Understanding Cloud Computing and Its Value Proposition in BPM

Enterprises large and small are drawn by the advantages of Cloud Computing – e.g. pay-for-use, self-service, elastic scalability and the elimination of hardware management – resulting in very low barriers to technology bentry and exit and high agility. Significant innovations in virtualization, and distributed computing, as well as improved access to high-speed Internet and a weak economy, have accelerated interest in Cloud Computing. Cloud Computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a hosted service over the Internet i.e. the cloud. These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the "cloud" that supports them. The goal of cloud computing is to provide easy, scalable access to computing resources and, IT and business services.

The concepts and technologies of Cloud Computing can be applied to BPM to lower the barriers to its adoption. Those barriers to BPM adoption include cost, resource availability, technology limitations and company culture.

This course starts with the definition of Cloud Computing and an explanation of the business drivers for it, including use cases and selected vertical industry initiatives. It will explain the basic concepts of Cloud Computing and the three categories: IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. It will describe Cloud Service Governance, Management and Security – and their role in designing Cloud Computing for the enterprise. It will introduce the concept of “BPM in the Cloud”, explain its value proposition and describe an approach for deployment. It will explain strategies for successfully deploying and managing Cloud Computing – including example case studies – to demonstrate the benefits, costs, and risks of the Cloud Computing approach. Lastly, it will review approaches to expanding Cloud Computing throughout an enterprise.