Ironic: Cloud Speeds On-premises Application Deployments

Some pundits believe cloud computing is wiping out on-premises software and traditional application upgrades. But if you ignore the alarmists and focus on the facts, you’ll find that cloud computing often helps to speed on-premises application upgrades — rather than eliminate such upgrades.

My reality check arrived during two separate phone briefings with Hewlett-Packard and Doyenz, respectively. For instance:

• The HP Public Cloud announcement included a new HP Service Virtualization 2.0 platform. The cloud platform allows partners and customers to test cloud and mobile applications without disrupting production systems, HP claims.
• The Doyenz rCloud service includes a virtual lab environment for partners and customers. Here’s how it works: Partners can replicate customers’ production networks into a secure cloud setting (the virtual lab). From there, the partner can test software upgrades in the cloud environment, without introducing any risks to the customer’s production network. Once the tests earn a clean bill of health, the upgrades can be applied on-premises.

Not New, But Gaining Popularity

Admittedly, testing applications up in the cloud — prior to on-premises deployment — isn’t a new business model. Some businesses have used that application deployment strategy for roughly a decade. Our own website upgrades have used a cloud-based testing approach since 2008.

But Doyenz, the cloud-based recovery specialist, is noticing a market shift. When Doyenz first marketed its virtual lab a few years ago, many customers were not ready for that type of conversation, concedes Chief Revenue Officer Eric Webster. The idea of “testing” software in the cloud before rolling it out on-premise seemed foreign to a lot of small businesses, Webster added.

Fast forward to the present and such testing practices are increasingly the norm — especially since small VARs and MSPs don’t have the budget or infrastructure to build full-blown testing facilities of their own. Instead, those VARs and MSPs spin up virtual machines in the Doyenz cloud, then perform customer application testing.

Of course, the cloud does compete with traditional on-premises software. Plenty of customers are abandoning Small Business Server and on-premises Exchange for cloud alternatives. But for on-premises applications that require ongoing upgrades, it’s a safe bet channel partners are first testing the upgrade up in the cloud.