{"id":7924,"date":"2021-03-15T10:14:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T14:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/?p=7924"},"modified":"2025-04-24T10:58:29","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T14:58:29","slug":"theres-cloud-and-theres-true-cloud-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/theres-cloud-and-theres-true-cloud-2\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s cloud and there\u2019s true cloud"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header has-dark-background-color entry-header--has-illustration entry-header--has-illustration--generic\">\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__row row align-center\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"col col-lg-7 col-xlg-6 entry-header__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"component component-single-header\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__misc text--subtitle text--uppercase text--small\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/category\/technology-innovation\/\" class=\"entry-header__link\">Technology &amp; Innovation<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-title-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"entry-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThere\u2019s cloud and there\u2019s true cloud\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"entry-header__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<div class=\"single-post-details container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"col\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"posted-on \"><time class=\"entry-date published\" datetime=\"2021-03-15T10:14:00-04:00\">March 15, 2021<\/time><\/span><span class=\"reading-time\"> min read<\/span>\n\t\t<button\n\t\t\ttype=\"button\"\n\t\t\tclass=\"social-share-button button button--icon button--secondary js-social-share-button\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-title=\"There\u2019s cloud and there\u2019s true cloud\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-url=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/theres-cloud-and-theres-true-cloud-2\/\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-text=\"Please read this interesting article\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__share-label\">Share<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-label\" hidden>Copy Link<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-tooltip\" aria-hidden=\"true\" hidden>Copied<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/header>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-post-author has-dark-background-color alignfull\">\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"col\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"co-authors\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-author-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t<a class=\"entry-author\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/author\/bobshawgo\/\">\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/03\/BOB-SHAWGO-350x350.jpg\" class=\"entry-author__image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/03\/BOB-SHAWGO-350x350.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/03\/BOB-SHAWGO-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/03\/BOB-SHAWGO.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 40px) 100vw, 40px\" \/>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"entry-author__name\">Bob Shawgo<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When a company chooses a cloud service, they have certain expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">First off, most companies plan to enjoy the cost savings in IT\u2014not having to maintain a powerful, scalable server with guaranteed up time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Rather than paying for room to grow, they anticipate that the service will be able to expand during times of peak demand\u2014referred to as elasticity. Second, they expect fresh software that they don\u2019t have to update. The provider updates the software at frequent intervals for all subscribers. Third, flexible costs allow them to pay for just the features, number of users, and server space they need, when they need it. And lastly, they expect to access the service from anywhere, even mobile devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">These are the expectations of cloud, but do these expectations always align with reality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It seems like every new service hosted on the internet gets labeled cloud. But are all cloud services the same in terms of benefits\u2014especially over the long-term? I recently came across an article that listed the three indicators of true cloud as \u201cmobility, personalization, and integration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">These three things are a natural outgrowth of true cloud but can easily be baked into other solutions trying to mimic true cloud without the key ingredients that lead to a superior service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">As we look at the cloud space, we can drop services into four buckets:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Cloud Infrastructure:<\/strong> Technologies required to build cloud solutions, often used for building private cloud-like services. (Amazon Web Services, Heroku)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Cloud Hosted:<\/strong> Often an application set up for a specific client, that comes close to emulating true cloud, but without the innovation, integration connections, multi-tenant delivery, and flexible costs. (hosted WordPress, hosted Drupal)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>True Cloud:<\/strong> Delivered in the public cloud (generally) and with multi-tenancy, elastic infrastructure, high configurability, self-service expansion, and integration APIs. (Salesforce, Sage Intacct)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Platform Hosted<\/strong>: Services built on top of existing cloud platforms that benefit from the platform\u2014a way of creating specialized business offerings without building out all the underlying infrastructure. (Financial Force, Gainsight)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Let me layout a few key definitions, most of which spring out of multi-tenancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Multi-tenancy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Multi-tenancy gets thrown around cloud discussions a lot. That\u2019s because it\u2019s a big deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">A multi-tenant system essentially has all the clients residing on a single code base or set of applications. Rather than installing a new set of applications and a database for every client, the service has one application and one big shared database serving all the clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The significance comes out in a couple of ways. Rather than rolling out new, limited space for each client, multi-tenant services focus on making the service bigger, broader, and more dynamic to handle whatever load clients need to throw at it. And when a multi-tenant service updates their code, everybody gets the update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Because a multi-tenant service provides a single code base to a broad audience, it also has more interest in making that system configurable by the client, allowing the client to use self-service tools to help them grow at their own pace, not the pace of the provider\u2019s service department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Integration connections or APIs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/enhancing-integration-sales-and-accounting\/\">Integration connections,<\/a> also called application programming interfaces (APIs), allow a cloud service to talk to other services. The most common and least expensive options are between cloud services with built-in APIs. For example, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/sage-business-cloud\/intacct\/\">Sage Intacct<\/a> connects with Salesforce using APIs. This allows Sage Intacct to receive sales orders from Salesforce for processing and billing, while at the same time pushing order processing and customer payment information to Salesforce for sales visibility. Pure cloud services make this kind of connection easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Stacking up cloud categories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">As you consider the expected benefits from a cloud service, you\u2019ll hit limitations on the first two in a couple different ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>On cloud infrastructure<\/strong>, you don\u2019t benefit from freshness, because the solution, though very specific, has to be updated at the client\u2019s direct expense. It\u2019s unlikely that you\u2019ll achieve the scalability of a multi-tenant system, because there hasn\u2019t been any reason to build elasticity into the application itself, even though the infrastructure itself has amazing elasticity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>On cloud hosted services<\/strong>, you\u2019re closer to the ideal cloud solution. The drawbacks are the lack of effortless updates and elasticity. It\u2019s like having a desktop application delivered over the web. With a solution posted to the cloud client by client, updates are time consuming and not likely to come at frequent intervals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">For much the same reasons, elasticity isn\u2019t built into the system. It\u2019s configured to function at a certain level, based on initial requirements. Growth has to be handled by engaging the vendor. This can also lead to customization lock in, where companies fail to make changes to customizations because of the cost and complexity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Recommendations for cloud services seem to land squarely on <strong>true cloud<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It\u2019s the one system that delivers on all the expected benefits. One benefit above all others may be why true cloud services lead out on innovation. As a true cloud service works to meet the needs of a broad set of customers, they continually innovate to stay ahead of changes and possible disruptions in their area of expertise. This includes maintaining nearly unlimited computing capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">For example, a cloud financial service like Sage Intacct will adapt early to a new accounting regulation like ASC 606 so that clients can transition to the new regulation without a disruption in benefits. This adaptation will often lead to more circumspect solutions as it did with Sage Intacct\u2019s ASC 606 leading to advances in subscription billing on multi-element arrangements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The fourth category, <strong>platform hosted<\/strong>, grows out of true cloud as providers allow others to leverage their infrastructure to build additional services. The Salesforce platform Force.com is an example of a space where cloud enhanced services can be built and deployed for clients. They have many of the advantages of the Force.com platform with a few drawbacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The main drawback is their dependence on functionality provided by Force.com. They have to work within the constraints placed on them by the platform. They can never create a service that goes beyond the limits of the platform they\u2019ve chosen. In that regard, they are unlikely to be innovative visionaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">As an innovator in the cloud space, starting the same year as Salesforce, before anyone had coined the terms Cloud or even SaaS, Sage Intacct has been able to follow and hone a pure cloud model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Sage Intacct was built from the ground up to deliver multi-tenant financial management over the internet, on a platform purpose-built for finance. As you consider your cloud strategy, you would be well served to look carefully at services, like&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/sage-business-cloud\/intacct\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sage Intacct<\/a>, built from the ground up to deliver on the promises of cloud computing.<\/p>\n \n<div class=\"single-cta gated-content\">\n\t<div class=\"single-cta__positioner\">\n\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__wrapper has-dark-background-color\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"single-cta__title h3\">CFO 3.0 &#8211; Digital transformation beyond financial management<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>CFOs are playing a key role in digital transformation. Learn how you can move from a &#8216;historian&#8217; to a &#8216;visionary&#8217; within your business.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\t\t\t\thref=\"#gate-bd2874c4-655e-43f1-95ce-d4ba1cb819e5\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tclass=\"single-cta__button button button--primary\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t>Download your free guide<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__downloads\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t2,508 readers have downloaded this guide\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1064\" height=\"810\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/01\/CFO-3-1064x810.jpg\" class=\"single-cta__image\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/01\/CFO-3-1064x810.jpg 1064w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 48em) 33vw, 100vw\" \/>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"single-cta\">\n\t<div class=\"single-cta__positioner\">\n\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__wrapper has-dark-background-color\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"single-cta__title h3\">Subscribe to our Sage Advice Newsletter<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Get our latest business advice delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\t\t\t\thref=\"#gate-ab515c6e-7e90-4c2f-a67e-113872516e8b\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tclass=\"single-cta__button button button--primary\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t>Subscribe<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1440\" height=\"810\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1073797282-1440x810.jpg\" class=\"single-cta__image\" alt=\"Working from home with tea in hand\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1073797282-1440x810.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 48em) 33vw, 100vw\" \/>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a company chooses a cloud service, they have certain expectations. First off, most companies plan to enjoy the cost savings in IT\u2014not having to maintain a powerful, scalable server with guaranteed up time. Rather than paying for room to grow, they anticipate that the service will be able to expand during times of peak [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1212,"featured_media":9252,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sage_video":false,"post_featured_image_hide":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[346,184],"business_type":[41],"lilypad":[],"context":[],"industry":[51,50,57,52],"persona":[100,98],"imagine_tag":[209],"coauthors":[624],"class_list":["post-7924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology-innovation","tag-cloud-technology","tag-construction-it","business_type-growing-business","industry-chemical","industry-construction-and-real-estate","industry-financial-services","industry-food-beverage"],"sage_meta":{"region":"en-us","author_name":"Bob Shawgo","featured_image":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1328659820.jpg","imagine_tags":{"209":"Accounting"}},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Sage Advice US","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/9252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7924"},{"taxonomy":"business_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/business_type?post=7924"},{"taxonomy":"lilypad","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/lilypad?post=7924"},{"taxonomy":"context","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/context?post=7924"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=7924"},{"taxonomy":"persona","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/persona?post=7924"},{"taxonomy":"imagine_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/imagine_tag?post=7924"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}