Architecturing in a Cloud

How did cloud computing appear? Why can cloud computing complicate the software release process? What changes in the quality insurance process in a cloud environment? These and other questions are answered by Assistant Teaching Professor at Carnegie Mellon University Matthew Bass.

It is the case that a number of years ago a new paradigm, perhaps, began to emerge, which then has become known as ‘cloud computing’. This is not necessarily a new concept, it is something that has its roots from a long ago, but it has changed significantly in recent years.

If you look at companies like Amazon – an online retailer, they need to handle variable business. Whether it is the case whether it is the Christmas sale cycle or for some special reason suddenly the usage will spike, and they need to be able to ramp up in order to handle that. And at other times the volume of their business is not going to be so significant. So they some way that is going to allow them to expand, to support their need.

Many organizations would like to improve their business agility, they would like to be able to release products more quickly, they would like to be able to release capability more quickly, and they see cloud computing as a mechanism for doing that, for being able to release products much more quickly. But what they don’t necessarily understand is that there is a relationship between the structural organization, the technical environment and the way you develop software.