Cloud Services – The Characteristics That Impact the Management Tools

Cloud Services are considered as a fundamental game-changer that will likely have an impact like internet on IT organizations and ISVs alike.

When you are considering cloud from the perspective of the application, this becomes clear that cloud-based apps should be supported with the same rigor as such hosted internally. No matter what the delivery mechanism, IT companies still have a big responsibility to end-user clients for availability, performance, and application quality.

Evaluating this responsibility in context to the characteristics outlined below can help clarify needs for every cloud-related enterprise management toolset.

· SHARED RESOURCE POOL

For either private or public clouds to deliver economy of scale, shared resource pools are critical. The thought is that various customers will have several resource requirements at any time. Shared resource pool means that the customers experiencing peak resource needs have access to pooled resources due to the reason that other clients are running at a non-peak level.

· ON-DEMAND, CONVENIENT ACCESS

This implies the availability of cloud services, which is an assurance that clients can access it whenever they need it. This also implies that the applications are made with easy access in mind. For in-housed developed applications to run on private or public cloud, ensuring an on-demand access requires toolsets, which support application quality in the entire application lifecycle. This also requires tools that are capable of managing and monitoring application performance as well as availability from user perspectives.

· RELEASE AND RAPID PROVISIONING OF RESOURCES

These are important methodologies and capabilities for release are equally essential for acquisition. Rapid provisioning basically presupposes the utilization of the products capable of provision apps on demand based on the preexisting templates and models. The products that enforce and support the governance of provisioning as well as release functions are also necessary.

· MINIMAL MANAGEMENT EFFORT

Private and public clouds require various levels of management effort, yet the responsibilities of the IT organizations are the same in both cases. For the public clouds, management effort is still a consideration. Base services delivered by the public cloud providers are managed by the vendors. It’s a fact whether the product is IaaS or Infrastructure as a Service, Saas (Software as a Service) or PaaS (Platform as a Service. The business client still has a responsibility in choosing the vendor that matches with the business requirements and to keep track of the services to ensure that they’re delivered at a contracted level.

On contrary, private cloud requires management effort, usually by internal IT. This also needs toolsets, which support every aspect of the app lifecycle from cradle to grave. Moreover, since most private clouds are built with the use of virtualization, supporting them also requires some toolsets that have visibility to the virtual environments and can understand.

Cloud services play a huge role for a business to achieve success online. However, since not all cloud service providers are the same, finding the most reliable company can make a difference to get topnotch quality cloud services.