Florida Software Engineers

In the June 1 issue of CIO Magazine, I digested the talk of cloud computing and the variables associated with cost and cost benefit analysis. The core attraction of clouds si that companies can avoid buying and running hardware, software and other equipment by contracting with a services vendor to run selected systems or applications on its own infrastructure of virtualized servers. This common use of virtualized environments for SaaS (Software as a Service) is becoming a wide-eyed optimistic approach to managed technology with diversity relevant to project or company size. “The ’services’ you purchase are delievered in a standardized, multitenancy fashion that observers say will save one-third to one-half of your current costs.” Motorola with 33 SaaS applications, including Salesforce.com, “estimates the cost at one-third to one-half of what Motorola normally spends on those applications.”

Erik M. Zeterberg
Chief Executive Officer
Florida Software Engineers, LLC

Microsoft has released their new technological silver bullet The Azure™ Services Platform (Azure), the next flagship in their software enterprise. Cloud computing is a style of software as a service (SaaS) computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them. Cloud computing services provides common purchases of Microsoft business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on Microsoft servers.

Azure™ is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.

Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and it enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud by using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework.

Microsoft also offers cloud applications ready for consumption by customers such as Windows Live™, Microsoft Dynamics CRM™, and other Microsoft Online Services for business such as Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint® Online. The Azure Services Platform lets developers provide their own unique customer offerings by offering the foundational components of compute, storage, and building block services to author and compose applications in the cloud.

The Azure Services Platform offers a range of businesses flexibility, control, and an affordable solution for running Web-scale applications. The services reduce tedious and expensive infrastructure management and planning and are built with security and reliability in mind, along with the option of a pay-as-you-go model.

I recently viewed an excellent webinar from Government Technology and the Center for Digital Government for a common sense discussion on Cloud Computing with Microsoft evangelism on Software + Services. The webinar can be viewed here.

Despite the economic slump, businesses that continue to invest and innovate will have significant competitive advantage both during and after it. Furthermore, organizations that look past the immediate challenges and toward the opportunities that the economic condition presents will have longevity and sustainability well after it.

“With the pace of innovation heating up, any enterprise that fails to replace 10 percent of its revenue stream annually is likely to be out of business within five years.”

The Economist magazine, 2003

IT will be at the center of this innovation; it is a key enabler for companies. IT decision makers such as Microsoft Architects will find themselves in high demand, and their expertise is one that will be used to its full extent. A Microsoft Architect poses the technical know-how to make complex and holistic decisions that affect unsurmounted dollars for an organization.

IT has become less of a function of strategic value to companies—no longer a necessary evil or cost center, but a real differentiating factor in the business of a company. Architects who have an understanding of forces will provide inherent alignment with the goals and objectives of a company.

Forces can be grouped into three high-level groups. These groups include the following:

External—Forces that are outside the organization forces and cannot be controlled
Business—Purely business-related forces that can be derived from the inside or outside
Internal—Forces that originate from the specific culture and operating model of a company
CIOs, COOs, and IT architects will take into consideration these forces, as they drive technology decisions, initiatives, projects, and purchasing. Understanding these forces will enable architects to snap to the business priorities and imperatives with more ease and less uncertainty. The following figure shows more detail on the industry forces and their effect on companies.
 

The role of a Microsoft architect is a unique one. Microsoft Architects are some of the more unbiased technology decision makers, and they have a holistic view of solutions in an enterprise. Their skill sets will be used now more than ever in a faltering economy.

We find that the cutting of budgets for IT does not correlate directly to IT not being important. It does show the need to streamline and improve IT. So, in essence, it means more IT activities. For Florida Software Engineers Architects, it means a realignment of architectural priorities.

Florida Software Engineers Architects engage in mission-critical, high–return-on-investment (ROI), low–total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) activities. For further information, regard our Microsoft Centric lessons learned from
Erik M. Zeterberg
Chief Executive Officer
Florida Software Engineers, LLC