PLM, ERP and enterprise cloud race

May 22, 2012

I was reading GIGAOM article Amazon and SAP put All-in-One in the cloud few days ago. According to the article SAP will soon make an appearance on Amazon EC2 cloud. Interesting enough it is connected to the fact almost all software of SAP rival Oracle is already available from the cloud.

Another interesting point is related to the fact Amazon is working to support product customization on the public cloud. It will remove another big barrier for deployment and implementation of enterprise software. Here is a very interesting passage:

The conventional wisdom is that big companies are wary of running ERP and other enterprise applications in a public cloud — because they tend to be quite customized and tied into other applications, which makes them difficult to forklift into the cloud. But Amazon is working to change that perception.

PLM and ERP: cloud race

In the past, CAD / PLM vendors lost the competition of C-level and IT visibility in the organization. PLM was considered as Engineering tools, and it took many years and significant effort to improve this perception (still not accomplish in full, from my standpoint). These days a typical “PLM on the cloud” discussion usually runs in too many questions about cloud PLM viability and security. At the same time, we can see how ERP vendors run their products on Amazon cloud.

PLM and Cloud / IaaS

When Amazon is considered as a definite leader in IaaS race, Aras PLM is thinking differently. During the ACE 2012 conference earlier this month, Aras announced Aras Spectrum – soon to be available on Microsoft Windows Azure platform. You can take a look on my post-ACE conference blog post – Aras PLM, Microsoft Azure and Cloud competition.

Autodesk (new PLM vendor these days) is playing with lots of “cloud toys” in the portfolio. One of the toys is PLM 360 -recently announced “cloud PLM alternative”. It is not clear what IaaS platform is using for their cloud development and deployment, for the moment.

What is my conclusion? Amazon is pushing to the enterprise by supporting major ERP vendors. Autodesk is playing with new cloud offering and probably going to make their IaaS choice later. Microsoft is experimenting with Aras PLM to provide Aras Innovator up and running on Azure Cloud. Dassault, Siemens, PTC… Are you watching?

Best, Oleg

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Technological Options for PLM on the cloud

January 30, 2012

Cloud is hyping in 2012. Coming Facebook IPO can only supercharge the future of cloud computing. Last year Autodesk announcement about Nexus 360 cloud PLM created a confirmation that large CAD / PLM vendors will be interested to leverage the power of cloud. Two weeks before AU2011, during DSCC 2011, Dassault Systems confirmed their plan to continue development and investment in their Enovia cloud platform.

It takes time, but economic of cloud computing is too good to be ignored by CIO. At the time consumer market already embraced cloud computing via multiple store (but not only) options like Dropbox etc., CIOs are just coming to discover it. Navigate to the following Gigaom article – CIOs come around to cloud storage. Here is my favorite passage:

“The sheer volume and availability needs are pushing cloud storage to the forefront,” he said. They have to look at the economics of cloud compared to the high-cost, high-maintenance data center storage model, he said… In short, even the most risk-averse C-level information executives are coming to realize that if cloud storage isn’t in their current plan, it will be in the near future.

At the same time, I can hear voices of customers and vendors about the fact cloud computing is still confusing. So, in today’s post, I decided to put some practical technological options about how PLM (and not only) can be delivered on cloud today from the technological standpoint.

Amazon

Amazon is Amazon. Flexible, public, cloud. Period. It is a perfect virtual environment with dollar meter. You pay for what you use. Despite few outages, AWS is pretty stable and can provide you a reliable base as a platform for cloud PLM. Most of PLM vendors talking these days about cloud are exploring Amazon as a first option. Amazon also provides probably the best shortcut between existing PLM architectures and future cloud models.

Microsoft Azure

Azure is a different type of cloud animal. If you’re familiar with terminology, Azure is PaaS (opposite to AWS, which is IaaS). I can see many advantages of Azure. It is single development platform, tools, multi-language support. Another positive side of Azure is that Microsoft can much easier force developers follow specific rules that can prevent application from misbehave. The perception of vendors and developers is that Azure is closed platform. I’m not saying it is true, but this is what I think many people assume when they think about "Azure cloud".

OpenStack

This is a very interesting option. OpenStack pretends to become "an Android of the cloud". Open Stack achieved critical mass to become a reality. OpenStack is IaaS environment currently supported by Rackspace and NASA. Technologically, OpenStack is a combination of storage and computing library. The easiest way to start with OpenStack is to use it onRackspace. OpenStack objective is to convert cloud into commodity, which can be beneficial for many consumers of the technology. I can see an interesting option for OpenStack and PLM. OpenStack provides a very open and economic way to establish mini-cloud centers. It can be a foundation for cloud services available for large companies having concerns about public cloud.

Cloud Databases

This is an interesting option for PLM developers. Fundamentally, PDM/PLM is all about a database today. To move PLM database on the cloud, can be an interesting option. Read my post few months ago – Will Database on the cloud supercharge PLM for Small Companies? There are few providers to be mentioned here. I’d be starting from Amazon RDS. Another option is to use databases services created by enterprise software vendors – Oracle Cloud Databases,Salesforce.com Database and few others.

Don’t Forget IBM big blue

Big Blue IBM is also going to the cloud. However, IBM is doing it differently. It called IBM Smart Cloud. You can learn here about how IBM suggests to use these services here. In a nutshell, IBM idea is to wrap whatever you have with Tivoli cloud services. IBM is attacking cloud from a software perspective and looking how to build a cloud umbrella beyond your existing data center. IBM clearly is looking how to attract "enterprise dollars" from AWS, OpenStack and Azure.

What is my conclusion? I believe we can see lots of misunderstandings with the cloud computing in a near future. CAD / PLM vendors and service providers will be able to balance in order to dance on both sides of the solutions – on premise and on the cloud. Understanding of technological options is a good foundation towards reasonable decisions about the cloud in 2012. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Dynamics AX Hybrid Cloud. Should PLM Vendors Care?

September 14, 2011

I have a feeling "cloud" topic got some dominance for the last days and week. However, the following article about Dynamics AX 2012 and cloud was something I considered important enough to mention. Navigate your browser and read – Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Dips Its Toes In the Cloud, Carefully. Microsoft is pushing their Dynamics AX to the cloud and trying to keep it on the ground at the same time. Here is how it happens:

With this morning’s release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, the company’s long-standing enterprise resource planning suite, the company is rolling out a new set of Windows Azure-based services that are leveraged on top of local deployments. The newest of these services is a deployment assistance tool called RapidStart that gives new customers a wizard-like questionnaire system for configuring Dynamics AX.

Microsoft is trying to blend tools and introduce Azure services. Some of them already here. The choice of "Rapid Start" is interesting too. Deployment, configuration and service – these are most painful topics in every implementation. To have an assistant coming from the cloud is kinda cool…

Dynamics AX and PLM

What PLM vendors can learn from Dynamics AX? AX never been very focused on PLM and PDM options. However, Dynamics AX kept PLM/PDM in the scope of Manufacturing solutions. Take a look on the following chartrepresenting Industrial Equipment solutions based on AX.

What is my conclusion? Microsoft is trying to push their new Azure development into existing business applications. AX is one of them. The idea of cloud services to leverage existing system is an important point. It is not unique to Microsoft, but probably can fit very well. This is something that can take care of existing investment made by a customer and prevent immediate "migration" development. Azure cloud can be a good technology option for such type of solution. PLM vendors need to notice how to re-use existing assets with the cloud option. This is can be an important strategy for coming years. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM: From Work To Home via Microsoft and Open Cloud

May 30, 2011

Let’s talk about PLM software development today. Rewind pre-Web 2.0 and pre- iPhone era. Life was simlpe. After SolidWorks finally proved Windows is good enough for mechanical CAD, the majority moved to Redmond-based software. I’ve been thinking about changes that happened mostly for the last few years and what influences how we are going to develop PLM software in coming few years. There are two major trends I can identify: mix between “work” and “home” and significant influence of “open source” technologies.

The “Chat” Continues from Work To Home

These days we put fewer borders between work and home environment. Mobile technologies and cloud services allow to many people to be available during after working hours. Global development just added an additional pressure on people to be available out their normal work hours. Social marketing, custom-oriented product development and many other are additional factors changing our traditional working environment. I read Kelly Sommers’ blog Kellabyte – Continuous Client: Our multi-device dream but how do we build it?. This is my favorite passage.

Our needs for computing workflow have completely changed. Services like DropBox or Instapaper are narrow solutions to the real problem. DropBox lets us sync our data so that we can access it on multiple devices but it’s not addressing the workflow issue. DropBox doesn’t carry over the context of what we were doing when we shifted devices.I decided to count how many times I switched devices between noon and 6pm, so a 6 hour period. I switched devices 37 times.

Please take a look on the following picture from the same blog. This is a very typical scenario that may happen.

At the same time, most of the software is addressing data, but not addressing the “workflow” issue. And this is something that is really important if you think about business software like PLM. The only device-less software these days is the email. I can follow my emails on a desktop, tablet, mobile phone almost seamless. If you are lucky to use Google Apps, you can completely disconnect your life from a particular PC. At the same time, this is absolutely not happens in PLM business applications.

Microsoft Baby Steps towards Open Cloud

So, what happens with Microsoft these days. Do you think Redmond folks are sitting and waiting until Google mail will replace Microsoft Exchange and Outlook? Not at all. Recently, I wrote about Office 365. This is the “product” example. At the same time, I found some interesting trends related to the technological aspects of Microsoft-related development. Singularity is not popular and you can see Microsoft’s steps towards the technological trends we can see on the cloud. Navigate your browser to the following link and you will see how Microsoft Azure and PHP are working together – New SDK and Sample Kit demonstrates how to leverage the scalability of Windows Azure with PHP.

This Open Source SDK gives PHP developers a “speed dial” library to take full advantage of Windows Azure’s coolest features.

Spend some time, read it and make your opinion. Craig Kitterman brings multiple examples of software developed for Facebook and other cloud application by leveraging Microsoft Azure and PHP. Deal of the Today is sample application for PHP developers to learn how to take advantage of Microsoft Azure scalability.

What is my conclusion? I can smell ch… ch… change in everything that happens in people behaviors and software development these days. The traditional applications, development stacks and people expectations are moving forward. Gen-Y will be coming to business very soon, and they won’t tolerate existing environment. Everybody understands that, in my view. Is it a time to revise PLM software stacks and axioms? Just my thoughts… Speak your mind, please.

Best, Oleg

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Microsoft Azure and Toyota Cloud: Should PLM Care?

April 10, 2011

I read the following Reuter article: Microsoft Toyota team team up on digital auto network. It made me think about cloud again. Time ago, I wrote about the connection between physical and virtual worlds. I can see Toyota and Microsoft are on the road to think about how to create a cloud network to support car operations. Here is an interesting quote:

Toyota is planning to set up a network based on Microsoft’s Azure "cloud computing" platform by 2015, which would allow customers across the world access to Toyota’s digital services, such as GPS, multimedia, and managing power on electric and hybrid vehicles.

What is my take? The cloud infrastructure is growing. Part of this infrastructure can be leveraged by software vendors. The ability to get an access a car’s operational parameters is a big advantage. To provide a way to optimize these parameters is a potential opportunity. Now, think about even more. The same Toyota cars used by Google for their self drive experiments. So, we have self-driving cars that can optimize their driving parameters. Dream? Think about iPhone back in 2000…

Jut my thoughts.
Best, Oleg

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How to Virtualize PLM?

March 10, 2011

Virtualization becomes an important piece of modern technological solutions. The time of physical servers is over. Businesses are actively seeking how to optimize the IT and backend deployment. As part of these activities, businesses are starting to rely on the ability to virtualize enterprise servers into scalable physical server machines. Another aspect of virtualization are actually coming from the side of "cloud based technologies". Companies like Amazon and Racksapce are focusing on how to provide expandable (elastic) cloud based solution. Good examples here are Amazon EC2 or Rackspace Cloud. However, does it really as simple as it sounds?

I read few articles related to the topic of SQL Server and virtualization. In 2011 SQL Server Market Trending toward cloud virtualization and Are SQL Server BI systems compatible with virtualization? There are some interesting and controversial points made by these articles. Microsoft is trying to play with SQL Azure version to drive their cloud business forward. At the same time, SQL BI tools can provide some important business value propositions for customers to buy them. However, multiple front-end and back-end tools provided by Microsoft, in my view, can introduce some portfolio and end-user acceptance problem. Another part of conversation was about technologies and solution architecture for SQL Server, BI and cloud. The resource sharing which made possible by leveraging virtualization may have some limitation when it comes to SQL, BI and similar application.

These two articles made me think about what will be the next technological steps PLM companies will be taking. PDM/PLM business spent last 15-20 years working on databases. The fundamental PLM believes in database singularity and establishment of a "single point of truth" will face a future challenge with growing introduction of cloud, virtualization and distributed technologies. It will be interesting to see what path PLM companies will be taking in order to move their solutions to cloud? Dassault is making sound statements about Enovia V6 cloud compatibility. Aras (enterprise open source PLM) just announced their cloud availability. In my view, Windchill and Teamcenters are not playing a strong game in building of cloud future and more focused on how to solve enterprise data challenges. I can see them investing in the future "private cloud" technologies and trying to virtualize their current solutions.

What is my conclusion? Virtualization is the name of the future technological change. To build efficient and scalable solutions that can be virtualized to the big enterprise data scale is a future challenge for PLM businesses. I’d like to learn more about how PLM SQL backbones will be transformed and virtualized using future cloud technologies.

Just my thoughts…
Best,Oleg

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PLM In The Azure Box?

July 19, 2010

My new website and blog is BeyondPLM. The original post is here.

If you listened to the news stream from Microsoft Worldwide Partner conference last week, you probably had a chance to get some information about future Microsoft Cloud Strategy.My attention was caught by the following announcement related to Microsoft Azure Appliance.

Microsoft has announced that it will sell Azure appliances to its considerably larger customers. A select few technology giants, along with online shopping portal eBay, have bought Microsoft-specified, pre-configured “cloud-in-a-box” appliances designed to let them run Microsoft’s Platform as a Service (PaaS)offering from their own premises.

If you are not familiar with what is Microsoft Azure, take a look on the following video.

The announcement about Azure Appliance seems to me interesting. The Microsoft’s strategy reminded me some old PDM slogans: In-A-Box. I think, future Azure Appliance can become a silver bullet for today’s PLM vendors looking how to make a complex PLM platform delivery to their big OEM customers. I can see the following key advantages of this solution for customers, PLM vendors and Microsoft:

1. It solves the problem of cloud services, security and privacy.

2. It provides complete platform delivery and cut cost and complexity of installation and configuration.

3. It presents interests of Microsoft and major PLM players to make their enterprise level deliveries.

What is the reaction of PLM vendors? One announcement from Siemens PLM already came from Microsoft WPC. It would be very interesting to see on the reaction of other PLM players as well as a customer’s reaction.

Where is my conclusion? Microsoft Azure Appliance was probably a missing link in the overall Microsoft Cloud Strategies. It will allow to enterprise software providers catch up on cloud world and stay in the comfort zone of Microsoft’s infrastructure. So, life is good? Almost… Large enterprise OEMs have a tendency to make a significant customization and adjustments to PLM solutions. How all these things will be delivered in the Azure-box? A good question…

Best, Oleg

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Azure Goes Live, Will be PLM Impacted?

November 18, 2009

Finally announced by Microsoft – Azure will go to live in January 2010. To make yourself more familiar with Azure, use this link. You can read interesting Q&A on ebiz. However, my main topic to discuss will be how this new cloud platform from Microsoft will impact today’s PLM on-demand status quo?

There are multiple reasons I see Azure have a potential to change PLM landscape.
1. Windows Friendly. Coming from the same Microsoft development shop, Azure will play nice for existing Windows production and development environment.
2. Enterprise Integration. Important topic for PLM. With all available Microsoft Enterprise Servers and solutions, Azure will be more friendly in this space too. Microsoft will take care about minimal set of applications unlocked and integrated for cloud.
3. Bridge to existing solutions. I’d expect an easier path to migrate from today’s Microsoft on premise apps to future Azure applications.

So, what do you think? Until now, vendors in CAD and PLM space haven’t had an opportunity really to compare various cloud options. Amazon ECS was almost only one experimental space where on-demand / SaaS innovation happened. For many years Microsoft had strong focus on developer’s communities. Together with significant impact on enterprise companies today, it can create a critical mass to push Microsoft’s cloud to enterprise customers. Obviously, Microsoft Azure will become Windows-based cloud alternative for organizations closer to friendly and known Windows platform – kind of bridge between today Windows-on-premise and tomorrow’s cloud-y future.

Some interesting photos related to cooling system for containers on PDC.

Just my thoughts.
Best, Oleg

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PLM Prompt: Will PLM adopt Microsoft Azure Dreams?

July 19, 2009

Note toward future. After long Microsoft related discussion about Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, final, and more future oriented, prompt about coming Microsoft Azure platform. Microsoft will not be first in this cloud-services game. Nevertheless, may be some of PLM providers will find benefits to run on top of all possible services available from MS Azure Datacenters.

If you explore initial page of Azure Services, you can see .NET, Live, SQL services, but not only. There is SharePoint services and, what is remarkable, MS Dynamics CRM services.

Microsoft Azure Services

Microsoft Azure Services

Microsoft is starting their cloud game and announces agreesive cloud computing prices according to the WSJ.

I’m sure, for the moment, there are more questions and not answers. So, Sunday time dreams :) … Azure… what do you think about this?

Best, Oleg

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