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.