Migration onto and off from a cloud environment is something important to many ISVs. As I mentioned last week, the ability to easily move onto a cloud architecture is just as important as the ability to easily move off from a cloud environment to many of the ISVs I’ve spoken with.
The phrase “On-Ramp to the Cloud” has been used in other places on the web to refer to various tools and approaches to migrate applications and data onto a cloud computing infrastructure. I would like to extend this metaphor further, by thinking about an “Off-Ramp from the Cloud“. An off-ramp from the cloud refers to an easy migration from cloud infrastructure to on-premise infrastructure.
The crucial point is that ISVs cannot afford to be locked into a particular architecture or cloud infrastructure vendor when they are out to solve their own customer’s problems. Needs
change over time. The ability to easily move data and applications to the most appropriate tier, whether that is in the cloud, or on-premise is vitally important.
The On-Ramp to the Cloud
Many ISVs are approaching the world of the cloud with an existing on-premise application. The application uses a local database server, and is designed to deliver rich functionality and powerful performance. On-premise applications have no dependencies outside the organization, so these organizations can put systems in place to ensure that the application is always available. For many organizations, this continues to be the only architectural approach that satisfies their requirements for mission critical applications.
More and more, however, organizations are willing to outsource the running of these applications to a 3rd party vendor in the cloud. ISVs are being asked for Software-as-a-Service(SaaS) versions of their applications as an alternative to their current on-premise system. Customers simply want to the stop running the application in their own data center, but are typically unwilling to sacrifice on functionality. A database system where the data that can simply be moved from on-premise to a cloud architecture will help ease the migration effort. A DBMS such as SQL Anywhere, where the database file can simply be copied from one environment to another, will ease this migration effort.
The Off-Ramp from the Cloud
The situation I am hearing from many ISVs is that they see customers who start small, and would like to use the application in a hosted SaaS environment initially, but as they grow, they want to take control of the application and its data, to better ensure availability and reduce reliance on a 3rd party vendor. There are also many industries where security or privacy concerns mandate that they assume complete control of the data. Once again, a DBMS such as SQL Anywhere, where the database file can simply be copied from one environment to another, will make this movement much, much easier.
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