RALEIGH, N.C. — October 15, 2008 — rPath today announced its Cloud Computing Adoption Model, which defines a pragmatic, five-step approach for the graduated adoption of cloud computing. The Cloud Computing Adoption Model will be rolled out on Oct. 23, as part of an rPath webinar featuring guests Amazon Web Services, Forrester Research and MomentumSI.

"These days, it seems like everything is being labeled cloud, from data centers to browsers," said Billy Marshall, rPath founder and chief strategy officer. "We very much believe in the transformational potential of cloud, but also realize that hype, platitudes and empty promises will only stall mainstream adoption. We developed the Cloud Computing Adoption Model to provide a series of pragmatic guidelines for the incremental adoption of the technologies that create the foundation for cloud, while ensuring these investments yield a progressive series of returns."

According to Frank Gillett, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research in an interview published by Beet.TV on September 26, 2008, "Cloud Computing is a very confusing topic…all the marketers are getting out their cans of cloud spray and spraying 'cloud' on many of their products and offerings...But then, underneath all that innovation, there are some true, real new ideas...The impact is revolutionary in the long run, but all this hype in the short run is overblown. We’re going to baby-step our way into this like we do a lot of other technologies..."

A Pragmatic, Incremental Approach to Cloud Computing

Cloud computing holds real promise for enterprises, SMBs, as well as the ISVs and individual developers serving them. Among other benefits, cloud computing can help organizations:

• reduce capital and operating expenses by increasing infrastructure utilization and reducing server sprawl;
• reduce the cost of software consumption by allowing business lines to consume application functionality on demand and to align cost with value received; and
• dramatically improve business agility and responsiveness by compressing deployment cycles and time-to-value for application functionality.

To help organizations realize the promise and avoid the perils of cloud computing, the Cloud Computing Adoption Model provides a pragmatic, actionable, step-by-step framework for achieving measurable benefits now, while laying the foundation for the strategic benefits of a cloud infrastructure over time. The five levels of cloud computing adoption include:

• Level 1: Virtualization. The first level of cloud adoption employs hypervisor-based infrastructure and application virtualization technologies for seamless portability of applications and shared server infrastructure.
• Level 2: Cloud Experimentation. Virtualization is taken to a cloud model, either internally or externally, based on controlled and bounded deployments utilizing Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for compute capacity and as the reference architecture.
• Level 3: Cloud Foundations. Governance, controls, procedures, policies, and best practices begin to form around the development and deployment of cloud applications. Initially, level 3 efforts will focus on internal, non-mission critical applications.
• Level 4: Cloud Advancement. Governance foundations allow organizations to scale up the volume of cloud applications through broad-based deployments in the cloud
• Level 5: Cloud Actualization. Dynamic workload balancing across multiple utility clouds. Applications are distributed based on cloud capacity, cost, proximity to user, and other criteria.

For each level, The Cloud Computing Adoption Model outlines strategic goals, investment requirements, expected returns, risk factors, and readiness criteria for advancement. The upcoming webinar, "The Pragmatist's Guide to Cloud Computing: A 5-Step Framework for Achieving the Strategic Value of Cloud Computing While Delivering Real ROI Along the Way," will be held Thursday, October 23, 2008, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time/2:00 p.m. Eastern time. The webinar will feature guest speakers Jeff Barr, senior Amazon Web Services evangelist; Frank Gillett, vice president and principal analyst, Forrester Research; Billy Marshall, founder and chief strategy officer, rPath; and Jeff Schneider, CEO of MomentumSI. All registrants will receive a complimentary copy of "The rPath 5-Step Framework" along with the Forrester Research Paper, "Future View: The New Tech Ecosystems of Cloud, Cloud Services and Cloud Computing." To register for the webinar, please visit http://www.rpath.com/cloudwebinar.

For more information on rPath, please visit http://www.rpath.com. For Billy Marshall’s perspective on software innovation, please visit and subscribe to his RSS feed at http://blogs.rpath.com/wpmu/bmarshall/.

About rPath®

rPath automates system deployment and maintenance across physical, virtual and cloud environments. rPath's innovative release automation platform is based on the industry's only commercial version control repository for managing deployed software systems. The result is an easy-to-deploy and cost-effective automation solution for rapid, low-risk and low-overhead deployment and maintenance of complex software systems. rPath dramatically improves responsiveness to business lines, reduces compliance risks, and allows resource-constrained IT organizations to significantly reduce operating costs and "do more with less." Headquartered in Raleigh, NC, rPath customers include many of the world's largest enterprises and ISVs. Visit www.rpath.com.

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