I was quite busy the last few days and couldn't post this blog. I will try to catch up ...

Lotus Notes has come a long way since the initial release in 1989. Lotus Domino/Notes provides a broad range of functionalities including email, calendaring, mail and more. More info can be found about Lotus Notes in Wikipedia. While Lotus Notes faces competition from products such as Exchange and Share Point, it continues to enjoy a strong following.

With such a large installed based of Domino/Notes out there, a question always comes up about protecting the Notes environment when a disaster strikes. During such situations, revival of a collaboration platform such as Lotus Notes and Domino is essential for the recovery of critical business processes. The Alliances group at VMware has recently published an excellent white paper that describes how VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager enables IBM® Lotus Notes® and Domino® 8.5.1 to be recovered rapidly within defined time frames during a disaster, meeting Recovery Time (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO).

Are there other applications you need more info on how to virtualize? If so, drop me a line. I plan to do the next few blogs around storage (I started my career in storage as a software engineer developing embedded OS in big IBM DASD units).

- Manish.

I am very interested in SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and Cloud based applications delivery. The more I talk to partners and others, the more I get convinced that many classes of applications in not-so-distant future will be delivered to the end-users from a cloud. While CRM or HR applications were the early ones adopted for SaaS (e.g. Salesforce.com, SuccessFactors), many other types of applications are now delivered from a cloud – some with very interesting business models. I want to point out two examples.

FujiFilm Medical – FujiFilm Medical System makes imaging and archival applications, and information systems (Synapse PACS and Synapse RIS). These applications are targeted at healthcare professionals, and enable them to analyze medical images for patient diagnosis. When FujiFilm wanted to expand its presence into smaller clinics, it needed to find a model that will allow its new customers to use these applications without necessarily investing in the resources to deploy and maintain them.  FujiFilm solved this problem by hosting the application and delivering it as a service. In this case, FujiFilm acted as a hoster. There is a case study on this in VMware’s customer reference database site (which is a great tool in itself to find out how different customers are using VMware to increase the efficiency and agility of their data centers)

CloudOne – While FujiFilm Medical used SaaS to extend its business to newer market segments, and to complement its traditional license based software model, CloudOne started as a SaaS vendor from the ground up. What I found interesting about them is what they provide as a service – cloud based development tools. This vendor provides IBM Rational tools to developers for their development work. The tools can be delivered as a service from the company’s cloud (powered by VMware) or the company can take the customer’s existing licenses and manage them. See oncloudone.com.

In future blog posts, I plan to write more about the difference between SaaS and Cloud Based Application Delivery. In the mean time, if you know of any Cloud success story where an ISV is successfully delivering a unique application as a service to end customers, opening up a new market for themselves or just successfully delivering a traditional app as a service, I would like to find out more. Drop me a note. If there are other questions on Cloud/SaaS/partnership you have, drop me a note and I will try to address them in subsequent entries.

- Manish.