Reprinted with permission © 2008 TreeTop Technologies
If you’ve heard about cloud computing and it sounded a lot like software as a service (SaaS), you’re not alone, and that’s because it uses the same basic technology to deliver computing resources in a less labor-intensive, pay-as-you-go manner. Ideally, businesses can “rent” software apps and everything needed to apply those apps to their business needs. One expert describes cloud computing as a way of providing computing resources (such as computation cycles and storage) as a “metered service” similar to physical public utilities. So why cloud computing?
- Gives the ability to evaluate software with no installs, no muss, no fuss
- Supplies a rapid response to surged, unpredicable, and out-of-the-blue requirements
- Inspires innovation by decreasing expensive upfront costs to new business opportunities
- Provides affordability to companies to perform deeper analysis on their current data
While each of the above stand-alone concepts are mature, the combination and availability of all is new-fangled and fresh. Sound like SaaS? SaaS is so easily confused with cloud computing in that SaaS can be considered a subset of cloud computing. But cloud computing also enables such concepts as platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), making cloud computing a more broadly useful area for harried IT departments to consider for relief.
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Footnotes: From "View from the TreeTop" Volume 2 Issue 6 June 2008