BPM in the Cloud – What’s it all about?

Business Process Management is becoming more common place and has become accepted as a business imperative by most organisations. The adoption of Cloud based solutions that provide integrated process SaaS offerings is however still not as widely accepted but is finding traction.

A recent event from Cordys explains “How Cloud Computing Will Change Business Process Management” in which George Barlow, the CEO of Cloud Harbor, Inc. a Cloud computing software and services company presents a view of how:

…the  increasing relevance of Cloud computing, using BPM systems will be offered in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model and be delivered in on-premise service appliances behind the firewall.

… it explores these topics and provide a glimpse into these significant new business technologies to be delivered “in the Cloud”.

It is obviously a vendor and service provider view of the business and technological value proposition but in my opinion, the webinar (with audio option) is one of the better introductions to ‘BPM in the Cloud’ and is also supported by various analyst market forecasts.

Check out the webinar  here (requires short registration) or alternatively, the slides from the presentation are below for those who are ‘time challenged’   🙂

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What is the State of the Cloud? – An Overview

There are various views in the market regarding the adoption of Cloud computing  and as I have experienced with BPM, many folks are still struggling with trying to figure out what it is,where the value proposition is and how to quantify it. Some of the more common comments supporting the Cloud computing argument include:

• Cloud computing is expected to grow in adoption within the next five years.
• Drivers for adoption will include the need for higher levels of service at lower costs.
• Benefits of cloud computing include faster development speed and better payment structure.
• SMEs may be more interested in cloud computing in the next three years, particularly when they need to build or expand their data centers.
• <add your own here….>

As a snapshot on the ‘State of the Cloud’ I have included a presentation from Interop 09 Enterprise Cloud Summit late 2009. It gives some introductory thoughts on clouds, how we got here and where it’s going. I would be interested to hear about your plans and experiences regarding BPM and Cloud adoption.

For further reading, have a look at this post that states Ovum Research firm has chosen Cordys as the the best fit for SaaS enabled BPM platform.

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