Best practices in Cloud and SaaS: A special feature

Cloud computing in general and Software as a Service in particular have developed into an irresistible force. These resources can help you do it right.

In five years, cloud computing has gone from a pariah in IT circles to one of IT's favorite plays to run in certain situations. TechRepublic and ZDNet have zeroed in on one aspect of cloud computing -- Software as a Service -- and put together a set of resources to help leaders make good decisions about when and how to best take advantage of the cloud.

You can find the special feature over on ZDNet. It's called Cloud: How to Do SaaS Right.

As you're probably aware, there are several different flavors of cloud computing but the two main categories are Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). SaaS is all about applications in the cloud. We're talking about things like Salesforce.com, Workday, Google Apps, Zoho, SugarCRM and vertical line-of-business apps hosted by a cloud provider.

Meanwhile, IaaS is more of a data center replacement. That's where players like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, Vmware, and Citrix come in. For our March special feature on cloud computing, we focused on SaaS and saved IaaS for its own dedicated coverage. In fact, we'll be partially covering it in April when as part of our special feature on "The 21st Century Data Center" and we'll also have a dedicated IaaS series in the second half of 2013.

For SaaS, we have attempted to swarm that aspect of cloud computing from a bunch of different angles. Our coverage includes:

Original research on what tech leaders say about cloud capabilities and limitationsAn executive guide (free ebook) on SaaS best practicesA video from Larry Dignan and I on making good SaaS decisionsAn overview of the leading SaaS vendorsA SaaS cheat sheetAn overview of what you need to know about compliance and regulations in relation to SaaS

Go to the special feature page to read these articles and download the PDFs.