Cloud computing offers a new model for rapidly deploying all types of applications. Traditionally server-based applications were deployed on physical servers that were provisioned for the specific context of running the application. With Cloud Computing physical servers no longer apply and instead are replaced by virtual servers.
The benefits of virtual servers
Virtual servers are generic images of an operating systems that can be run concurrently in a physical server thanks to virtualization technology.
A software appliance would be a virtual server image that has been fully contextualized to run a specific application;fully configured and ready to run.
The wide use of this application delivery model brings benefits; the very short time that is now needed for an application to be deployed on the Cloud and the universal computing model for deploying any sort of application. Thus software appliance has replaced server appliance as the low cost technology delivery platform. Designing and provisioning an application simply requires mating of the application to an operating system image. With GNU/Linux native imaging solutions and advanced configurations tools are employed to deliver a minimally provisioned environment for the application to work in the Cloud. Linux is also the universal operating system of reference so application porting and hardware testing are likely to be minor issues.The benefits are dramatic decrease in time to market for new application delivery.
We can help you deploy any application to your specific organization requirements and deliver it to the cloud rapidly. Adopting LAMP (or LAPP) open source enterprise applications for your organization ERP, CRM, CMS, DMS, KMS, Social applications needs can be beneficial to your organization. Many have found that open source applications required very little customization to adapt to their environment while at the same retaining only the most critical proprietary business applications.
Provisioning Linux for a software appliance
As for physical server appliance Linux is the operating system of choice for deploying and maintaining a software appliance. Datacenter automation tools permit to manage any Linux-based appliance throughout the lifecycle of a Cloud Computing based software appliance. Cloud computing by its dynamic nature requires very rapid deployment of engineered image with automatic provisioning or instantiation of that image. This latter step would normally deal with assigning operational parameters to the operating system image, IP adress, DNS, storage allocation and access, enterprise authentication, etc. Image maintenance tasks (post deployment) will generally deal with operating systems related updates, patching and upgrade. ARGSYSTEMS LLC. helps you automatically provision, deploy and support software appliances that power your applications on Cloud Computing.
