If you are an IT Leader, software developer, or IT PRO you need to understand cloud platforms, as they are going to play a big part in the future. In this article, I will explain how enterprises, businesses, government bodies etc. can and should use cloud platforms.
Every enterprise today can benefit from public cloud platforms. I will walk you through a brief history of cloud platforms,
- For the very first time, “com” in 2004 showed to the world that software as a service (SaaS) actually works. It was the first company to really make it happen.
- Amazon Web Services was launched in 2006. It introduced public cloud platform to the world.
- The launch of Apple iPhone in 2007, which was called the birth or the beginning of mobile platforms. (I am not calling it the birth of mobile phones)
![cloud platforms]()
It is very important to note that none of the above products or services came from Microsoft, IBM, HP or VMWare or the classic big enterprise vendors.
Now the questions arises – Why are these three events so important for an enterprise IT?
The answer is that it is because the traditional enterprise IT world looks like this,
![cloud platforms]()
At the bottom, we have clients traditionally that are PCs (Desktop or Laptops). Then organizations have their own in-house data centers, which involve infrastructure, servers, operating systems, cables, networks and so on. On this infrastructure, we run packaged applications that we buy like SAP or SharePoint etc., and we can have custom apps also that we have developed. This is a classic Enterprise IT world.
Now the above three events are the replacement of this traditional IT world.
The new Enterprise platform looks like this,
![cloud platforms]()
For clients, we still have PCs and laptops, but now we have other devices as well like tablets and phones. On the server side, the packaged applications are more and more becoming Saas based applications. So, while purchasing a new software, we should think of cloud-based solutions. It is very important. Finally, the custom apps, which run typically in our own data-centers are going forward and now those applications are running in public cloud platforms.
Packaged apps can be bought by anyone, but the custom apps are the most important which give competitive advantage to your business or organization. That is why public cloud platforms have become the foundation for this competitive advantage.
I am not saying that you need to move all your applications in the new world of IT; however, we need to build new apps in this world.
This is why Cloud Platforms are very important. They are an integral part of this new default Enterprise IT World.
Summary
In this article, I have explained about the three events that completely changed the Enterprise IT World.
In the next articles, I will write more about Cloud Platforms specifically Microsoft Azure, which is a public cloud platform.