Hybrid Cloud Symmetry for PaaS

This can be accomplished by either partnering with leading private platform as a service vendors or by releasing some parts of Azure on-premises. True hybrid cloud ensures that functionality in both the public and private components of the hybrid cloud are equal. Given that Azure is a public cloud only, Microsoft needs to provide equal functionality on-premises through product releases or partnerships.

Azure should supply capabilities to help ISV’s adopt a software as a service technical and business model. Cloud computing does not inherently “SaaSify” on-premises ISV software.

Microsoft should put more emphasis on cloud PaaS technology and partnerships that improve application architectures.

The platform should ensure that both public and private cloud stories incorporate strong elements that promote removing friction in application management.

Provide technology or partnerships to ensure that public and private PaaS offerings can readily access against multiple clouds.

Microsoft’s cloud should apply standardized APIs and protocols necessary to enable applications across platforms to properly communicate with each other.

Provide prescriptive recommendations for how to build public, private and hybrid clouds. This should include technology recommendations.

The cloud service should provide business and technical model guidance to ISV’s tackling the monumental shift from packaged to cloud software delivery.

Although Microsoft has improved markedly in this area over the last three years (frankly, it has had to, with the preponderance of Linux and Apache in systems), many developers and IT managers remain unconvinced that the Redmondians are strongly behind open source.

Let’s face it, more and more systems are using multiple hypervisors for different functionality inside data centers. Hyper-V picks and chooses which applications it supports. Data center managers would prefer not to have to deal with this divisiveness.