Cloud Computing session by Suresh (NASSCOM – Kozhikode)

It was nice to be in a session at Kakkancheri Kinfra park about the Opportunities in cloud computing (on 11/03).

Suresh Sambandam, Founder & CEO, OrangeScape Technologies Ltd   spoke about the business potential and challenges of cloud concept quoting live examples from the industry. The session covered the technical and business aspects of SaaS, PaaS & IaaS.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is the service based on the concept of renting software from a service provider rather than buying it yourself. The software is hosted on centralized network servers to make functionality available over the web or intranet. Also known as “software on demand” it is currently the most popular type of cloud computing because of its high flexibility, great services, enhanced scalability and less maintenance. Yahoo mail, Google docs, CRM applications are all instances of SaaS.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) offers a development platform for developers. The end users write their own code and the PaaS provider uploads that code and presents it on the web. SalesForce.com’s Force.com is an example of PaaS. PaaS provides services to develop, test, deploy, host and maintain applications in the same integrated development environment. It also provides some level of support for the creation of applications. Thus PaaS offers a faster more cost effective model for application development and delivery. The PaaS provider manages upgrades, patches and other routine system maintenance. PaaS is based on a metering or subscription model so users only pay for what they use. Users take what they need without worrying about the complexity behind the scenes.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is delivery of the computing infrastructure as a fully outsourced service. Some of the companies that provide infrastructure services are Google, IBM, Amazon.com etc. Managed hosting and development environments are the services included in IaaS. The user can buy the infrastructure according to the requirements at any particular point of time instead of buying the infrastructure that might not be used for months. IaaS operates on a “Pay as you go” model ensuring that the users pay for only what they are using. Virtualization enables IaaS providers to offer almost unlimited instances of servers to customers and make cost-effective use of the hosting hardware. IaaS users enjoy access to enterprise grade IT Infrastructure and resources that might be very costly if purchased completely. Thus dynamic scaling, usage based pricing, reduced costs and access to superior IT resources are some of the benefits of IaaS

As usual there was particiapation from almost all the IT companies of Kozhikode for this NASSCOM function also. The program was well organised by NASSCOM and CAFIT.