Software Appliances – The return of the living dead?

2009 was definitely the year of software appliances. That was the year IDC published a report on “The Market for Software Appliances: An Opportunity Poised for Growth”. And it was also the birth of SUSE Studio.

Software appliances became the new trend. But then, somehow, the topic of cloud found its way into the press and into the mind of IT professionals. The conversations around software appliances became quiet.

But now the conversation is back in the form of analytical or big data appliances (e.g., SAP Hana) or virtual or cloud appliances to support virtualization or cloud strategies out of the box. Appliances provide a new value proposition for CIOs looking to avoid complex, error-prone and lengthy system integration efforts and improve user experience. According to Gartner, appliances are one of the “10 Critical Tech Trends For The Next Five Years”.

Take the example of Edumate, headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Edumate offers comprehensive, web-based student learning and management systems for Kindergarten through to year 12 (K–12) schools. Their solution is delivered as a single, pre-configured appliance, which can be seamlessly connected to a school’s network. “We aim to make the Edumate user experience as straightforward as possible, to give users quick and easy to access information they need,” said David Savill, Chief Technology Officer at Edumate. “Many schools also don’t want to go to the hassle of configuring and supporting the solution themselves, so we provide remote management for a great deal of the appliances, handling everything from security updates and patches to monitoring and support.”

In addition, Edumate used SUSE Studio to create a more controlled development and management environment for its educational software appliances. As a result, they are able to slash deployment times by more than 90 percent and cut their image deplyment time from four or five hours to just 20 minutes. Read more about the Edumate appliance solution and learn more about how Integrated Systems can help you.