Cloud computing is increasingly popular due to its ability to deploy business applications more quickly and at a lower cost than with traditional software.
But what is cloud computing? Cloud computing provides the ability to access valuable IT resources you don’t own through the Internet as a service. IT resources accessed through the cloud often include applications, platforms, processes, storage, information, security and infrastructure.
Benefits of cloud computing include significant cost savings, increased speed of deployment, nearly limitless scalability and access to thousands of dynamic web delivered resources.
But for most IT managers the cloud means 2 things: reduced capital costs and speed to market. A new survey of IT managers showed that 66% have dedicated budgets for cloud projects this year and 71% expect those budgets to grow in the next 2 years. IT managers are attracted to the cloud’s efficiency which allows them to quickly deliver services to end users without having to further build out the internal IT infrastructure.
Ascension Consulting Group focuses principally on platform and application cloud resources:
- Application as a Service (also known as Software as a Service) like Salesforce.com and Google Apps like Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar. Software as a Service (or SaaS) is an application delivered through the Web. SaaS is most often delivered via a web browser or other web enabled interface to users who may access them with a PC, Mac, Netbook or Smart Phone.
- Platform as a Service like Force.com, Google App Engine and Amazon E2C. Platform as a Service (0r PaaS) is a a complete hosted development platform that includes application, interface and database development along with storage and testing. The advantage of PaaS is that companies can quickly deploy a scalable enterprise class platform at a lower cost than if they were to build it internally.
Here is a 3 minute video from Salesforce.com that provides an overview of cloud computing:
LEVERAGE THE CLOUD to take your business applications and company to new heights. Call ACG at (303) 834-7065.
