Cloud

Computing
Review
Analyzing cloud computing news and trends

Industry Trends and Strategies

Shopping Around
for Cloud Computing
Services

Calculating the Cost

Advantages of Private
Cloud

Security
Ten Key Provisions
in Cloud Computing
Contracts

Business Applications
Content Management
Services Take to the Cloud

Application Development
 Solidifying SOA and
Cloud Computing Links
 editor’s letter

Getting Your
Bimonthly Dose of
Cloud Trends
editor’s
letter

Shopping

h
for Cloud
Services

Calculating ello, and welcome to the first issue of Cloud Computing Review. This
Private Cloud
Advantages e-zine is for IT leaders who are ready for the cloud but don’t have all
day to read about it.
Cloud
Every other month, we will publish the five most important articles on cloud com-
Contracts puting from across TechTarget’s 80-plus IT websites.
Can cloud computing really save you money, for example? Much has been written
Content about the benefits of cloud, but can you be sure you are saving money in the long
Management run? Our first two articles—“Shopping Around for Cloud Computing Services” and
in the Cloud
“Calculating the Cost Advantages of Private Cloud”—shed light on the hidden costs
of cloud computing.
Cloud
Applications Françoise Gilbert, managing director of the IT Law Group and general counsel at
the Cloud Security Alliance, digs into the contract terms and provisions you should
additional
pay attention to in “Ten Key Provisions in Cloud Computing Contracts.”
resources In light of new cloud services, even stodgy old content management systems are
getting a dusting off. Find out why the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, moved to
a cloud-based content management service despite having an IT staff of 340 people
in “Content Management Services Take to the Cloud.” And for the architects among
you, “Solidifying SOA and the Cloud Computing Link” explains why creating a ser-
vice-oriented architecture is the best path to cloud computing.
I hope you find this e-zine useful. If you have ideas for articles you’d like to read or
if you have feedback on this issue, email me at jmaitland@techtarget.com.

Jo Maitland
Senior Executive Editor
Data Center and Virtualization Media Group
TechTarget Inc.

2  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Industry Trends and Strategies

Shopping Around
for Cloud Computing
Services
editor’s
letter Take a wrong turn into the cloud and you might pay more
than expected. Our expert explains how to accurately
Shopping compare the price of cloud services and find the best deal.
for Cloud
Services By David Strom

Calculating
Private Cloud

W
Advantages

Cloud
Contracts e’ve all heard that cloud The Complexities of Amazon’s
computing can be Cloud Pricing
Content cheaper than paying for Amazon’s pricing is so complex that the
Management your own server. But the dirty little se- company has devoted an entire website
in the Cloud
cret is that, because almost everything to calculating cloud costs. You enter
is priced à la carte, comparison shop- your region for storing your environ-
Cloud
Applications ping can be like prying a final number ment and plug in the number of VMs
from your local car dealer. you plan to run as well as the amount
additional
Recently I learned this lesson when
resources I got a monthly bill from Amazon Web
Services (AWS) for $37. My past bills
were only a few pennies a month for
some test virtual machines (VMs) I had
placed on AWS servers; so how could
I run up $37 worth of services? The
culprit was the virtual private network
(VPN), which I had forgotten to turn off
when my tests were complete. Oops.
And therein lies the challenge for any
IT manager on the hunt for cloud savings:
to read the fine print and understand
what is billable and when the meter
starts—or, in my case, stops—running.

3  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Industry Trends and Strategies

of storage and data transfer you plan on
using. The calculator then interactively
shows you an estimate of your bill. It
isn’t pretty, and you need to spend time
plugging in various numbers, but it may
prevent billing surprises.
The calculator has lots of annotations
editor’s
letter to help you enter the right information,
and it also spells out the various promo-
Shopping
tional rates (such as 25 free machine
for Cloud hours for the first SimpleDB instance)
Services
when appropriate. The only downside is
that you have to be familiar with Ama-
Calculating zon’s many service offerings.
Private Cloud
Advantages Amazon’s calculator is laudable be-
cause of its transparency; while some
Cloud
competitors require users to enter a
Contracts customer ID before calculating prices,
Amazon doesn’t limit usage to existing
Content
Management
in the Cloud
Figure 1:  Amazon’s cloud pricing calculator
customers (see Figure 1). There are also
pricing templates to get you started,
such as for a sample Web app or mar-
keting website.
Fixed Prices in the Cloud
If you crave greater simplicity, a good
place to start is with vendors that offer
a fixed monthly pricing plan. Skytap
starts at $500 a month for its basic en-
vironment, and CloudShare’s Pro plan
is $49 per month. That $49 will get you
up to six VMs that can use up to 10 GB
of RAM and 300 GB of disk. If you can
make use of the company’s pre-made
OS templates that run a variety of Win-
dows and Linux operating systems and
applications, this offering is a bargain.

Cloud
Applications

additional
resources

4  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Industry Trends and Strategies

CloudShare used to offer an even better
deal—a free plan—but sadly it was dis-
continued earlier this year.
This brings us to another challenge:
In the cloud, things change quite often
and without much notice. Just because
you went to a particular website and
editor’s
letter got one quote today doesn’t mean that
the vendor won’t adjust things tomor-
Shopping
row and render all your research obso-
for Cloud lete. Amazon, for example, is fond of
Services
reducing its prices quite frequently as it
buys new and cheaper equipment.
Calculating
Private Cloud
Advantages
Getting Billed for the
Cloud
Cloud You Use
Contracts Another question to ask: Are you being
billed only for VMs that are up and run-
Content ning, or are you paying for all resources
Management
in the Cloud
all the time? Verizon’s Computing as
a Service, SMB, offering, for example,
charges for all VMs whether or not they
are turned on (see Figure 2). If you want
to test a VM environment and then turn
it off, it’s wise to use a provider like Am-
azon that doesn’t bill around the clock.
A single test Windows Server cost me
roughly $100 per month, which is more
than you’d pay for some competitors.
The Verizon CaaS main dashboard,
however, makes it easy to see which re-
sources are in your cloud.
Verizon’s cloud offering is based on
the Terremark and VMware vCloud
platform. Interestingly, although the
telco purchased Terremark earlier this
year, Terremark’s website shows a
completely different pricing scheme.
GoGrid offers a different pricing

Figure 2:  The dashboard of Verizon’s Computing as a Service, SMB

Cloud
Applications

additional
resources

5  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Industry Trends and Strategies

scheme called RAM Hours, which is the
amount of deployed RAM multiplied by
the number of hours that it runs (see
Figure 3). Each of its pricing plans in-
cludes a fixed number of RAM Hours;
if you exceed the total, you are charged
for the overage. GoGrid also supplies a
editor’s
letter calculator to estimate your bill.
Shopping
for Cloud Extra Changes
Services
for Cloud Licenses
You also need to explain any surcharges
Calculating for particular OS instances. Each cloud
Private Cloud
Advantages vendor passes costs on to users differ-
ently. The best deal is CloudShare, which
Cloud
doesn’t add on any costs. But Terremark,
Contracts for example, charges extra for its Win-
dows templates. The price ranges from
$19 per month for the simplest con-
figuration up to nearly $500 per month
for a full-fledged Windows server with
multiple virtual CPUs. It can be helpful
to envision the precise VM configuration
you want to place in the cloud.
For relatively simple OS configura-
tions that use only a few Web applica-
tions, it can be more economical to skip
the cloud entirely and use one of the
shared Web hosting plans from major
domain providers such as Go Daddy.
You can get 10 GB of storage on a Win-
dows or Linux machine for less than
$5 per month with no additional band-
width or storage charges.
Finally, consider all available offer-

Content
Management Figure 3:  GoGrid’s pricing calculator
in the Cloud

Cloud
Applications

additional
resources

6  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Industry Trends and Strategies

ings and understand how each vendor’s
various plans fit together. We have
Amazon’s numerous services, but even
Rackspace offers two plans: one for
simple file storage called Cloud Files and
a more general cloud computing plan
called Cloud Servers. Cloud Files starts
editor’s
letter at 15 cents per GB per month plus band-
width usage charges, while Cloud Serv-
Shopping
ers starts at $10.95 per month plus other
for Cloud charges. And like other providers, Rack-
Services
space has its own pricing calculator.
As you can see, price comparison
Calculating shopping isn’t simple. There are many
Private Cloud
Advantages other factors to consider, including
24/7 live support and various remote
access plans. Make sure you under-
stand all the dimensions of the envi-
ronment you intend to create in the
cloud—disk storage, bandwidth, CPU
usage and so forth—before you sign
up with a provider. Use the calculators
from Amazon, GoGrid and Rackspace
as starting points to test your assump-
tions and predict your costs. And if
all this makes you nervous, consider a
fixed-pricing vendor. p
David Strom is an expert on network and Internet
technologies and has written on topics such as
VOIP, convergence, email, network management,
Internet applications, wireless and Web services
for more than 20 years.

Cloud
Contracts
Figure 4:  Rackspace’s pricing calculator
Content
Management
in the Cloud

Cloud
Applications

additional
resources

7  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Industry Trends and Strategies

Calculating the
Cost Advantages
of Private Cloud
editor’s
letter In the right situation, a private cloud can save you money.
Here’s why it’s valuable to estimate the pricing benefits of
Shopping an in-house cloud.
for Cloud
Services By Andi Mann, Kurt Milne and Jeanne Morain

Calculating
Private Cloud

t
Advantages

Cloud
Contracts o master private cloud eco-
nomics, tune up your spread-
Content sheets and refine the busi-
Management ness value proposition of your portfolio
in the Cloud
view of computing environments. You
need a simple model that describes the
Cloud
Applications cost and benefit of each environment.
With this model, you and your CIO can
additional
explain your private cloud strategy to
resources business executives and application
owners in simple terms.
Start by highlighting the cost, service
quality, agility and landscape measures
for each environment. Create an eleva-
tor pitch that goes something like this:
We can offer you several options. We can
manage your application on a dedicated
physical server for $X per year with Y ser-
vice levels, and it takes Z days to set up.
Or we can put that application on a vir-
tual server. We’ll charge you only $X per
year based on how many resources are allo-
cated, with Y service level. And it only takes
Z hours to set up.
Or we can tailor business-optimized ser-
vices in the private cloud. That’s only $X per
year based on actual resource usage with Y
service levels. The really great thing is you
can self-service provision it in about 15 min-
utes. And we can automatically adjust and
charge for “just enough” resources as usage
levels change.
At comparable levels of resources al-
located, it costs more per year in a virtual
static environment than in a private cloud,
but you can fix the resource levels and pay
for what is allocated. It costs less per year
in a private cloud environment for equiva-
lent usage, but we right-size resources
dynamically to maintain service-level
agreements.

This article is an excerpt from Visible Ops Private Cloud: From Virtualization to Private Cloud in Four
Practical Steps by Andi Mann, Kurt Milne and Jeanne Morain.

8  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Industry Trends and Strategies
This kind of pitch helps position IT as
a department that proactively deploys
capabilities designed to quickly respond
to changing business needs. As you
continue your discussion with business
and application owners, emphasize
these facts about IT:
editor’s
letter
ppIt offers self-service provisioning to
Shopping
match or exceed services offered by
for Cloud third-party providers.
Services
ppIt provides services that were de-
veloped with input from business
Calculating users and that are tailored specifi-
Private Cloud
Advantages cally to address business needs.
ppIt includes stronger security and
Cloud
compliance controls than are avail-
Contracts able from public cloud providers.
ppIt scales resources automatically to
Content minimize disruption from changing
Management work levels.
in the Cloud
ppIt offers lower annual cost per
server by increasing workload den-
Cloud
Applications sity to optimize utilization without
sacrificing performance and agility.
additional
resources
The Value of Private Cloud
Don’t forget, however, that there are
costs associated with the tools and au-
tomation routines that enable private
cloud services. How can you offer agile
services at a lower per-unit cost?
The cost efficiency of private cloud
computing depends on economies of
scale, higher workload density and dy-
namic management of resources that
ensure service levels. When all the
resources in a pool can be allocated
(or even overallocated) to specific
9  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011
workloads, you can achieve optimal
costs. That requires high efficiency in
allocating the resources and effective
strategies for responding when work-
loads consume all resources assigned
to them.
Conceptually, utilization and agility
have an inverse relationship: That is,
higher utilization reduces agility. (Think
of it as rush-hour gridlock on the high-
way as compared with 3 a.m. open-road
driving). In a static virtual environment,
it’s generally true that higher utilization
translates into lower agility. In a private
cloud environment, however, dynamic
resource management strategies that
automate response to changing usage
levels allow high utilization and high
agility. Automatic response alleviates
the queuing and gridlock of oversub-
scribed resources.
There are fixed and ongoing costs as-
sociated with deploying and maintaining
the automation and tools that manage
dynamic resources in a high-density
computing environment. The benefits,
which include lower Capex and Opex,
must exceed the costs of monitoring,
automation and tooling to justify mov-
ing to the private cloud. Otherwise it
makes more sense to simply stock a
bank of unused virtual servers so you
can quickly respond to business needs.
You can use an economic model to
show the cost advantage of moving to
a private cloud. For example, you can
create a model that highlights the foot-
print measures for the three computing
environments—physical, virtual and
cloud—for both your current data cen-
 Cloud Industry Trends and Strategies
ter configuration and the configuration
of the target private cloud.
Estimates for physical resource utili-
zation in an optimized virtual environ-
ment suggest that server, memory and
network interface card bandwidth can
be 70% or higher. But there are consid-
editor’s
letter erable variations based on type of work-
load and whether they are deployed in
Shopping
development, QA or production envi-
for Cloud ronments. Other estimates suggest that
Services
40% to 60% utilization is typical for
highly virtualized environments. Some
Calculating IT executives we interviewed sug-
Private Cloud
Advantages gested that utilization of 50% or more
is required to reduce the cost of cloud
Cloud
services below comparable virtual envi-
Contracts ronment costs.
Content
Management So How Much Will a Private
in the Cloud
Cloud Cost?
For cost estimates for each computing
Cloud
Applications environment, many IT organizations
charge back virtual servers at half the
additional
annual cost of physical ones. Analysis
resources of cost comparison of private cloud and
public cloud suggest that private cloud
is 40% less expensive than public cloud
for enterprises with significant IT re-
sources already in place.
You can then highlight the current
percentages of total IT budget spent on
each environment in the current con-
figuration and show how that overall
mix changes with private cloud. An-
10  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011
other variation shows, for each environ-
ment, the percentage of workloads in
development, test and production and
highlights the cost differentials for each
environment.
Overall, emphasize the “faster, better,
cheaper” value proposition. Highlight
custom-designed services and greater
business alignment in addition to cost
comparison metrics.
As you create a cloud model to fit
your organization, keep the following in
mind:
ppAgility is one of the key benefits of
a private cloud. So don’t sacrifice
agility as you work to drive up utili-
zation.
ppPrivate cloud economics require
high utilization to work in your fa-
vor. Make sure your service-design
process is effective (that is, build
the right thing), and monitor cus-
tomer satisfaction to identify drift-
ing requirements.
ppApplication targeting must be
ac­curate. Otherwise, you fill your
private cloud resources with
workloads that are a better fit for
a virtual static or physical
environment. p
Andi Mann is a product marketing executive at
CA Inc. Kurt Milne is the managing director at
the IT Process Institute. Jeanne Morain indepen-
dent expert on cloud, application virtualization
and systems management.
 Cloud Security

Ten Key Provisions

in Cloud Computing
Contracts
editor’s
letter Cloud computing customers need to pay attention to
contract terms, security requirements and other provisions
Shopping to avoid getting burned by the fine print.
for Cloud
Services By Françoise Gilbert

Calculating
Private Cloud

g
Advantages

Cloud
Contracts eneral wisdom states that,
when venturing into a busi-
Content ness relationship, it is pru-
Management dent to create a written agreement that
in the Cloud
outlines the obligations and responsi-
bilities of all parties. Cloud computing
Cloud
Applications services are no different. No matter how
fast or easy it is to enter into a contract
additional
for cloud services, there are essential
resources terms and provisions to which the par-
ties should pay attention. Here are 10
key provisions for cloud computing con-
tracts.
1. Modifications to the contract terms.
Scrutinize the cloud service provider’s
ability to change the terms of the
contract. Many cloud service agree-
ments allow a cloud service provider
to change—at any time and without
advance notice—contract terms, fees
and rate structures and the services
provided.
2. Description of services. Ensure that
there is a clear description of the cloud
service, which should include the type
of services provided, overall goals of the
services and how services will evolve
during the life of the contract. Many con-
tracts grant vendors the freedom to add
or remove features. Cloud customers
may need to ensure stability—the ability
to continue using the features or version
of an application that is most appropri-
ate to business operations, for example. 
Service-level agreements (SLAs) are
an essential part of a contract. They de-
fine when a service will be available and
when interruptions are permitted or can
be expected. SLAs also identify how a
customer will be compensated for ser-
vice interruption.
3. Limitation on the use or reuse of the
data. Customers should limit a cloud
provider’s access to and use of their

11  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Security
data unless it’s strictly required for the
provision of the services. This require-
ment may stem from applicable laws,
such as the Health Insurance Portabil-
ity and Accountability Act (HIPAA),
the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)
or foreign data protection laws, and it
editor’s
letter may make sense. A cloud provider is
intended to be a host or a facilitator; it
Shopping
should not use the customer’s data for
for Cloud its own benefit, unless it has specific
Services
permissions.
The location of the data is also of
Calculating particular interest. All parties should
Private Cloud
Advantages agree on where the data will be housed,
because location is likely to determine
Cloud
which law applies to the data. For ex-
Contracts ample, if a cloud provider transfers
personal data to a server in Argentina,
Content Belgium or Canada, the data will be
Management subject to the local laws of those coun-
in the Cloud
tries. And the data protection laws of
these countries contain specific provi-
Cloud
Applications sions that limit how personal data may
be transferred out of that country.
4. Confidentiality and security re-
additional
resources
quirements. Cloud customers should
also ensure the confidentiality and se-
curity of their data. In many cases, they
will want to be promptly informed of
any breach of security that may have
affected the data. Appropriate provi-
sions that address vendors’ confiden-
tiality and security obligations, and
allocate liability among the parties, are
essential.
5. Intellectual property rights. Intel-
lectual property right issues may ap-
12  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011
pear in many different forms. Some
services may allow for the posting or
publication of user photos, video clips,
poems or other content. When a ser-
vice is provided at no cost, it’s likely
that the related contract may grant the
hosting provider a royalty-free license
to use this content. 
Some cloud services may involve
granting a user a license to the cloud
provider’s intellectual property. This
license may be very narrow. It may be
limited, for example, to the use of the
technology or application and could
prohibit any modification. As a result,
the user may be permitted to use only
generic, standardized features and may
be barred from developing customiza-
tions that would make its use of the
service easier or more efficient. The
service may grant access to a database
but strictly limit what a customer can
do with the information it contains.
Thus, it is very important for cloud
users to understand the precise scope
of the licenses granted to one another’s
intellectual property. In balancing the
pros and cons of entering into a ser-
vice contract, the scope of the license
granted or received may be a crucial
element.
6. Representations and warranties.
Representation and warranty clauses
contain statements by a party on which
the other party may rely. A contract
outlines specific remedies if the state-
ments or promises made are untrue or
not fulfilled, where the party who relied
on these statements or promises is en-
 Cloud Security
titled to damages from the other party.
Representations and warranties in cloud
service contracts may address, for ex-
ample, where or how the services will be
performed, the qualifications of the indi-
viduals performing the services, the reli-
ability of the technology used to perform
editor’s
letter the services or ownership of intellectual
property rights.
7. Indemnification. Indemnification
Shopping
for Cloud
Services
provisions identify how one party will
compensate the other for a loss in-
Calculating curred as a result of the indemnitor’s
Private Cloud
Advantages acts or omissions. For example, a cloud
service provider may agree to indem-
Cloud
nify a customer if the technology used
Contracts to provide the services infringes or
misappropriates a third party’s intellec-
Content tual property rights. A customer might
Management agree to indemnify the cloud provider if
in the Cloud
it faces a third party’s claim that arises
from customer negligence, misconduct
Cloud
Applications or violation of law.
additional
8. Limitation of liability and damage.
resources Limitation of liability clauses are among
the most negotiated. They are critical
because they determine the extent of
the damages that a party may have to
pay, or may receive, in the event of a
breach of contract or other omission.
9. Contract terms and renewal. Know
when the contact will end and the
conditions under which it can be termi-
nated or extended. Clauses are often
neglected when parties enter into a
contract but highly scrutinized when
13  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011
disputes arise. For example, the con-
tract may give a vendor the freedom
to terminate the contract at any time
and for no reason. The vendor could
automatically renew the contract for
another term if a customer fails to in-
form a provider within a certain window
of time. The unexpected termination or
extension of the contract could cause
significant loss to the affected party.
10. Effect of termination. It’s not
enough to know when a contract will
terminate. Anticipate what will happen
when the contract terminates. What
will happen to the data? How can data
be retrieved, and in which form and
format? Will the service provider be
required to keep the data on its systems
during a transition period?
It can be easy to sign on with a cloud
provider, but companies that don’t pay
attention to these cloud computing
contract provisions may pay a steep
price. So take the time to ensure that
your company’s interests and data are
protected when contracting with a
cloud service. p
Françoise Gilbert is the managing director of the
IT Law Group and serves as the general counsel of
the Cloud Security Alliance. She has been named
one of the country’s top privacy advisers and has
been recognized by Chambers USA and Best Law-
yers in America as a leading lawyer in the field of
information privacy and security. Gilbert is the au-
thor and editor of the two-volume Global Privacy
& Security Law, which analyzes data protection
laws in more than 60 countries. This article re-
flects only her opinions and not those of her clients
or the Cloud Security Alliance.
 Cloud Business Applications

Content
Management Services
Take to the Cloud
editor’s
letter Decentralized and widespread enterprises are moving
content management services to the cloud and reaping
Shopping the benefits of lower costs, flexibility and scalability.
for Cloud
Services By Stan Gibson

Calculating
Private Cloud

C
Advantages

Cloud
Contracts ontent management has
proved its worth as a way
Content to control website informa-
Management tion, organize workflow and handle
in the Cloud
important corporate documents such
as customer contracts and product
Cloud
Applications specifications. Now many organizations
are discovering that, when delivered
additional
as cloud-based services, content man-
agement applications can offer even
resources
greater value.
“With the cloud, we get a multimillion-
dollar infrastructure that’s always on.
It’s scalable, and we can compete at a
level that was unheard of before,” said
Daniel O’Leary, vice president for global
solutions at LincWare LLC, a Rochester,
N.Y., maker of electronic forms manage-
ment software.
O’Leary has found that cloud-based
content management services benefit
from the same characteristics that are
driving the cloud to become an alterna-
tive or, in some cases, primary platform
for all applications: lower overall cost,
no requirement to build and own IT in-
frastructure, and the ability to add and
subtract capacity as needed.
“With the cloud,
we get a multimillion-
dollar infrastructure
that’s always on.”
—Daniel OLeary, VP for global
solutions, LincWare LLC
Further, many cloud-based content
management service providers now
enable integration with other cloud
apps. In addition, advances in logistics
have spurred the creation of new hy-
brid content management services that
include paper-based document scan-

14  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Business Applications

ning. Finally, the cloud is gaining cred- and we would not have to build a mas-
ibility for security and reliability, which sive content management system. We
historically have been two stumbling really like the value, the flexibility and
blocks for companies considering using the speed,” O’Leary said. “We create a
the cloud. project folder in Box.net and store all
the content there. Then we invite cus-
tomers—they could be in Australia—to
editor’s “We create a project participate in the Box folder,” he said.
folder in Box.net and
letter
From the Box.net application,
Shopping store all the content LincWare connects to other cloud-
based applications including Basecamp
there. Then we invite
for Cloud
Services
for project management and Highrise
customers—they could for customer relationship management
Calculating
Private Cloud be in Australia—to (CRM), both of which are provided by
Chicago-based 37signals LLC.
participate in the Box
Advantages

Cloud folder.”
Contracts
—Daniel O’Leary
Content
Management Fitting Content Management
in the Cloud
Services into a Box
LincWare faced a dilemma. It wanted
Cloud
Applications to store its document creation applica-
tions and data on its network drives, but
additional
it also wanted to make this content—
resources large attachments such as training
videos—available to its global workers.
Although its headquarters are in the
U.S., LincWare has a global network of
developers and partners.
“Low cost and work anywhere were
requirements. We wanted the same in-
terface, no matter the location,” O’Leary
said. The company discovered that Box.
net Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif., provider of
Web-based content management ser-
vices, could meet those needs.
“We started using it internally, then
decided our customers could benefit
Stratus Manages Contract
Lifecycles in the Cloud
Integration with another cloud-based
application was a critical requirement
for Stratus Technologies Inc. The May-
nard, Mass., vendor of fault-tolerant
servers and software relied heavily on
Salesforce.com Inc. and its Software as
a Service CRM application. It needed a
new contract management system, and
it had to integrate with Salesforce.com.
As a $260 million company, Stratus
couldn’t justify purchasing a high-
end contract management system,
but a bare-bones, retail cloud offering
wouldn’t suffice either. SpringCM Inc., a
cloud-based content management pro-
vider in Chicago, afforded Stratus with a
custom integration.
Stratus now has a streamlined con-
tract management system that has
replaced an unwieldy paper-based sys-
tem. All interested parties can track and

15  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Business Applications
manage contracts, whether they’re in
their offices or on the road. “When peo-
ple know the status of a deal, they don’t
have to pick up the phone. It’s making
everybody more productive,” said Steve
Parker, business development manager
at Stratus.
editor’s
letter Thanks to the integration, Stratus
employees log into Salesforce.com to
access the SpringCM system, which
Shopping
for Cloud performs contract lifecycle manage-
Services
ment tasks. “It’s very tightly coupled
Calculating
with Salesforce,” Parker said.
The SpringCM application also
Private Cloud
Advantages streamlines Stratus’ compliance with
the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The law’s
Cloud
requirements for accurate revenue ac-
Contracts counting underscore the need for a pre-
cise and reliable contract management
Content system. “The system lets the manage-
Management ment team know where a particular deal
in the Cloud
is at a moment’s notice,” Parker said.
Cloud
Applications
Content Management
additional
Underpins Edmonton’s
resources Public Website
Even though it has an IT staff of 340
people, the city of Edmonton, Alberta,
faced a build-versus-buy decision when
it came to managing the content for
its public website. When the city over-
hauled that website four years ago, a
cloud-based content management ser-
vice was part of the mix for many of the
same reasons cloud computing initially
gained popularity.
“Time to market was important. If we
hosted it ourselves, it would have taken
a while to build. Cost was a factor; but
16  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011
more important, we wanted to stay
away from the capital [expense] side
and turn it into an operating expense,”
said Chris Moore, CIO for the city of
Edmonton, Alberta.
“When peo­ple know
the status of a deal, they
don’t have to pick up
the phone. [The content
management system] is
making everybody more
productive.”
—Steve Parker, business development
manager, Stratus
Edmonton handed over much of the
work to Yellow Pencil Inc., an integra-
tor in the city. The new service relies on
Hummingbird Ltd.’s Red Dot content
management system, which was ac-
quired in 2006 by OpenText Corp. in
Waterloo, Ontario.
The Persistence of Paper
in Content Management
Services
Many businesses need paper docu-
ments, a fact that’s spurring new cloud-
based content management services.
Janitorial services provider Unique
Cleaning Service Inc. in Marietta, Ga.,
needed a system to handle travel ex-
pense receipts for its mobile quality
control managers. Staff members who
 Cloud Business Applications

travel send their receipts daily to Cam-
bridge, Mass.-based OfficeDrop, which
scans them and stores them as search-
able PDF files. Accountants can view
information according to expense cat-
egory or manager’s name.
“Managers send in their expense re-
editor’s
letter ceipts to OfficeDrop. Accountants get
immediate access to the information
and put it into a central depository,”
Shopping
for Cloud said Wayne Goodman, vice president
Services
of administration at Unique Cleaning.
“And quality managers don’t have to
Calculating sort through a pile of receipts at the end
Private Cloud
Advantages of the week.” If they choose, workers
can photograph a receipt with a corpo-
Cloud
rate-issued Apple iPhone and email the
Contracts image to OfficeDrop.
Content
Management Content Management
in the Cloud
in the Cloud No Longer
a Nonstarter
Cloud
Applications Just a few years ago, the idea of plac-
ing critical documents off-premises and
additional
putting one’s business at the mercy
resources of an Internet connection would have
made cloud-based content manage-
ment services a nonstarter, even at
smaller companies, which tend to gravi-
tate toward cloud-based services. But a
solid track record is convincing IT pro-
fessionals at these firms that the cloud
is a safe bet.
At Stratus, the legal department was
Just a few years ago,
the idea of plac­ing
critical documents off-
premises and putting
one’s business at the
mercy of an Internet
connection would have
made cloud-based
content manage­ment
services a nonstarter.
initially concerned about the security of
the company’s customer contract data.
The CIO, however, convinced the com-
pany’s general counsel that the risk was
minimal, Stratus’s Parker said.
The city of Edmonton also had secu-
rity questions, which ultimately were
satisfied. “The legal people understand
and embrace the opportunity,” CIO
Moore said. “People need to become
involved and educated as to the per-
ceived risk. People who are trying to
sell other things try to convince people
the cloud is a dangerous place,” he said,
adding, “But you do your due diligence,
like anything else.” p
Stan Gibson is a Boston-based contributing
writer.

17  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Application Development

Solidifying the
SOA and Cloud
editor’s
letter
Computing Link
Service-oriented architecture and the cloud create a perfect
Shopping technology pair—if you implement them in the proper order.
for Cloud
Services By David S. Linthicum

Calculating
Private Cloud

T
Advantages

Cloud
Contracts hose who know me know
that I’m about the cloud,
Content and I’m about using service-
Management oriented architecture (SOA) to leverage
in the Cloud
the cloud. To me the two concepts are
inseparable: You can’t have a success-
Cloud
Applications ful and efficient cloud implementation
without SOA. But cloud computing and
additional
SOA are different concepts. 
resources The trouble is that most in the
emerging cloud computing space have
experience in infrastructure planning
and management, not architecture—
and especially not SOA. Thus, without
creating solid links with the cloud and
SOA, many end up in technology-driven
cloud implementations that fall short of
providing the required value. Processes,
applications and services are tossed
out onto the cloud willy-nilly, without
proper thought and planning.
A proven fact is that if you marry the
use of cloud computing with a SOA,
you’re likely to get to the proper cloud
computing technology, including agility
and extensibility, which most enterprises
lack. The core purpose of SOA is to pro-
vide structured architectural guidance to
a loosely coupled architecture that can
better make use of cloud resources.
Why SOA and Cloud
Are Meant for Each Other
SOA fits with cloud computing. Con-
sider that SOA is all about breaking
down existing and new systems into
their component parts, typically data,
services and processes. These compo-
nents are loosely coupled and thus can
exist anywhere inside or outside the
enterprise. So you can mix and match
system or architectural components
that run on local servers, or on private
or public clouds, and select the best
platform—cloud or not—to do the job. 

18  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 Cloud Application Development

At the heart of the issue is that many

enterprises don’t focus on architecture
or planning but instead on technology.
SOA is something you do, not some-
thing you buy, so you can’t purchase a
tool and bring it to your enterprise. 
Over the years, the focus on technol-
editor’s
letter ogy has gotten us into trouble. In many
respects, we’re looking at the next gen-
Shopping
eration of technology to save us from the Cloud Computing Review is published
for Cloud troubles created by the last generation. byTechTarget Inc. and is the product
Services
Cloud computing won’t provide that so- of several sites. This issue is
a collaboration of the following:
lution. Instead the cloud can be just an-
Calculating other way to create new silos within your
Private Cloud
Advantages enterprise; it can also make your enter- SearchCloudComputing.com
prise architecture more complex and
therefore less adaptable to required new
Cloud SearchCloudSecurity.com
Contracts business processes. You’ll dig a much
deeper hole by once again tossing the
Content most-hyped technology at a problem. SearchCIO.com
Management The movement to the cloud should fo-
in the Cloud
cus on the fundamentals of SOA. Under- SearchSOA.com
stand all existing and new IT resources
Cloud
Applications at the primitive levels, including data,
services, processes, rules, interfaces, etc.
TechTarget
additional
From there consider all these resources 275 Grove Street,
resources as services. Define them logically, and Newton, MA 02466
add them to a portfolio of services. Then www.techtarget.com
consider the platforms that will best
host those services. This is the point at
©2011 TechTarget Inc. No part of
which cloud should enter the picture. this publication may be transmitted
Cloud computing is not a replacement or reproduced in any form or by any
for architecture but merely a platform means without written permission
from the publisher. For permissions
alternative that provides more effective
or reprint information, please contact
and efficient places for processing.  Mark Walter, VP, Media Group
SOA is the path, if cloud is your desti- Product Marketing, TechTarget
nation. p (mwalter @techtarget.com).

David S. Linthicum is the CTO of Blue Mountain

Labs, an IT consulting firm.

19  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Preparing for a Hybrid Cloud Move

You won’t get far with hybrid cloud unless you know the increasingly popular cloud
model inside and out. Take these important steps into consideration when planning
a hybrid cloud leap.

Why Aren’t All Enterprises Building Private Clouds?

Not all organizations are prepared for massive organizational change. See what
editor’s separates cloud-ready organizations from the rest.
letter
Salesforce’s Cloud Computing Strategy Pushes Forward
Shopping Salesforce.com keeps adding to its cloud computing strategy through acquisitions
for Cloud and development, but some observers wonder whether the company isn’t spreading
Services
itself too thin.

Calculating Reducing the Pain of a Cloud Transition

Private Cloud The road to cloud can be bumpy, but previous commitments to virtualization or
Advantages
service-oriented architecture can help smooth the path.

Cloud From Virtualization to Private Cloud: Making the Move

Contracts The authors of a new book on private cloud discuss the obstacles in moving to a
private cloud and share their advice.
Content
Management Shaking Up the Cloud Storage Market
in the Cloud
As big players like Iron Mountain change gears on cloud storage, users are turning
to new tools and commodity cloud services.
Cloud
Applications What Is Project Concero’s Role in Microsoft’s Cloud Strategy?
Microsoft’s Project Concero offers a way to manage services that run on Windows
additional Azure and Azure appliances from any Web interface. Could it broaden adoption of
resources Microsoft’s cloud tools?

A Cloud Provider’s Guide to Multiservice Cloud Platforms

This look at cloud platforms walks providers through creating one flexible platform
for multiple services, internal and external cloud uses and the necessary database
analysis.

Three Tips for Private Clouds

If you’ve already mastered the introductory steps to a private cloud implementation,
dig a little deeper with these lessons on operating an internal cloud service.

Detecting Unauthorized Use of Cloud Computing

Want to know if your developers or sales executives are moving data to the cloud?
Here are three tools that can help detect cloud use.

20  Cloud Computing Review Vol. 1, No. 1  June 2011