As businesses look to survive this strong economic downturn, help may indeed be in the clouds, or cloud as the case may be. So what do I mean? Well, think of it like this. The next big upgrade to your supply chain network may be something you use, but never see. And better yet, it will save procurement managers time and money in the process.
Welcome to the cloud or the natural evolution of Software as Service (SaaS) technology as we now know it. Yes, cloud computing sounds like another technology buzzword, but it has a distinct meaning separate from SaaS. Cloud computing is a broad concept of using the Internet to allow people to access technology-enabled services which are massively scalable, but cost effective.
The cloud is coming make no mistake about. According to analysts at Gartner, a leading IT research and advisory company, “By 2011, early technology adopters will forgo capital expenditures and instead purchase 40% of their IT infrastructure as a service.”
Still, some companies remain skeptical of the new evolving concept, even in the face of world-wide economic turmoil. They shouldn’t be. Consider these tremendous advantages that SaaS and the cloud computing concept can provide, especially in the current conditions.
1. Businesses don’t have any capital outlay. With credit tight, you simply pay for what you use. There are no upfront capital costs. Cloud computing can also reduce your IT costs.
2. Responsiveness and Flexibility. Now you don’t have to wait six or nine months. You can be up and running in weeks for a change. Most SaaS programs that are evolving into the cloud, are easier to configure, are more flexible and don’t impact your other systems. In the past, most of time spent was on defining infrastructure, hardware and software. Now you share resources to solve problems quickly, and that’s critical in this current economic environment.
3. Size does not matter. If you’re a small or medium sized company, this makes even more sense. You don’t have to spend millions and months building infrastructure. You now have the infrastructure and computing power of a corporate giant. What’s not to love?
Love aside, there are questions and philosophical debates as to what can or cannot be outside the firewall and which systems are truly ready for this emerging force. But, in the end, the fact that you can deliver procurement (or any other) application through a browser to thousands using a multitenant architecture at a reduction of cost and risk far outweigh the negatives.
- Chris Haydon
Very interesting article Chris, as a very keen follower of this Cloud Computing concept I thought it worth while that I share some facts and assumptions I have come across in this regard.
Speaking from a tech’s perspective with the current roles that we play in corporate IT, this concept should terrify us rather than we be excited by the technological development it brings along. “There is a dark cloud hanging over us” it’s called “Cloud Computing” most Applications and Database Administrators would say I guess.
It will be reasonable to assume that Cloud Computing IT services will require fewer professionals to keep them up and running. Furthermore, the whole point of the cloud is that it can be anywhere, so cloud-based IT services lend themselves to be hosted from locations in which the cost of labour is substantially low. This analogy totally agrees with the point you have put across to say that this concept will save Supply Chain Managers a lot of time and money mainly by shrinking the size of IT teams and infrastructures
Maybe the question we should be asking as Techs working for Quadrem is besides the fact that this will be a big step forward in easing supply chain management to our clients.
How do you see Quadrem jumping onto this wagon from a technical point of view, do we see Quadrem working with the likes of Amazon soon or any other cloud computing services provider. Is there an existing Quadrem cloud computing strategy in place or are there any plans to develop one.
As an Oracle DBA myself I was interested to learn at the last workshop that Oracle Corporation has joined the wave in a number of ways already.
Oracle customers can now license the Oracle 11g database, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Enterprise Linux to run in the Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) environment. Customers can use their existing licenses for those products on Amazon EC2 without additional fees.
Oracle also announced a cloud computing-based data backup solution called Oracle Secure Backup Cloud Module that will utilize the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) as a backup destination. The Oracle service, which also enables encrypted data backup, is based on the company’s tape backup management technology, Oracle Secure Backup.
I hope my comment is relevant as you well know technical people we get really excited by such developments.
Regards
Tawanda December
DBA-Anglo Content Warehouse (South Africa)
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