by Marshall Lager | Jun 1, 2021 | Blog, Sponsored |
The enterprise software world is one where few, if any, companies can stand alone. Cloud computing has greatly increased the availability and usability of business applications. However, no vendor can claim to supply a complete homegrown solution. The SaaS world is one of partnerships. Partnerships are best when all the partners are trustworthy.Business software customers still need to pick a brand and stick with it for a while. That brand—the platform—represents a serious investment of time and trust. Sure, you own your data, and changing platforms is supposed to be easy. But ask anybody who’s done it whether they would want to do so again next year.Platform customers have to weigh more than just the price and features of each platform provider. They must also consider what the future holds for that platform and its partners. None of the big platforms are likely to disappear or merge anytime soon, but their fates and fortunes are not constant. They also have histories and reputations. Increasingly, they have prominent social and/or political stances as well. Those issues matter enough to some business owners and investors to affect their decisions. There are also simpler matters, like whether the customer likes the feel of the software environment, or has concerns about possible changes. Can I Trust You? In the end, these decisions boil down to variations on a single question: “Can I trust you with my business?” Contracts and commercial laws deal with businesses that act in bad faith; this is more about responsibility, reliability, and safety. Examples: Will you continue to support the applications I use?Is my data secure?Do you have good...
by twieberneit | Apr 11, 2016 | Blog |
Back in 2012 thought leader Esteban Kolsky went through the efforts of defining a pure, open cloud architecture with its three constituting layers: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, and samples of their interactions. A core focus lies on how an open cloud model solves the issues of security, scalability, and integration. Esteban also makes it abundantly clear that it can easily take 10 to 15 years to be widely adopted. First things first: He is right – at least to quite an extent. Personally I am of the opinion that any open cloud model necessarily includes private, and thus hybrid clouds. I say this while I agree that the panacea is the open model. Private and hybrid models are at least challenged in the security aspect and, to a lesser extent, in the integration challenge with the latter usually being mitigated by maintaining a white list of ‘approved’ applications, technologies, vendors, etc. Scalability shouldn’t be an issue for most companies, given that they work with a data center provider that is worth their salt. The bigger problem of security remains, but here one could argue that it is the same as for non-cloud, on-premise implementations. To a minimum, private and hybrid clouds have their value as transition steps. In reality it is more. Just take VW implementing a private cloud based upon OpenStack, delivered by Mirantis – which are, interestingly enough, not covered by Forrester Research in their Q1 2016 Wave on Private Cloud Software Suites. But I deviate … Cloud Adoption The recent RightScale report on the State of the Cloud tells us that nearly every company uses cloud...
