Which IaaS or SaaS Cloud Platform Is Best?

  • By: admin
  • November 28, 2014

All that chatter you hear in the background these days is probably developers talking their cloud gobbledegook. Yet, the cloud is a big thing, literally and figuratively. The cloud is the future of computing and offers a variety of great business benefits.

There are lots of cloud-based solutions out there, however we believe Microsoft Azure is the right platform for enterprises. It owns a good chunk of the enterprise market for good reason. As you’ll see, security and compliance are the two main criteria for choosing a cloud application service provider.

First Things First

But even when you’ve made the decision to convert to cloud based computing, hosting and storage, there’s more decisions to make.

At this point, for a larger enterprise with the right budget, a hosted on-premise solution whether a server, platform and apps is better. There’s customization advantages and basically a better software solution for your unique needs. For a smaller company, the cloud offers extensive resources and scalability not available with in-house implementations.

Cloud platforms are improving and stats show IT managers gaining more confidence in cloud solutions.  If you decide to go with our cloud-based meeting management solution, it can be implemented as a hybrid solution using public and private clouds.

We believe that since security and compliance are key issues IT management are struggling with, that Microsoft’s server platform and private cloud are better solutions.

What is Microsoft Azure?

Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure from Microsoft. It was created to allow developers to build, deploy and manage applications and services through the Microsoft cloud (its global network of Microsoft-managed data-centers) and even with public networks such as Amazon AWS and others.

97% of businesses are reportedly using some sort of cloud-based service and are seeing growing benefits from it. To make the decision to migrate to cloud services you’ll want to compare:

  • implementation and admin costs
  • scalability
  • extensibility for apps
  • virtual servers
  • storage
  • app development
  • downtime
  • data insights

The cloud services may be able to provide more insight on your user base and how mobile device users are interacting with your programs.

Azure is ranked highly both as an IaaS and SaaS. It allows your developers or your app provider to design, deploy, and manage software services in whatever way is best for you.

Your government organization or private business may have specific needs and peculiarities, so heading into the next 10 years, the power of the cloud may be a significant value add. Evidence shows that as the cloud matures, user benefits increase even faster, as the RightScale 2014 State of the Cloud Report claims:

Still having trouble getting buy in from your board? Where there’s a will and good technique, there’s definitely a way.

 Figure 1 Screenshot courtesy of RightScale 2014 State of Cloud Survey

For smaller companies, cloud implementations help you leverage services and hardware that you don’t have. It helps you avoid having IT costs get out of control. The sophistication of different operating systems, apps, and security/compliance requirements are increasingly too much for small IT departments.

Offloading all this to the cloud might be very wise.

My plan is to present more information regarding cloud adoption and help you make better decisions to get better results. Take a look at this post on Cloud hosting for meetings as a starter into how it is relevant to you and your business processes and IT management.

The cloud and SaaS is just one of many disruptive technologies ready to change how businesses operate and how staff work. These new IT hardware and software apps will allow great gains in productivity. The drawback may be that company culture is evolving much slower creating a setting for great conflict and debate.

For smaller firm and government agencies, eScribe’s pay as you go model might be worth a look. Find out more about eScribe OnCloud. Whether it’s a school board meeting or a corporate shareholder meeting, eScribe is here to help you communicate and engage your constituents.