Tag Archives: Cloud Services
Is The PATRIOT Act Stifling Cloud Adoption Outside Of The US?
According to recent Forrester research, “security concerns” and “integration challenges with other applications” are the primary reasons firms aren’t interested in software as a service (SaaS). This week Forrester’s Stefan Reid wrote about the Informatica Cloud Summer 2010 release and pointed out another reason: The USA PATRIOT Act. (more…)
SaaS Integration Uses Cases That Don’t Involve SaaS Application Data
Last week I wrote that a software as a service (SaaS) data integration solution does not have to be used for cloud-based data. The post highlighted some of the questions that information architects, data integration developers and Informatica customers and partners in general ask when they learn more about the architecture of Informatica Cloud Services. Here are two use cases I’ve seen for data integration delivered as an on-demand service that are driven by the IT organization and don’t involve cloud-based applications like Salesforce.com:
Cloud Data Integration: Not Just For Cloud-Based Data
Over the past few weeks I’ve been talking to a lot of Informatica customers about data integration delivered as an on-demand service. We’ve been hosting a Breakfast in the Cloud event in many cities as part of the Informatica 9 World Tour and the interest in the topic of cloud integration has been overwhelming. We always spend quite a bit of time reviewing the architecture of Informatica Cloud Services to customers:
- A Secure Agent is downloaded to sit behind your firewall (or it could be running in a cloud environment).
- With the enterprise-class performance of Informatica PowerCenter, it is the Secure Agent that does all of the heavy lifting. It is a small footprint that is self-upgrading.
- A multitenant repository and an easy-to-use data integration interface designed for business self-service are delivered on demand. (You can watch a demo on our YouTube Channel.)
- Data is not staged in the Informatica Cloud. Instead a direct connection is established between the Secure Agent and Cloud apps or between applications, databases and files that are on premises.
It’s the last point that is often most surprising. Here are some of the questions that inevitably ensue when the lightbulb goes off: (more…)
Cloud Integration Customer Success
Recently I wrote about the importance of customer success to cloud computing, and more specifically to software as a service (SaaS) applications. The leader in this market, salesforce.com, has long championed customer success in their messaging for a few primary reasons:
- They are fundamentally a customer relationship management (CRM) company.
- Their business is based on a subscription pricing model – without adoption there are no renewals!
- As a multitenant cloud service, they actually know how their software is being used. As a result, they have a laser-focus on ease of use.
Breakfast In The Cloud
Over the past few weeks we’ve been talking to Informatica customers about cloud integration at the Informatica 9 World Tour events. In most of the cities, we’re hosting a Cloud Breakfast to dive in to what Gartner has listed as one of the top 10 strategic technologies for 2010. Not surprisingly, interest has been widespread. Attendees include people in IT and line of business (LOB) roles; people with PowerCenter skills and long-time Informatica Cloud customers; CRM administrators and IT architects; sales and marketing operations; ISVs and quite a few consultants.
One thing that they all have in common is that they’re thinking about the opportunities and challenges that the shift to cloud computing represents. As one attendee put it, “we can either get on the train or get run over by it!”
Cloud Integration Drives CRM And Sales Success
Today Informatica announced that Bay & Bay Transportation has used Informatica Cloud Services to achieve a six month project payback on their total Salesforce.com investment and a 900 percent return on their critical data integration project.
Bay & Bay is using the turnkey, on-demand Informatica Cloud Services to provide robust, bi-directional synchronization between its logistics management databases and applications with Salesforce CRM. Using an intuitive web based integration wizard, the company automatically maps source and target fields, configures powerful data transformations, and sets automated synchronization schedules. And being a true multi-tenant cloud-based service, there is no hardware, software, or infrastructure for them to install, manage, or maintain.
Three Things You Should Know About The Informatica Cloud
This month’s Informatica Newsletter features an interview with Ron Papas, General Manager of the Informatica Cloud. He’s asked, “What should Informatica customers know about the Informatica Cloud?”
I thought his answer was worth sharing here:
(more…)
Informatica Cloud Recognized By Salesforce.com: Data Integration AppExchange Best Of ’09 Award
This week we announced that salesforce.com customers have once again recognized Informatica Cloud Services with the Data Integration AppExchange Best of ’09 Award. It’s a tremendous honor to win this award as it is 100% driven by customer reviews. According to the salesforce.com Community site:
“The Best of ’09 Customer Choice Awards are given to partners based on exceptional user reviews posted to the AppExchange during 2009; and, are a special way for the community to recognize partners for their ongoing commitment to driving customer success.”
There are two fundamental drivers for the growing adoption of cloud integration services:
- Growing adoption of cloud-based applications and platforms like Salesforce CRM and Force.com are leading to an even greater data fragmentation challenges in companies of all sizes.
- Departmental, line of business purchases and implementations of software as a service (SaaS) applications have led to a need for easy to use, self-service integration solutions that non-technical users can manage, while IT organizations remain in control. (See the post on Avoiding a Cloud Data Disaster if this sounds familiar.) (more…)
Cloud Application Integration: Point To Point Or Staged Data?
In his whitepaper, Best Practices in Leveraging a Staging Area for SaaS-to-Enterprise Integration, David Linthicum outlines the difference between direct, point-to-point data integration and staging integration. He defines them as follows:
- Direct: “Moving information from one data source and data schema to another, and translating the differences in semantics from the source to the target system.”
- Staged: “A temporary location where the data from the source system or systems is replicated in order to support more complex and valuable data integration operations, including support for many large data sets and data operations that are more complex and of higher value.” (more…)