What cloud computing really means: The next big trend sounds nebulous, but it’s not so fuzzy when you view the value proposition from the perspective of IT professionals.

This article was published with permission from InfoWorld. Article by Eric Knorr, editor in chief, InfoWorld and Galen Gruman, executive editor

Cloud computing is all the rage. “It’s become the phrase du jour,” says Gartner senior analyst Ben Pring, echoing many of his peers. The problem is that (as with Web 2.0) everyone seems to have a different definition.

As a metaphor for the Internet, “the cloud” is a familiar cliché, but when combined with “computing,” the meaning gets bigger and fuzzier. Some analysts and vendors define cloud computing narrowly as an updated version of utility computing: basically virtual servers available over the Internet. Others go very broad, arguing anything you consume outside the firewall is “in the cloud,” including conventional outsourcing.

Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT’s existing capabilities.

Cloud computing is at an early stage, with a motley crew of providers large and small delivering a slew of cloud-based services, from full-blown applications to storage services to spam filtering. Yes, utility-style infrastructure providers are part of the mix, but so are SaaS (software as a service) providers such as Salesforce.com. Today, for the most part, IT must plug into cloud-based services individually, but cloud computing aggregators and integrators are already emerging.

InfoWorld talked to dozens of vendors, analysts, and IT customers to tease out the various components of cloud computing. Based on those discussions, here’s a rough breakdown of what cloud computing is all about:

1. SaaS
This type of cloud computing delivers a single application through the browser to thousands of customers using a multitenant architecture. On the customer side, it means no upfront investment in servers or software licensing; on the provider side, with just one app to maintain, costs are low compared to conventional hosting. Salesforce.com is by far the best-known example among enterprise applications, but SaaS is also common for HR apps and has even worked its way up the food chain to ERP, with players such as Workday. And who could have predicted the sudden rise of SaaS “desktop” applications, such as Google Apps and Zoho Office?

2. Utility computing
The idea is not new, but this form of cloud computing is getting new life from Amazon.com, Sun, IBM, and others who now offer storage and virtual servers that IT can access on demand. Early enterprise adopters mainly use utility computing for supplemental, non-mission-critical needs, but one day, they may replace parts of the datacenter. Other providers offer solutions that help IT create virtual datacenters from commodity servers, such as 3Tera’s AppLogic and Cohesive Flexible Technologies’ Elastic Server on Demand. Liquid Computing’s LiquidQ offers similar capabilities, enabling IT to stitch together memory, I/O, storage, and computational capacity as a virtualized resource pool available over the network.

3. Web services in the cloud
Closely related to SaaS, Web service providers offer APIs that enable developers to exploit functionality over the Internet, rather than delivering full-blown applications. They range from providers offering discrete business services — such as Strike Iron and Xignite — to the full range of APIs offered by Google Maps, ADP payroll processing, the U.S. Postal Service, Bloomberg, and even conventional credit card processing services.

4. Platform as a service
Another SaaS variation, this form of cloud computing delivers development environments as a service. You build your own applications that run on the provider’s infrastructure and are delivered to your users via the Internet from the provider’s servers. Like Legos, these services are constrained by the vendor’s design and capabilities, so you don’t get complete freedom, but you do get predictability and pre-integration. Prime examples include Salesforce.com’s Force.com, Coghead and the new Google App Engine. For extremely lightweight development, cloud-based mashup platforms abound, such as Yahoo Pipes or Dapper.net.

5. MSP (managed service providers)
One of the oldest forms of cloud computing, a managed service is basically an application exposed to IT rather than to end-users, such as a virus scanning service for e-mail or an application monitoring service (which Mercury, among others, provides). Managed security services delivered by SecureWorks, IBM, and Verizon fall into this category, as do such cloud-based anti-spam services as Postini, recently acquired by Google. Other offerings include desktop management services, such as those offered by CenterBeam or Everdream.

6. Service commerce platforms
A hybrid of SaaS and MSP, this cloud computing service offers a service hub that users interact with. They’re most common in trading environments, such as expense management systems that allow users to order travel or secretarial services from a common platform that then coordinates the service delivery and pricing within the specifications set by the user. Think of it as an automated service bureau. Well-known examples include Rearden Commerce and Ariba.

7. Internet integration
The integration of cloud-based services is in its early days. OpSource, which mainly concerns itself with serving SaaS providers, recently introduced the OpSource Services Bus, which employs in-the-cloud integration technology from a little startup called Boomi. SaaS provider Workday recently acquired another player in this space, CapeClear, an ESB (enterprise service bus) provider that was edging toward b-to-b integration. Way ahead of its time, Grand Central — which wanted to be a universal “bus in the cloud” to connect SaaS providers and provide integrated solutions to customers — flamed out in 2005.

Today, with such cloud-based interconnection seldom in evidence, cloud computing might be more accurately described as “sky computing,” with many isolated clouds of services which IT customers must plug into individually. On the other hand, as virtualization and SOA permeate the enterprise, the idea of loosely coupled services running on an agile, scalable infrastructure should eventually make every enterprise a node in the cloud. It’s a long-running trend with a far-out horizon. But among big metatrends, cloud computing is the hardest one to argue with in the long term.

SSI’s Cloud Service Offering
SSI has developed several cloud based applications that are deployed using the SaaS model. These highly advanced and scalable cloud based solutions include applications for workflow automation, supply chain management and analytics.

Our cloud based Software-as-a-Service applications are designed from the ground up to be deployed in cloud based environments such as the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and utilize state of the art cloud services such as:

• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
• Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
• Amazon CloudWatch
• Elastic Load Balancing
• Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
• Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)

Below is an explanation of these services. For a more detailed description, you can click on the above links.

Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) – With one, hundreds or even thousands of simultaneous server instances at your finger-tips, Amazon EC2 give you the ability to increase or decrease capacity within minutes, not hours or days.

Simple Notification Service (SNS) – SNS makes is a snap to setup, operate and send email notifications from the cloud and immediately deliver them to subscribers or other applications.

CloudWatch – CloudWatch enables monitoring for cloud resources and applications. It provides visibility into resource utilization, operational performance, and overall demand patterns including metrics such as CPU utilization, disk reads and writes, and network traffic.

Elastic Load Balancing – Automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple instances of the EC2 cloud. By seamless providing the load balancing needed in response to incoming application traffic, it helps applications achieve very high levels of fault tolerance.

Simple Storage Service (S3) – S3 is a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.

Elastic Block Store (EBS) – For applications that require a database, file system or raw block level storage, EBS provides highly available and highly reliable storage volumes that can be attached to any running Amazon EC2 instance.

SSI can help you envision and deliver your cloud based strategy by helping you develop, deploy and manage cloud based SaaS applications. Contact us at info@ssidecisions.com for more information.

Client
The Optimé Group provides outsourced, technology-enabled services to manage comprehensive staffing functions for U.S.-based healthcare facilities that include acute care centers, long-term care hospitals and rehabilitation facilities. The company, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, combines advanced analytics, an integrated suite of web-based applications, best practices from within and outside healthcare and specially trained people to manage all key staffing processes for healthcare providers.

Challenge
Healthcare staffing is a complex function with many moving parts. Patient demand fluctuates hour by hour, day by day, and season to season; the workforce behaves differently in varied economic environments; employees have unpredictable requests for time off; and union contracts and hospital rules must be taken into account. Increasingly, state laws mandate health provider staffing ratios. Traditional solutions to healthcare staffing challenges are often poorly integrated and lack optimization for maximum benefit. In order for The Optimé Group to solve the persistent problem of nurse staffing and scheduling, the company had to deliver a complete solution — combining people, processes and technology.

Solution
The Optimé Group engaged Strategic Systems International (SSI) and its off-shore solution development team to develop a world-class Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform. The solution provided an integrated, end-to-end technology platform that manages all operational staffing functions and supports the hospital executive team in their strategic decision-making. With SSI’s help, the software solution integrated disparate data, applied statistical rigor and delivered predictive utilization models. These models, combined with detailed information and analytics on the supply of nurses, feed into an optimization engine that created the most appropriate schedule possible. This combined information can be displayed in a series of easy-to-use dashboards. All of this information can be used to create a strategic deployment plan that forms the basis for the day-to-day scheduling of nurses and healthcare team members.

Additionally, SSI developed specific modules that address budgeting, staffing and vendor management. Lastly, an easy-to-use, remotely accessible web portal was deployed to enable nurses to better manage the balance in their work and personal life activities.

Results
The solution built for The Optimé Group employed the latest Microsoft tools and leveraged an existing .NET framework developed by SSI. The flexible software architecture allowed The Optimé Group to create an adaptable product road map that met their client’s requirements quickly and easily. Recently, the product flexibility allowed Optimé to incorporate Microsoft Silverlight into the application and provide a more robust set of dashboards and user interface tools.

The team at SSI translated The Optimé Group’s requirements into a highly useable application – from highly adept power users to end users with limited technology background. SSI’s dedicated development team approach and their use of the latest best-practice development methods helped to speed development time from concept to completion.

SSI helped The Optimé Group achieve dramatic, quantifiable results for its healthcare clients. Optimé has reduced its clients’ variable staffing costs by 5 to 9 percent and increased staffing office productivity by 70%.

Patrick McGartland, senior vice president of business development commented, “The Optimé Group is pleased with the SSI solution and we look to them as our trusted technology partner. We highly recommend their astute software development team to any company requiring professional and comprehensive software development.”