Cloud is one of the megatrends transforming our economy, unfortunately it’s one of the most hyped things as well. To really understand the benefits that Cloud can provide and to be able to evaluate what the Service providers offer under this umbrella, it’s important to distinct between three different key concepts: Cloud computing, as-a-Service and Multi-tenancy.
Cloud computing is a model that enables on-demand network access to shared computing resources including networks, servers, applications and services ideally with minimal ramp-up and management effort from service provider. With shared computing environment the costs related for example to increased security demands of today are shared between many payers.
As a Service is licensing and delivery model in which i.e. software, platform or infrastructure is centrally managed and licensed to subscribers. The XaaS model ideally brings along ease of purchase for the customer. Unfortunately many SaaS software providers are still expecting the customer to commit for long contract periods with fixed amount of users, which of course reduces the benefits from aaS model.
Multi-tenancy refers to application capability to run several companies and users from a single code base and database structure with appropriate partitions of data and logic. Through this multitenant applications bring with them significant economies of scale. In past the multitenant applications have been mainly focused point solutions, but more complex solutions are now entering the market with inbuilt capabilities for mass customization.
Combining these three will bring significant benefits and drive our economy towards Cloud. The existing investment in legacies and on-premise solutions is slowing down the transformation, but when provided with the clean sheet cloud is a very attractive choice even for bigger companies. One example of this is the intriguing story of Nokia’s implementation of new HR and Finance processes with SuccessFactors and SAP Business ByDesign respectively within few months in a public cloud environment.
Cloud is very much an option already today, bringing gains through business agility, scalability, efficiency and reach. Bilot is an SAP and Microsoft ecosystem high-end consulting house with one foot in cloud and the other firmly in on-premise. We have been the first to introduce, implement and integrate many practical cloud solutions in Finnish and Nordic markets i.e. SAP Cloud for Customer. Feel free to stop by at our desk on SAP Cloud Day on Thursday 6th or book your private session at Bilot office and we will explain our Practical Cloud approach.
