a broad portfolio of applications up & running effortlessly, operate and manage them with almost no training and save costs thanks to pay-per-use models and task automation. Just click-and-go! Criteria to choose the right cloud management solution Learning curve of the solution itself Usually the more features the product has, the longer the learning curve is, and the less you get immediate benefits from their use. So consider whether all that horsepower is really needed or whether it is better to start enjoying the benefits quickly Automation level: how much interaction does deployment require? Technology Integrators business is not infrastructure itself. Their main goal when using a cloud management solution must be to reduce the resources invested on infrastructure related tasks. The more automation level, the smaller the start-towork delay is. Required technical background to use the solution The main goal when using a cloud management solution is to focus on core business activities. It doesn’t matter what magic things your software can do if you need to invest a huge number of hours to use it. They finally can fill in the knowledge gap and make the most of the cloud-hosting opportunity while continuing to focus on their core activities. “Cutting-edge software tools help non-IT-Pros to adopt the cloud” White paper: How to get your application running in the Cloud effortlessly © cloudjutsu 2014 All rights reserved 3 of 4 Conclusions Five key benefits of cloud management software:  Profit increase No third-party services costs, no suppliers’ management overhead.  Productivity boost A drastic reduction in “lead time”  Click-and-Go deployment Focus on your own services, not on collateral tasks  Quick portfolio growth Import new apps w/o continuous know-how acquisition  “The Cloud in your hands” Multiple clouds Use multiple cloud providers with only one shallow learning curve Bibliography: (a) Data extracted from Gartner Research Roundup for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, 2012 (b) Data extracted from Gartner Forecast Overview: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 2011-20156, 4Q12 Update, February 2013 (c) Data extracted from Massive Price Drops on Google Computing Services and Storage - March 2014 Notes: (1) Magento, Google, Gartner, Amazon, Rackspace and Microsoft are trademarks of their respective companies Cloudjutsu is SaaS to manage IT infrastructure hosted across different public and private clouds. Created for providing an easy, powerful, provider and device independent platform to simplify IT cloud management. Cloudjutsu adventure began in 2010, started the development in February 2013 and has a Beta launch planned for June 2014. Made in Barcelona. www.cloudjutsu.com Mail: [email protected] Twitter: @cloudjutsu LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/cloudjutsu Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Cloudjutsu/posts Facebook: www.facebook.com/cloudjutsu White paper: How to get your application running in the Cloud effortlessly © cloudjutsu 2014 All rights reserved 4 of 4