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BPM vital as cloud computing rises

Cindy Cheng, ​Sr. Director of Marketing Communications, EMEA, Appian
February 20, 2013

Many organizations have been turning to cloud computing to give them a more cost-effective way to access IT resources. This trend will likely continue to move forward, especially as the cloud's maturation reveals that its benefits go far beyond cost-related issues. As companies invest more heavily in the cloud, they have to consider ways to improve their processes in light of the technology's architecture. Business process management software can play a vital role in this movement, giving organizations the integration and automation capabilities they need to adapt their day-to-day processes to the cloud.

According to a recent CloudTweaks report, availability is emerging as a major motivating point for companies considering investments in the cloud.

Cloud computing and availability

The availability issue is a major problem for many businesses, as organizations that depend heavily on their web presence to engage customers and support IT services require high levels of uptime. The news source said that many organizations are finding that cloud computing is actually improving the availability landscape for companies.

Pointing to a study from a software provider, the news source explained that most corporate data centers average an availability rate of between 95 and 98.5 percent. While such numbers are somewhat encouraging, the cloud is able to offer much higher availability rates. The study discovered that the average cloud availability rate is approximately 99.95 percent. This positions organizations that invest in cloud computing to maximize the value of their web services by ensuring they are available at the highest rate possible.

Considering the importance of BPM in the cloud landscape

As availability improves and cloud systems mature in general, the move toward cloud computing will likely increase in the enterprise sector. This creates an environment in which many businesses will soon be looking at a completely new way of accessing technology. Instead of having a data center that is tightly managed by IT as the central point for technological services, organizations will increasingly depend on multiple cloud and data center service providers along with an internal IT setup. Integrating these architectures and getting them to work in conjunction with one another is key to ensuring smooth business processes on a day-to-day basis.

Using BPM software, companies can position themselves to take full advantage of the cloud by aligning their operations to the various technological systems organizations can access. This enables IT to take a more strategic role in operations and play a key role in ensuring a smooth transition into a new era of enterprise technology.

Cindy Cheng

Director of Product Marketing

Cindy Cheng