| |October 20168CIOReviewBy Dilipkumar Khandelwal, MD, SAP Labs India and EVP, Enterprise Cloud Services, SAP SEHow to Cloud is a more pertinent questionAnalysts confirm that the worldwide cloud computing market leaped by 28 percent to 110B USD in revenues in 2015, a clear validation of its rapid growth. While going the cloud way is no longer a topic for debate and deliberation, CIO's across enterprises have to deal with challenges while implementing the various cloud propositions they can choose from. Presently, the most favored cloud software option for the Enterprises is Software as a Service (SaaS) and hence it's rapid growth. By 2020 the expected penetration of software as a service (SaaS) versus traditional software deployment is over 25 percent. Customers adore this model as it gives them freedom from hardware management, associated upgrades and software life cycle problems. In simple words, the customer needs only an internet connection for the solution to work. On purchase of subscription, the enterprise gets user logins through which users can access the application after system configuration.The beauty of this model is in the simplicity of implementation and use. Business configurations are simple as most of it is taken care of by application of best practices. This results in minimum implementation times and faster go-lives. However, the model comes with its own challenges. The simplicity of implementation creates a lack of flexibility which many of the customers demand owing to variation in operating models. Today, the best of SaaS providers face challenges related to extensibility and customer specific enhancements which limit the scalability of complex business critical applications for large businesses. This is a gap that the software providers are working on at a war-like pace because SaaS is the sweet spot that customers aim for. The systems are evolving rapidly and it is just a matter of time that the problems are overcome and it becomes a default choice of all businesses.A more conservative and traditional approach which is also effective and successful is the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). In 2016, spending on public cloud Infrastructure as a Service hardware and software is forecast to reach 38B USD, growing to 173B USD in 2026. This model works for companies of all scales and sizes. The infrastructure is shared through virtualization of servers and memory in a way to optimize the capacity and capabilities of the machines. The businesses get access to the server SAP (NYSE: SAP) is a market leader in enterprise application software that enables more than 310,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably.To Cloud or not to Cloud: No Longer a QuestionOPINIONIN MY
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