Cloud Computing
At the beginning of the twentieth century, factories gradually switched to electricity and furthermore from autonomous production to public distribution networks. Today a similar revolution is in progress for data processing services which can be used via Internet. Cloud Computing means that on-premises servers are replaced by a huge and evolving hardware/software platform that we do not have to care about, same as companies do not care about electrical power stations they are using.
Microsoft Windows Azure is the most up-to-date and safe platform for services supply over the Internet. Besides the very high Service Level Agreement (SLA) and the capacity to manage a really huge number of users, it ensures data protection even in case of catastrophic events. SQL Azure, one of the several components of Microsoft Cloud Computing, is indeed a database that replicates data in different geographical areas.
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is the Cloud Computing foundation. Developed several years after the Internet explosion, allows the integrating of the most dissimilar and remote systems, inside and outside the company. This is made possible by decomposing business processes in basic components that can be easily reused and recombined.
Combination of these “Lego” building blocks produced by different companies with various technologies eases the creation and evolution of even large and complex systems, a crucial feature in a fast changing and interconnected world. It is well known that globalization impose an ever increasing internal specialization and external cooperation.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, factories gradually switched to electricity and furthermore from autonomous production to public distribution networks. Today a similar revolution is in progress for data processing services which can be used via Internet. Cloud Computing means that on-premises servers are replaced by a huge and evolving hardware/software platform that we do not have to care about, same as companies do not care about electrical power stations they are using.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
As for using electricity is not any more necessary to build your own plant, today even data processing can be used on demand as a fee based service. The Information Technology high capital investment and operating cost that only big chains could afford, are now available even to small stores and chains.
The last century shift from self produced electricity to power distribution networks, required the solution of complex technical problems and new visions. The word network, Internet synonymous, is not casual and it is easy to imagine the initial resistance to use energy produced by others.
In the same way also big companies will gradually switch to IT services delivered from Cloud Computing, not only for cost reduction, but also for the flexibility and simplicity of a fee based service. This new paradigm allows a better focus on efficiency, differentiation from competitors and collaboration with partners.
It should be emphasized that the new Software as a Service vision requires a delivery platform designed for this purpose.
Distributed or Centralised architecture?
So far it has always been necessary to choose whether to privilege POS reliability using distributed / offline solutions able to work also in case of external failure, or to encourage data sharing by accessing a single database, choosing the centralised / online architecture.
The recent Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) was developed several years after the Internet explosion, for integrating the most disparate and remote systems, inside and outside the company. Request and provisioning of business services take place through standard XML messages over the web. Services are “consumed” by software applications resident in the browser or directly in the desktop, as with Smart Clients. Thanks to the direct resources control, the last ones offer better interactivity and works also in case of temporary disconnections.
The aKite Smart Clients are delivered in Software as a Service (SaaS) mode, without manual installation and update - as it happens with browsers – finally combining the advantages of centralised and distributed systems.