One of the important side issues with Cloud computing is finding ways to attract potential users in. The Rubicon between the on-premise IT infrastructures that most businesses currently use and the potential flexibility and agility that Cloud services offer appears both wide and deep, so a growing number of service providers are looking to find fords or ferries that can help users across.
For example, hosted service provider, Rise, has just started to offer those many businesses already committed to running Microsoft’s many applications the chance to `come and play’ with the latest Beta version of one of that company’s key applications – SQL Server.
The 2012 version, codenamed Denali by Microsoft, includes features such as AlwaysOn, which can provide redundancy in and across datacentres, which in turn can be used to provide disaster recovery capabilities, a new set of data tools for integrated applications development across both on-premise and Cloud environments, and Data Explorer, which is aimed at providing data visualisation tools for browsing and using public Cloud data sources.
For the typical user, of course, getting into beta-testing will involve the acquisition of a suitable server and all the associated componentry required to build a reasonable test environment. So Rise is making the applications available to rent as a test platform. As Rise Sales Director, Alex Hilton, pointed out, users can then try it, both stand alone and linked with other existing applications, without the need to invest in new systems.
This is part of a wider marketing campaign put together by Microsoft, which is trying to get across the notion that users can have a far more significant say in the architecture and deployment of Cloud services than is often the case with traditional on-premise applications deployments. as a major UK Cloud service partner of Microsoft, Rise is therefore participating in a number of activities with the company that are intended to ease the path to Cloud adoption for new users.
For example, it is participating in Microsoft’s License Mobility program, which allows software licences to be transferred between on-premise and cloud-based usage rights at no extra cost. This means that users get the chance to port existing applications into a single-tenanted private Cloud environment without legal wrangles.
It is also pulling together a growing suite of services from Microsoft and others, including a range of business continuity services, stretching from managed online backup through to full disaster recovery. The latter is part of the company’s Datacentre on Demand service, which provides users with hybrid Cloud capabilities where they can mix dedicated virtual private servers with public Cloud servers in a managed environment.
As well as end user businesses Hilton indicated that this service is being targeted at the service provider community, especially where the provider is aiming at the service aggregation market – looking to pull together services and applications that target specific market sectors and trade off an existing brand name. What such business opportunities require is a service provider with the necessary resources and management skills.
