In the cloud computing Google group, there was this interesting question asked: what cloud services can a small IT firm provide? This firm specializes in consulting, development and management. I replied to this question however I’m posting it on my blog as well.

An IT services firm can offer turnkey solutions involving business modeling, requirements gathering, analysis/design, development, deployment and management for applications/services using compute clouds (such as Amazon EC2, GoGrid, AppNexus etc). While business modeling and requirements gathering remain mostly unchanged from the traditional (non cloud) application development or hosting, however, the differences from traditional practices are mentioned below:

a. Application design would include architectural strategy and heuristics. For example, when to use components such as Amazon’s SQS for business benefits etc.

b. Application deployment or delivery can include packaging techniques such as a virtual appliance. This can further be extended to a full-fledged cloud service. For example a utility component in the application can be provisioned as a service.

c. Integration among various services such as using any of the SaaS integrators or online message queue service providers. SaaS integration would involve configuration, however, message queuing would involve coding.

One important thing to note is to make sure that any cloud service that you would use satisfies a business need or improves the efficiency of a business process.