The SaaS model (software as a service) backed by IaaS model (infrastructure as a service) on cloud is beneficial for an independent software vendor (ISV). That is why ISV businesses across the globe are adopting cloud hosting technology solutions. But such software companies demand for IT infrastructure support. This is where the need for a smart enterprise grade cloud steps in. This model eliminates all redundant infrastructure associated issues. By adopting it, ISVs can focus on their core business.

Most enterprise level cloud designs offer private and shared cloud computing solutions. Such a cloud contains differently sized virtual machines (VM) on Windows, AIX and Linux based platforms. Interestingly, a robust service level agreement (SLA) backs the service which guarantees 98.5 % to 99.95 % availability round-the-clock. The servers in such a model are hosted across geographically spread data centers. So, an ISV can avail managed services to customize the operating system (OS) layer as well.

A major difference that lies between traditional cloud IaaS and enterprise-grade cloud services is that in the previous case, the ISV would hire virtual machines from the provider. These are provisioned later following which the entire activation process and lifecycle management becomes a headache for the client. On the other hand, providers of smart enterprise-grade cloud services manage all activation and lifecycle issues.

Advantages of an enterprise cloud technology are:

• Every single security setting and related concerns are managed by the provider. So the ISV need not worry about security policies and applicable settings for an OS. Generally these are tested and proven security policies because periodic health checks are performed on the cloud model.

• A sensitive task that needs lots of effort from system administrators is patch management. A provider carries out this process and deploys patches regularly within various windows options. 

• Flat file backups are deployed so that the entire virtual machine contains encrypted data offsite. Moreover, an ISV can also avail online database backups (for both Oracle and MS-SQL technologies). 

• Entire infrastructure monitoring and management of services is provided in this cloud technology. Round-the-clock support for required actions further restores all the services. Moreover, additional monitoring contracts for database and middleware are also provided.

• IT service managed services offered by the provider comply with the best practices of the IBM governance model. 

Thus an ISV benefits from a smart enterprise based cloud hosting service. This elastic cloud solution allows the company to grow it’s infrastructure as per business critical needs.