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05 May 2011
SAP is blaming cloud computing giant Amazon Web Services (AWS) for difficulties it says the industry is experiencing selling software-as-a-service.
Sanjay Poonen, head of SAP’s global solutions business, told Bloomberg that the Amazon outage, which occurred over a week ago, has made it harder to convince customers of the benefits of cloud computing.
"It was a tough week,” he reportedly said of the incident. “We’ll have to work harder to make people comfortable with where cloud computing is.”
The outage left many AWS customers' web services crippled or inaccessible for a period of several days.
Industry analysts have said the outage should serve as a lesson for all enterprises considering moving to cloud platforms. Meanwhile, IDC analyst David Bradshaw said he had sympathy with SAP’s point of view.
“If a major service outage occurs, people will be worried about the availability of the services depending on it. People don’t want to find that business-dependent services cannot be accessed because of an outage,” he told V3.co.uk.
Bradshaw argued that the extent to which the outage affects other cloud computing vendors will depend on how businesses interpret Amazon’s explanation of the outage.
AWS said that it was caused by a misdirected software upgrade, which shifted large amounts of traffic onto systems not configured to handle the load. This triggered further outages before the problem was resolved.
“If this is proved an exceptional event that is not necessarily going to be duplicated by other service providers, there will be less damage to the cloud computing industry than if the outage is seen as a problem in the general cloud infrastructure,” said Bradshaw.
SAP has previously admitted that it is encountering problems selling its Business ByDesign software-as-a-service offering. The product was launched in 2007 but, because of technical problems with its architecture, it was ready for widespread deployment only last year.
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SAP needs a scapegoat
First, it seem a poor strategy to have your company name (SAP) associated in any article with a massive technology failure. But no one has claimed that SAP has much marketing talent.... Clearly SAP is so far behind the curve on a SaaS offering that they will take any opportunity to blame their failings on another. How long have they been promising Business By Design? Either they don't get it, don't want to actually eat away at their traditional license/ maintenance revenue, or... well, probably one of those two. Of course corporate IT shoppers should be cautious of the potential downside of storing sensitive data and business applications in the cloud. The AWS outage is a clear reminder of this. But I don't think this is going to turn the tide away from IT strategies that include moving more and more applications to the cloud. SAP has a lot more to do with SAP's difficulties than Amazon...
Posted by: Psycho774 09 May 2011
There's a dark cloud over "the cloud"
SAP is correct. Amazon's outage and Sony's huge security breach should scare anyone who's thinking about the cloud. The cloud will eventually be an "everyday platform" but it'll take a few years before users are very comfortable storing their data in "thin air". This will also make Microsoft think twice about releasing its much hyped Office365 because its target audience, SMB/SME is apprehensive by nature. Add to that these events and MS will have to do more than give the product away to lure these businesses.
Posted by: Georg Greve 05 May 2011
SAP Complaint on Cloud Disruption
SAP has difficulty selling its product because the product is poorly designed and limited in its capabilities. Other cloud vendors, one of which I am a part, are experiencing record sales of cloud products in the face of this disruption from Amazon.
Posted by: Mike 05 May 2011