A QuinStreet EXECUTIVE BRIEF © 2016

• Building traditional test/dev environments is an inefficient use of valuable time and resources

• Today’s agile software vendors are moving to a cloud-based approach for test/dev

• Oracle Cloud lets you build, enhance, and test new software without incurring CAPEX costs, while keeping OPEX costs down

In this Paper

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ISVs Shifting App Testing and Development to the Cloud Cuts Costs and Saves Time

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ISVs Shifting App Testing and Development to the Cloud Cuts Costs and Saves Time

A QuinStreet EXECUTIVE BRIEF © 2016 2

“Building traditional test/dev environments is an inefficient use of valuable time and resources.”

Accomplishing all of these things can drain resources. IT

organizations spent $300 billion worldwide on test/dev last

year.1 Additionally, about half that amount is spent on typical on-

premises test/dev processes requiring procurement, installation,

and configuration of the requisite servers, storage, databases,

operating systems, and testing tools. All that setup and

configuration must happen before the actual development and

testing work starts. These delays only multiply with each new

project a software vendor takes on.

One way to improve the process is to leverage a cloud platform

for continuously developing, testing, deploying, and updating

software. However, to reap the greatest benefits of using this

approach, the selected cloud platform must have certain

characteristics.

Finding the Right Cloud Platform

A growing number of software vendors are working with public

cloud services. As a result, most software vendors know a cloud

platform approach can complement their organization’s testing

and development efforts and work nicely within a DevOps or

agile development environment.

In general, there are several types of test/dev application

workloads that are being moved to the cloud. They include:

• Java Enterprise Edition (EE) applications, many of which are

key to business success

Introduction

The days of issuing a new software release once a year

are long gone. Software vendors need to adapt to today’s

marketplace, where users expect frequent updates that include

enhancements, fast fixes to problems, and the incorporation of

user-suggested features and capabilities. Software vendors that

do not adapt to this new approach will potentially lose business

to agile competitors that do.

To address the demanding and dynamic software market,

vendors need a highly flexible test/dev environment that can be

spun up quickly with built-in tools for continuous development

and integration, collaboration, and deployment. Building

traditional test/dev environments is often inefficient. Valuable

time and resources can be wasted while waiting for the funds to

acquire hardware and for IT to prioritize the project. Instead, to

save both money and time, today’s agile software vendors are

moving to a cloud-based approach for test/dev.

The Cloud Improves on Traditional Development

The ability to move quickly and identify and seize opportunities is

critical. Customers expect new features to be added continuously

to enhance the usefulness of their software. And they expect the

vendor to be responsive to requests for new capabilities and quickly

fix bugs, performance issues, or other problems as they arise.

In particular, developers and testers need suitable hardware

(including servers, storage, and networking gear), as well as

OS software, drivers, databases, middleware, and development

tools. They need access to popular development languages,

such as JavaScript, Java, and Node.JS.

ISVs Shifting App Testing and Development to the Cloud Cuts Costs and Saves Time

A QuinStreet EXECUTIVE BRIEF © 2016 3

A vendor needs to pick a cloud partner that can maximize these

benefits and allow the flexibility to move between on-premises

and the cloud.

Selecting the Right Cloud Platform Partner

Oracle’s Cloud provides the features and services needed to

realize the true benefits of using a cloud platform throughout an

application’s lifecycle from development and testing, through

deployment. This helps a software vendor more rapidly make

updates to fix problems and meet user requests for new features

and functionality. As a result, a vendor can focus on innovating

instead of infrastructure issues.

Further, with the Oracle Cloud, a vendor can build, enhance,

and test new software without incurring CAPEX costs, while

keeping OPEX costs down since there is no need to maintain the

infrastructure. The Oracle Cloud also lets a vendor shut down

an environment once development and testing are complete,

avoiding the OPEX costs of maintaining IT equipment.

Java EE remains one of the most popular environments to build

critical business and enterprise applications. The Oracle Java

Cloud Service offers all of the benefits of the cloud to Java EE

applications, allowing a software vendor to create a production-

ready environment for new applications within minutes.

Oracle Java Cloud Services is based on Oracle WebLogic Server,

the industry’s leading application server. Complementing

this, Oracle Developer Cloud Service lets you quickly and

• Mobile apps, which are becoming increasingly more common

as companies enhance their mobile strategies

• JavaScript and REST-based applications that focus on

lightweight development and customer experience

• Standard Java applications that companies wish to offload to

the cloud

• .NET and Windows-based applications

Building and updating these types of applications requires a

seamless way to move between a cloud service and on-premises

setting. Developers and testers must have all of the needed

development, testing, and quality control/assurance tools

available in both environments.

The Benefits of a Hybrid Strategy

Unfortunately, most leading cloud service providers do not offer

the same tools and solutions in the cloud as they do on-premises,

and sometimes force developers to use specific tools supported

by the provider. There also needs to be a flexible way to

seamlessly use on-premises and cloud environments. This lets a

software developer keep development behind its firewall to satisfy

regulatory requirements, while leveraging public cloud services for

fast scale-up of development and test environments.

The cloud platform a vendor selects must offer openness and

choice. As a result, developers and testers should be able to work

with both leading industry solutions and open source tools.

Using cloud for test/dev offers several advantages to on-

premises environments including:

• Cost savings: Pay only for the resources used, only for as long

as they are needed

• Time savings: Cloud self-service provides access to

infrastructure in minutes or hours, rather than weeks or

months spent procuring and setting up new hardware

• Experimentation: Developers can try out configuration

changes and run tests in parallel, eliminating wait times.

ISVs Shifting App Testing and Development to the Cloud Cuts Costs and Saves Time

A QuinStreet EXECUTIVE BRIEF © 2016 4

“Cloud for test/dev offers several advantages to on-premises environments.”

Summary

The Oracle Cloud enables agile development, providing an

unlimited number of development and testing services without

the need to build and maintain this infrastructure. Based on a

common set of open industry-standard technologies, the Oracle

Cloud enables a software vendor to automatically provision

new development platforms, manage tasks, and track builds

throughout the entire application development lifecycle.

Oracle also provides maximum flexibility through an integrated

set of cloud solutions to develop and deploy Java SE, JavaScript,

HTML5, and REST applications. This comprehensive offering

gives you many deployment choices for both cloud and on-

premises deployment.

Oracle Cloud platform services enable a software vendor to

accelerate innovation, avoid complexity, and lower testing and

development costs, with a broad portfolio of subscription-based

cloud offerings to support all of your applications.

For more information about how Oracle Cloud can help, visit:

https://cloud.oracle.com/tryit

1 http://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2016/02/03/how

-to-save-150-billion-move-all-app-dev-and-testing-to-the

-cloud/#2a56320e7130

automatically provision new development environments, manage

tasks, track builds, and collaborate with other developers

globally. Better yet, Oracle Developer Cloud Servce is included

with each Oracle Java Cloud Service subscription, and supports

all the commonly used tools including Eclipse, NetBeans, and

Oracle JDeveloper.

Choose Oracle for Development Platform Flexibility

Today, software vendors require support for different

development and deployment scenarios. To accommodate this,

Oracle offers the Application Container Cloud Service for Java,

JavaScript, and Node.js workloads. This service is optimized to

run server-side JavaScript-based functionality using the popular

Node.js platform, in addition to Java Standard Edition (Java SE).

As a result, it supports Java applications that do not require a full

Java EE infrastructure. This includes support for Spring, Jersey,

Tomcat and Play, and can run other JVM-based languages such

as JRuby, Jython, and Closure.

Oracle Cloud platform service offerings accommodate a wide

range of development scenarios. Whether a software vendor is

developing and deploying Java EE applications or mobile apps,

Oracle Java Cloud Service, Oracle Developer Cloud Service, and

Oracle Mobile Cloud Service include the tools and utilities that

a software vendor needs. All of these offerings are based on

Oracle’s field-tested, industry-leading middleware and database

solutions.