Cloud Computing & Cloud Application Development

“Is your organisation cloud-ready? Whether you want to develop a new cloud application, or move an existing web application to the cloud, we can help.”

Cloud Computing has become the key delivery mechanism for today’s leading software companies to reach a wider audience while also benefiting from simplified and centralised management.

‘Moving to the Cloud’ refers to an organisation moving away from a traditional CAPEX model (buying dedicated hardware) to an OPEX model (using a shared cloud infrastructure on a pay‐as‐you‐use basis).

In general, therefore, cloud hosted services are:

• Scalable, so they can grow or shrink to match actual demand.
• Delivered remotely over the web.
• Accessible by many devices.

Cloud computing offers many advantages to businesses:

• The Cloud allows companies to avoid upfront infrastructure costs.
• The effectiveness of resources is maximised because they are usually not only shared by multiple users but are also dynamically reallocated on demand.
• The cloud allows centralised management of resources and economies of scale to operate.
• The Cloud allows SMEs to get their applications up and running faster, with improved manageability and less maintenance.
• Improved security due to the centralisation of data and availability of security‐focused resources.

Clouds can be classified as public, private or hybrid.

A private cloud belongs to a single organisation and requires a significant level of engagement because users still have to buy, build, and manage them, and so do not benefit from less hands‐on management. A public cloud is where the services are rendered over a network that is open for public use, such as public cloud service providers Amazon AWS, Microsoft and Google. These companies own and operate the Cloud infrastructure at their data centres and access is generally via the Internet.

A hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more clouds (for example private and public) that remain distinct entities but are bound together, offering combined benefits, such as extended capability as a result of  aggregation, integration or customisation.

If you would like to move an existing application to the cloud we can carry out a health check to identify if it will be capable of meeting your cloud‐based objectives. Or if your application isn’t ready for the cloud we can provide recommendations that will help you transform your application into a cloud‐ready solution.