Contributed by Mitesh Agrawal
While it is still early days, Software as a Service (SaaS) aka 'cloud computing' is a technology which perhaps has the disruptive potential to overcome conventional paradigms. Cloud Computing is a technology wherein large groups of servers that often use low-cost consumer PC technology are networked together, with specialized connections to spread data-processing chores across them.
The ubiquitous Indian cable TV model is a good illustration of what SaaS can achieve. Indian cable TV users access a localised bouquet of channels paying a monthly fee without worrying about how and where the content is created, what technology is used for broadcasting etc. The cable viewer's only capital investment is the TV with the local cable TV operator resolving all issues.
Similarly SaaS can help create an IT model analogous to cable TV where remotely hosted IT applications are made available to a MSME cluster over a reliable telecommunication network with the user paying a subscription fee. By eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computer, SaaS alleviates the customer's burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation, and support. Each user only has to invest in an internet connected PC(s) which can also avoided if the service provider 'bundles' the hardware and connectivity as part of the package.
EUCALYPTUS - Elastic Utility Computing Architecture for Linking Your Programs To Useful Systems - is an open-source software infrastructure for implementing cloud computing on clusters. It duplicates the functionality of Amazon's EC2, using the Amazon command-line tools directly. It allows users to leverage their own server farms. The current version requires Xen to be installed on all nodes available for allocation. Among its features:
• Interface compatibility with EC2 (both Web service and Query interfaces)
• Simple installation and deployment using Rocks cluster-management tools
• Secure internal communication using SOAP with WS-security
• Overlay functionality requiring no modification to the target Linux environment
• Basic "Cloud Administrator" tools for system management and user accounting
• The ability to configure multiple clusters, each with private internal network addresses, into a single Cloud.
Two reasons why Eucalyptus is potentially important: private clouds and cloud portability:
Private clouds: Let's say you want a cloud like infrastructure for architectural purposes but you want it to run on your own hardware in your own secure environment. EUCALYPTUS comes into picture
Cloud portability: With the number of cloud offerings increasing how can you maintain some level of vendor neutrality among this "swarm" of different options? Portability is a key capability for cloud customers as the only real power customers have is in where they take their business and the only way you can change suppliers is if there's a ready market of fungible services. And the only way their can be a market is if there's a high degree of standardization.
It implements virtualization by allowing companies to run multiple applications on a single server computer but also makes it as an open source by collaborating the data of multiple companies under a single unit.
Other advantage can be explained as following that in the current scenario MSME users invest substantially in implementing ERP before being able to use it and mostly end up procuring more than they require. EUCALYPTUS can serve as enabler for open-source SaaS based ERP solutions and can allow users to 'cherry-pick' applications as per their business requirements and comfort levels at an incremental increase in costs. While the above may sound a little far-fetched, the success of firms like salesforce.com has established the viability of the SaaS paradigm and availability of EUCALYPTUS merely expedites the attainment of an open-source SaaS world.
The ubiquitous Indian cable TV model is a good illustration of what SaaS can achieve. Indian cable TV users access a localised bouquet of channels paying a monthly fee without worrying about how and where the content is created, what technology is used for broadcasting etc. The cable viewer's only capital investment is the TV with the local cable TV operator resolving all issues.
Similarly SaaS can help create an IT model analogous to cable TV where remotely hosted IT applications are made available to a MSME cluster over a reliable telecommunication network with the user paying a subscription fee. By eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computer, SaaS alleviates the customer's burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation, and support. Each user only has to invest in an internet connected PC(s) which can also avoided if the service provider 'bundles' the hardware and connectivity as part of the package.
EUCALYPTUS - Elastic Utility Computing Architecture for Linking Your Programs To Useful Systems - is an open-source software infrastructure for implementing cloud computing on clusters. It duplicates the functionality of Amazon's EC2, using the Amazon command-line tools directly. It allows users to leverage their own server farms. The current version requires Xen to be installed on all nodes available for allocation. Among its features:
• Interface compatibility with EC2 (both Web service and Query interfaces)
• Simple installation and deployment using Rocks cluster-management tools
• Secure internal communication using SOAP with WS-security
• Overlay functionality requiring no modification to the target Linux environment
• Basic "Cloud Administrator" tools for system management and user accounting
• The ability to configure multiple clusters, each with private internal network addresses, into a single Cloud.
Two reasons why Eucalyptus is potentially important: private clouds and cloud portability:
Private clouds: Let's say you want a cloud like infrastructure for architectural purposes but you want it to run on your own hardware in your own secure environment. EUCALYPTUS comes into picture
Cloud portability: With the number of cloud offerings increasing how can you maintain some level of vendor neutrality among this "swarm" of different options? Portability is a key capability for cloud customers as the only real power customers have is in where they take their business and the only way you can change suppliers is if there's a ready market of fungible services. And the only way their can be a market is if there's a high degree of standardization.
It implements virtualization by allowing companies to run multiple applications on a single server computer but also makes it as an open source by collaborating the data of multiple companies under a single unit.
Other advantage can be explained as following that in the current scenario MSME users invest substantially in implementing ERP before being able to use it and mostly end up procuring more than they require. EUCALYPTUS can serve as enabler for open-source SaaS based ERP solutions and can allow users to 'cherry-pick' applications as per their business requirements and comfort levels at an incremental increase in costs. While the above may sound a little far-fetched, the success of firms like salesforce.com has established the viability of the SaaS paradigm and availability of EUCALYPTUS merely expedites the attainment of an open-source SaaS world.
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