Computing Edge

Improvising the tools that enable you to access cloud computing
The application development aspect of your cloud computing initiative will be a crucial activity for your business. Without the software you might as well give up on trying to implement cloud computing because it is the software that drives most of the activities.

When an organization decides to implement cloud computing, they remove the local staff involvement in the information technology systems. If you are going to get rid of the influence of your staff, you need to ensure that the software applications that you are going to use are virtually infallible or close to it. This is why there is such importance placed on the application development for cloud computing.

The application development should follow the same principles that are used when you are managing other IT projects. For example there has to be extensive consultation with the business units which will be most affected by the implementation of cloud computing. The consultation process not only gets ideas from those members of staff but also ensures that employee resistance to change is calmed down as you try to implement a coherent cloud computing mechanism.

You will need to undertake extensive planning to ensure that you have contingency plans for all the glitches that are likely to hit your project as you go along. Above all you must have the flexibility to respond to any changes in the environment within which you are operating. Like most IT projects, the application development for cloud computing will fail if you are not alert to the different changes that will happen over time.

Common examples
For illustrative purposes we can look at one commonly used cloud computing software package. Known as SaaS (abbreviation for Software as a Service), this cloud computing package is used in many of the tasks that we take for granted in our offices and homes. For example web based email services such as Gmail would not be possible without the use of SaaS.

From a developmental point of view the first port of call is to look at some of the issues that affect companies which use SaaS.  Once you have identified these problems then you can incorporate systems within your application development to ensure that you do not get affected by the problems that have been identified. It means learning from the mistakes of other people who have used cloud computing before.

From the top of my head I can identify the problems of connectivity that are associated with cloud computing. Because your information technology systems are being managed from a remote location, it is highly likely that you will have some connectivity problems associated with this fact.

If you take the email communications to start off with, the information is transferred between a minimum of two databases and any number of glitches can occur during the transfer process. It is therefore imperative that you examine the links that you have established with your cloud computing adviser so that they are being closely monitored during the application development phase.