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4 • Level 3 corresponds to levels 2 and 3 in Microsoft’s model. Scalability, multitenancy, and customisability through configuration are considered prerequisites, similarly to Microsoft’s level 3. However, the Forrester model adds an additional characteristic: the fact that platforms/vendors at this level of maturity offer single well-defined SaaS applications (e.g. a CRM solution). • Level 4 is for platforms where applications can be extended by additional business logic through custom extensions (beyond configuration) and by third-party packaged SaaS solutions, thus making it possible to build SaaS applications for entire business domains. • Finally, level 5 refers to platforms that satisfy all criteria for level 4, and moreover, are pre-populated with numerous business applications or business services which can be dynamically composed to create tenant-specific or even user-specific SaaS business applications. Considering the state of practice in the contemporary PaaS technology and market space [7, 8, 9] relative to the above maturity criteria, it can be noted that most of today’s PaaS providers are lacking with regard to support for one or more of the following platform capabilities, which are central to a mature PaaS offering: 1. Support for sharing of an application’s codebase or runtime instances by multiple tenants in order to minimise operational costs for the provider (multi-tenancy) 2. Support for modifying/tailoring applications already deployed on the platform (through metadata-driven configurability and/or code-driven customisability) 3. Support for reusing applications that were developed by third parties as building blocks for creating completely new applications (ecosystem-centric extensibility) 4. Support for creating applications without restrictions to a particular business domain such as CRM only (multi-domain applicability) Lacking with respect to the first platform capability, i.e. enabling a multi-tenant infrastructure, severely limits the platform provider’s potential to achieve economies of scale, and inevitably becomes a roadblock for growth in a cloud computing context. Lacking with respect to the other three platform capabilities limits the platform provider’s potential with regard to the emergence of a technology and business ecosystem around the platform. 3 Summary of challenges in the design of the CAST platform The CAST project is working towards the direction of a fully-fledged PaaS model. It is investigating techniques, methods and tools for the realisation of a software platform that overcomes the abovementioned deficiencies in the current state of practice, and enables efficient and effective development, deployment and provisioning of on-demand enterprise software applications. To achieve this goal, the design of the CAST platform needs to address two distinct (but complementary) sets of challenges, which shape the platform’s model of operation and its technical architecture:
5 • Challenges which are generic with regard to cloud infrastructures, such as enabling multi-tenancy, scalability, reliability, security; • Challenges which are specific to application platforms, such as facilitating application reusability, extensibility, configurability, integrability, manageability. The first set of challenges is fundamental to providing any cloud-based service. The second set is fundamental to providing a service on the basis of a PaaS offering. The focus here is supporting application development specifically in the context of a ‘software platform’ [10, 11, 12], and achieving the ‘platform effect’ that has already become very popular outside the cloud computing domain by mobile phone platforms such as Apple’s iPhone. Fundamental to this, is to provide facilities which will act as catalysts for the emergence of an actual ecosystem around the platform. In practical terms, these facilities include enabling application developers to reuse existing applications found on the platform, adapt them to their needs, integrate them with external systems, combine them into new solutions and resell them, while keeping the platform provider’s effort for maintaining the platform and managing the application development/deployment process as low as possible. 4 Main concepts and terminology Before going into further detail with regard to the platform’s model of operation and architecture, it is best to provide an overview of the main concepts and associated terminology. We explain how we use the terms platform, solution, customisation, app, and external service, in the context of the CAST project and this paper. Platform The platform is defined as a software environment used for developing, deploying, and provisioning enterprise software applications. The usage of the platform is offered as a service to developers who are looking to create Web-based on-demand applications. Those developers can be Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) who are looking to create new solutions addressable to entire markets, or IT teams looking to create solutions for specific needs within their own organisations. The platform consists of an execution stack (hardware, server software, databases, application containers, etc), a set of core and optional “building blocks” which are used for developing new applications/solutions, and a set of specialised tools to support the activities of developers and administrators. The platform adheres to the open/closed principle: it is open for extensions through changes at explicitly declared components of the architecture, and closed for any other modifications that could affect its stability and reliability. Solutions A solution is defined as an enterprise software application which is based on the platform and is targeted at a specific market segment (e.g. CRM for insurance companies). Solutions are therefore intended to be marketable to a great number of
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