10 Critical Requirements for Cloud Applications.

Another day, and another software vendor—or two, or three—will announce some strategy around the cloud. As a CIO, I’ve benefitted hugely from cloud applications, and view it as a positive sign that more and more software companies are exploring alternative delivery models.

What concerns me, however, is when vendors tout cloud applications (also known assoftware as aservice, or SaaS) that aren’t real cloud applications.Real cloud applications deliver incredible benefits, but only if they were designed to be cloud applications, and are delivered in a true cloud model.

So we decided to document the many components that go into cloud applications in an important, educational paper we call the“10 Critical Requirements for Cloud Applications.” I believe CIOs, CFOs, and business managers will find this paper enlightening. Here’s a summary of the 10 requirements:

1. True Multi-tenancy.Multi-tenancy is the only proven SaaS delivery architecture that eliminates many of the problems created by the traditional software licensing and upgrade model—period. Multi-tenancy ensures that every customer is on the same version of the software. That means no customer is left behind when the software is updated, and in my experience that fosters a fantastic community for sharing knowledge and resources with other CIOs, all of whom are using thesameversion of the software.

Continues @http://www.cloudave.com