2015 Cloud Platform Solutions Buyers Guide Includes a Category Overview; the Top 10 Questions to Ask; Plus a Reference Directory of the Leading 28 Providers for Enterprise Cloud Platforms-as-a-Service Solutions INTRODUCTION: The teenage years of this millennium will be known as the era when the enterprise finally grew up, technologically. And like a growing teenager, businesses today are both fascinated and frightened by the dramatic changes happening to all of their bits (and bytes). The enterprise is in the midst of a rapid and unnerving growth in mobility and data. The old, insular model for developing “in house” solutions is giving way to a more open and experimental distributed approach. For the past decade “cloud computing” has been gaining traction with businesses primarily through the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application model. From the widespread adoption of mission critical systems like Customer Relationship Management (CRM), systems delivered through a cloud-based application, the enterprise and many of its younger technical employees have become comfortable with cloud services. Now the opportunity is present for an even larger leap to the cloud. In addition to SaaS, three other cloud models have emerged for consideration: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) – which provides access to hardware, network and physical resources; Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) – which focuses mostly on mobile application back ends; and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) – which provides a more comprehensive stack of solutions including databases, operating systems, development tools and middleware. Let’s get it out of the way, Cloud Platform is an oxymoron – literally and figuratively. The literal is obvious, but the figurative is more subtle. The “Let’s get it out of heavily promoted benefits of cloud computing – agility, elasticity and the way, Cloud cost savings are often at odds with common concerns of a “platform- as-a-service” (PaaS) – security, stability, performance and switching Platform is an costs or vendor “lock-in”. oxymoron. The Whether you are a publicly traded corporation, a government institution literal is obvious, or even a small to medium-sized business, the benefits of a cloud but the figuratively platform are absolutely worth investigating today. In this Buyers Guide there is a solution for everyone, from small groups to multi-national is more subtle.” organizations. Solutions Review is not in the business of picking winners and losers in a technology solution sector; we will leave that to others. Our job is to help you get started evaluating providers. In this Buyers Guide, we have selected 29 cloud computing solutions as a way to narrow things down a bit. In order to help you start the process of sorting all this out, below are 10 questions, five for yourself, and five for a prospective solutions provider to your cloud computing needs. It will help you walk through what you want in a solution, what it’s supposed to do for you, as well as the solution offerings, services and staying power. And if you would like any more help from us, please send along an email or give us a call. Douglas Atkinson President Solutions Review [email protected] (339) 927-9229 2 Solutions Review | 500 West Cummings Park | Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 | USA 5 Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Selecting a Cloud Platform Solution QUESTION #1 What are my security needs? With the number and scale of security threats these days, security has to be at the top of the list for decision-makers. So how critical is the data you’ll be pumping through that cloud infrastructure and platform? Additionally, how is the potential new cloud platform planned to connect with other aspects of your business and technology environment, potentially creating new gateways for malicious attacks? Is the potential platform’s architecture such that security can be built into the solution? These answers can help you determine how much you will need to invest into security to ensure your new cloud platform dream doesn’t become a nightmare. QUESTION #2 Where is the value-add in my business, both now and in the future? Businesses should maintain internal capability in areas where they have the most value-add. This way you can maintain in-house expertise needed to maintain your competitive edge in key product areas today, and in the future through innovation. On the other hand, areas where you don’t have much value- add and that aren’t necessary for maintaining your competitive edge, can be outsourced. Because the acquisition of a cloud platform might represent the outsourcing of internal business capability, make sure what you’re outsourcing won’t hurt you down the road through lost internal expertise. QUESTION #3 What are the business needs I’m looking to address? Cloud platform solutions could represent significant savings for your company, but you still need to make sure you don’t pursue a solution your company doesn’t need. Make sure you actually need an entire enterprise cloud platform solution and not just a software add-on and vice versa. This requires that you clearly define the specific business needs driving the project. QUESTION #4 How big is my company and IT department? Some cloud platform solutions providers will be better suited to helping smaller companies, while others cater toward larger companies. Pick potential solutions providers with a good reputation for working with other companies in your size, vertical, geography, etc. Additionally, the size, sophistication and slack within your IT department also impacts how good a match a potential solution is. Investigate what resources and capabilities your IT has available that might be relevant to implementing and running the cloud platform solution before you select a vendor. QUESTION #5 What support will I need from the vendor? Even (or perhaps especially) large companies sometimes need extra support and services from vendors in order to make sure the enterprise technology solutions run well. The same is true for cloud platforms. Find out what support and services your company may need before selecting a vendor so that you know what to ask for and compare. 3 Solutions Review | 500 West Cummings Park | Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 | USA And 5 Questions You Should Ask Your Potential Cloud Platform Solution Provider QUESTION #6 How does your cloud platform keep my business safe from security threats? Find out what security features, services and compatibilities the prospective vendor solution has. Keep in mind especially the compatibilities with other security solutions, such as Identity and Access Management solutions. The combination of two compatible, best-fit solutions to your business and security needs merits your consideration. QUESTION #7 How does your cloud solution work with the rest of my business and technology environment? Cloud solutions can get along very easily with the rest of your infrastructure, but if you are going to need extensive tie-in between the cloud platform and the rest of your business, ensuring all the technological pieces fit together will be well worth your time. QUESTION #8 What support offerings do you have? Support can be critical to ensuring the success of implementation and operation. Compare the different support options your prospective vendors are offering and see how well they align with the support needs you have determined from Question 5. QUESTION #9 How easy would it be to switch from one solution to another if things don’t work out? Let’s face it, sometimes the solution that looked the best for your business turns out not to be a great fit. Ask the vendor upfront and directly how they will help you move away from their solution and towards someone else’s if something goes wrong (don’t settle for “it won’t go wrong”). Their response will shine light on the business flexibility and risk the company and solution provide, as well as potentially the culture of the company with whom you’re thinking of working. QUESTION #10 Cost(s)? Don’t be fooled into thinking this means only asking about the price on the sticker. With almost every solution, there are likely to be hidden costs as well. Consider that “free” open-source solution, for instance; without support and other enterprise-focused service offerings, you could at the very least find the need to siphon off critical IT resources from other projects. At most, you might confront the high costs of a failed initiative. Opportunity costs should also be considered for what you could do with certain IT resources and money. 4 Solutions Review | 500 West Cummings Park | Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 | USA CLOUD PLATFORM SOLUTION DIRECTORY PROVIDER SOLUTION FROM THE COMPANY ActiveState Software Stackato 3.0 “Stackato allows agile enterprises to develop and 409 Granville Street Stackato is a commercially supported deploy software solutions faster than ever before Vancouver, BC V6C 1T2 Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that is and manage them more effectively. Stackato Canada built with and on top of various open provides development teams with built-in languages, frameworks and services on +1 (778) 786-1100 source components such as Cloud one single cloud application platform, while providing enterprise-level security www.activestate.com Foundry and Docker. and world-class support.” Amazon, Inc. Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)™ “Amazon EC2 presents a true cloud hosting service, 1200 12th Ave. South EC2 is a web service that provides allowing you to use web service interfaces to launch Seattle, WA 98144 resizable compute capacity in the cloud. instances with a variety of operating systems, load United States It is designed to make web-scale them with your custom application environment, manage your network’s access +1 ( 206) 266-1000 computing easier for developers. permissions, and run your image using as many or few systems as you desire.” aws.amazon.com Apprenda, Inc.