I’ve been following cloud computing for some time and every day I see that it is accelerating the ripening process and trying to understand its concept and technologies. Today it is clear that, in its various forms, cloud computing has the potential to significantly change the way IT operates, and manages and allocates its budget, and pays for its use by users. Of course it is a change that does not happen abruptly, but gradually.

Public clouds, for example, while still generating fears of security and privacy, which are in my opinion, largely unfounded, no doubt put pressure on the structure of IT. Why keep a set of dedicated servers often idle, and a staff dedicated to operations that do not add value to upgrades of operating system releases if I can transfer this activity to a trusted provider?

Moreover, when analyzing the portfolio of applications in a company, we found that most of them are not strategic or critical to profile data that is not sensitive in terms of security. And we also observed that most of these applications could operate in an environment of less than 95% availability. However, these applications can be moved to public clouds without any major scares. In fact, a public cloud can offer a level of security and availability much higher than that offered in many of today’s data centers to small and medium enterprises.

The topic cloud also begins to permeate discussions of strategic companies. In a meeting with business executives and the CIO of a large company it became clear that they were already considering that a significant portion of its future computing power would be served by public clouds, with a consequent impact on the IT budget,  which will shift the costs of “Capital Expenditure” to “operational Expenditure”.

On the other hand, the concern of disintermediation by IT users in many areas also appeared at the meeting, as they begin to look for other solutions, cloud, SaaS, without even interacting with the CIO. This is a challenge that IT has to face because uncontrolled spread of a cloud for the organization can create problems of integration, lack of adherence to security policies and increase the risk of audit to identify issues of governance.

The CIO has to play a proactive role in the process of adoption of cloud. Indeed, the question is not whether or not to adopt cloud, but what is the pace of adoption. The first step is to identify which applications exist, which may at first go to public cloud and / or private and create a catalog of services and applications that will be available in the clouds.

For example, the CIO can begin reviewing applications available today under two points of view, a level of criticality and the other how they are strategic to the business. Most applications will be below of the critical level and can be transferred to public clouds.

The pressure for cost reduction is constant and note that it is increasing every year. At the same time the complexity of the business environment demands faster responses and increasingly complex IT solutions. Seems an equation without answers, but if we analyze the potential of cloud, we can immediately identify:

1) Move non-critical (and not strategic) applications and not strategic to public clouds,
2) Implement private clouds for certain controlled environments such as development and testing, increasing the cycle
3) Create service catalogs that allow the user to operate in self-service, with minimal interference from IT.

These actions help to better understand what is cloud and its potential while allowing the organization to adjust and refine their governance processes, already contemplating cloud computing. It also helps to more accurately implement charge back processes that are indispensable when it comes to cloud computing.

Services to create a catalog that includes internal and external applications (SaaS), similar to an Apple AppStore is an innovative and highly efficient way of providing services to users. The IT department can and should define the rules of the game: Which applications can enter the catalog? The IT department should establish an approval process that can evaluate cloud providers and SaaS applications available. Thus, IT does not become a bottleneck and at the same time clearly shows that it is actively driving the process of “cloudification” in company.

The important thing is that, IT understands that its role does not disappear with the cloud computing model. It remains responsible for providing the best services in the lowest possible cost.

Cloud changes the context: IT is no longer the only provider of the service and should leave this monopoly role and assume a new role. So sometimes the best solution is built, developed and operated by IT and other best alternative is to operate in a public cloud. IT should be at the center of these decisions and for that, the mindset must be changed.

With regard to services, at the present time, the concept of cloud computing involves the provision of the following types of services to its users:

Everything as a Service : This type of service is provided to all users of the software and hardware to control the business processes, including the interaction between users, the user only needs to have access to the Internet.

In my opinion, this kind of service is a general concept with respect to the services. Below mentioned are some of the more special cases.

Infrastructure as a Service : The computing infrastructure is given to the user, typically virtual platforms (PCs) connected to the network. It adjusts itself to suit your purpose.

Platform as a Service : The computing platform is given to the user, with the operating system and required software.

Software as a Service : This type of service is usually positioned as “software on demand“, this software is deployed on remote servers and the user can access it via the Internet, and all updates and licenses for this software is governed by the service provider. Payment in this case is made for actual use of the software.

Hardware as a Service : In this case, the user of the service leases the hardware for his own purposes. This option allows you to save on maintenance of the equipment, but in essence little different from “Infrastructure as a Service” except that you have the bare hardware on which you can deploy your own infrastructure using the most appropriate software.

Workplace as a Service : In this case, the company is using cloud computing for the organization of employment of its employees by setting up and installing the necessary software required to operate personnel.

Data as a Service : The main idea of this type of service lies in the fact that the user is provided with storage space, which may be used to store large amounts of information.

Security as a Service : This type of service enables users to quickly deploy, allowing products to ensure the safe use of Web technologies security of electronic communications, as well as the safety of the local system, which allows users of the service to save on deploying and maintaining their own security system.

The topic cloud computing, still demands a lot of debate and conflicting opinions, it is already becoming reality. Every day we see the ecosystem built around cloud computing and to consolidate, more and more success stories are published.

I will not quote statistics and forecasts that always come from industry analysts, who provide these stats and estimates agree with each other in numbers.

The three layers of cloud, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS can be viewed as a hierarchy, where the lower layer has IaaS, above it we have the top SaaS and PaaS. The upper layers are built upon the layers below. The benefits obtained are directly related to the layer. That is, the higher the layer, the greater the potential benefits. IaaS can be considered as the commoditized layer, as it basically provides a virtual infrastructure, the users are abstracting the physical equipment. But offers no content. SaaS, in turn, enables a higher level of abstraction, because the User sees only the features of the software without needing to know what technology it uses and need not even bother with version upgrades.

The most emblematic example is the force.com that lets you create applications that extend the functionality of the salesforce. We will see later PaaS is consolidating itself, with its own technologies, separate from SaaS vendors. This will happen with maturity in the use of cloud services, when companies use the SaaS PaaS coupled to identify who will be imprisoned on these platforms.

But it is indisputable that we are still learning to exploit the potential of cloud computing and we will learn much more in the coming years. The first projects have been exploratory, which is natural. What we will see this year? Clouds filled with typical workloads to be outsourced via SaaS and on-premise applications transferred to IaaS clouds. But, although limited in their impact, are paving the way for the full adoption of the model. In fact, the cycles of technological change takes take several years to mature in 2020 and probably cloud computing is commonplace. But if this will happen in 2020, the first steps should be taken now in 2012. Cloud computing is a reality now and should already be on the radar of the IT managers of all firms.

Less well-known technologies like IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, the DaaS or Desktop as a Service, opens the way for a new generation of working environment uncorrelated positions and physical devices.

1. What is behind the acronym DaaS?

Acronym Desktop as a Service (or work environment seen as a service), the DaaS is part of the family of bricks supplied as computer services, alongside the IaaS-Infrastructure as a Service, the PaaS-Platform as a Service, and SaaS-Software as a Service. The DaaS is to deport the management and delivery of work environments (but sometimes applications) in the Cloud Computing.

2. The DaaS is it totally paperless?

Indeed. In this model it comes to providing a work environment (including both the OS, applications, and also the parameters and user preferences) on demand. This is totally uncorrelated from the terminal on which it will be displayed. Thus, a working environment like DaaS will also be distributed on traditional workstations (PCs, laptops), on a smartphone or a tablet.

3. What is the point of DaaS?

It is equivalent to that of the IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. The DaaS avoids the company to acquire assets (servers in the case of IaaS, software in the case of SaaS) recorded in the balance sheet in the form of requiring CAPEX and depreciation. It can instead be accounted for as operating expenses, thus providing flexibility for the accountant (OPEX).

4. What are the differences between the DaaS infrastructure and virtualized desktops (VDI)?

Chronologically, the concept of VDI is before DaaS that appeared over the last three years. As part of an offer to DaaS, the virtualized environment of work is provided by an operator or third party vendor responsible to host, manage and integrate the applications desired by the company. They will be provided in a secure manner from a multi-tenant Cloud, in the form of a subscription to the use of work environments.

For its part, the VDI (for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure ) is a virtualization technology designed to allow the company to virtualize its own working environments, in its own data center for example.

5. The future is in the DaaS?

In the same way that the is software provided on request in the form of services, work environment “as a Service” are required to grow strongly by various research firms, including IDC. If only because they are an opportunity for the company to better control costs and to refocus on business. In addition, unlike the traditional VDI or deployment in workstations, the time of implementation is also very short, which of course will interest companies.

Objectives of any business can be achieved through excellent customer service and different types of services are provided by following Cloud Service Models:

1. SaaS (Software as a Service):

A software release model, SAAS is hosted centrally in the cloud along with its allied data and can be accessible through users by means of web a browser. SaaS is also referred as “on-demand software”. For many business applications such as, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management, business enterprise resource planning, human resource management, content management and service desk management etc, SaaS becomes a general delivery model.

Usually the term SaaS can be precisely used where most of the initial application service providers focus on managing and hosting third-party independent software vendors who are capable enough to build up and run individual software. Also by means of currently used software architecture, cloud computing service providers make a separate instance of an application mandatory for each business, so, to design an application in view of providing multiple businesses and users with corresponding partitioning of data, a multi-tenant architecture as a service solution has been utilized by existing web-based software.

2. PaaS (Platform as a Service):

Using a Cloud service model called as PAAS, applications can be used effortlessly, exclusive of any complication regarding the cost and management of the required hardware and software. As PaaS supports the complete life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services by facilitating design, development, testing, deployment and hosting itself.
Services like team collaboration, web service integration and marshalling, database integration, security, scalability, storage, persistence, state management, facilitation of developer community, application versioning and instrumentation, etc. might be provisioned as an integrated solution over the web.

All these facilities permit customization of the existing SaaS applications which is comparable to the facility of packaged software applications such as Microsoft Word. But, every time developers and users of PaaS need to subscribe SaaS applications, in view of developing a comprehensive environment, stand-alone PaaS environment has been proposed which is free from any type of technical, licensing or financial dependencies based on specific SaaS applications or web services. Still, some PaaS  applications require improvement in the development, debugging and testing capabilities to provide hosting-level services such as security and on-demand scalability etc.

In PaaS, under the concept of Open platform as a service, developers can use any programming language, database, operating system and server too.

3. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service):

To release infrastructure as a fully outsourced service, IaaS is a capital investment-sourced model. As by means of IaaS, all the resources like servers, software licenses, data center space and network equipment etc can be purchased by clients as fully outsourced service only. Hence concerning the customer’s significant project, IaaS through a dedicated hosting environment is the most stout, safe and sound policy.

Advantages of IaaS:

1. Dynamic scaling: capability of scaling up and down the various resource aspects in close to real time, according to varying business requirements.

2. Usage-based pricing: This strategy of IAAS helps customers in purchasing the precise infrastructure which may be required at any particular time by ensuring “just pay for what you use”.

3. Reduced capital and personnel costs: Reduced in-house infrastructure considerably eliminates capital expenditures and enduring cost for workforce and enables any organization to concentrate on core competencies in view of developing and filtering market product offerings more willingly than purchasing hardware accessories.

4. Access to superior IT resources: Unaffordable Enterprise-grade IT infrastructure and engineering resources become accessible to IaaS users.

1. Business value:

Flexibility and ability of matching the cost of the service to the consumption, differentiates cloud computing from other internet services and though critical, this feature creates a new value for business services and enables to develop new business models which have never been tried till now, as Cloud is not a kind of resource expense which can be replaced by means of working costs.

2. Service deployment:

The strength of cloud computing is instantaneous output, as customers can get service within a few minutes only.  But, payment has not been done instantly all the way through typical manual itself.

3. Self-service deployment:

Spontaneous and well defined service provided by cloud computing, can be utilized independently by customers.
All these core fundamentals imply a fully automated service provisioning and for the consumer it means, “Service is in your hand take or leave it!”

Cloud computing, as a service in the form of “IAAS (Infrastructure as a Service)” and “PAAS (Platform as a Service)” by means of Infrastructure and Platform, are evolutionary steps to change its deployment model and the business value in very thoughtful ways. As cloud computing is a completely new part of IT portfolio, just washing up the pre-existing services with a cloud doesn’t make any sense. It’s very important to focus on the things that make cloud computing, original and distinctive in every way.

Now a days as a part of a rapid growth, the traditional concept has been replaced by on-demand service, and that’s why, genuine prospective of SaaS (Software as a Service), has been not fulfilled in a proper way. As in fact, existing products are simply rebranded or just repackaged by vendors.

Similarly, to profit from the wave of cloud computing, pre existing features of cloud computing have been rebranded without any proper functionality. To do this all, concept of Cloud washing is implemented by vendors to convince decision-makers of any business or IT industry that how his strategy is useful to maintain swiftness with the latest innovations in the marketplace. Still, due to a few factors that are lacking, strategy of cloud washing has not been fully implemented yet.

For all industrial applications based on Cloud environment its very beneficial to implement the concept of Cloud scalability. For effective functioning, cloud needs to be designed with provision of everlasting abstract scalability which can be controlled by service, if included in an architecture of cloud based application.  Thus, the service itself manipulates a scalable architecture design of an application, this is why Cloud based application essentially requires scalable architecture design.

NOTE: Cloud infrastructure provides an unbounded scalability.

Requirements of a strictly scalable application as follows:

1. Automatic enhancement of resources derived from demand
2. Operationally competent enough while scaling up and down
3. Safe service
4. Fault tolerant.

Types of Cloud Computing Services Models:

As a part of business objectives, customer service can be provided by means of Cloud Service Models. Basically there are three types of Cloud Service Models as follows:

1. SaaS (Software as a Service)
2. PaaS (Platform as a Service)
3. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

Software as a service (SaaS):

In this type of model, the cloud application is highly controlled by administrative authority and the service Provider is charged for updates, development, maintenance and security. Thus, the service provider controls the final authority over the whole application and the end user is totally free from any service issues.

Example of SaaS is Gmail, where Google is the provider and we are just end users.

SaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control:

Despite of organizations and enterprises, an individual can be a subscriber or user of SaaS.
In most of the cases, calculation of usage fee depends on the number of users.

For example: Google Apps for business, individually charges fees for more than 10 users,
In SAAS, in spite of concentrating on hardware maintenance, infrastructure management, job hiring and retaining etc, center of attention needs to be the business.

Need of SAAS:

In the cloud applications, SAAS can be implemented by means of productivity and collaboration, to make the task a little bit easier for HR, PayRoll and Sales

Cloud based Storage and sharing services like Dropbox, Windows Live, Amazon S3, Google Docs and Box.net etc.

NOTE: Individual use of more than 30 Google Cloud Services is example of SAAS itself.

PaaS (Platform as a Service):

A policy to develop, test and deploy a software is practically known as platform and entire SDLC is operated on a service model called as PAAS. PaaS is dedicated to application developers, testers and administrators. Everything required to build up a cloud SaaS application, is provided by PAAS.

PaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control:

On an average, development environment, programming languages, compilers, testing tools and deployment mechanism etc are included in PaaS.

For example: In Google Apps Engine (GAE), the developer downloads the development environment, locally in the developer’s infrastructure otherwise accesses tools in the provider’s infrastructure through a browser.

Independent Software Vendors, IT Service providers or even individual developers wishing to develop SAAS, can become subscribers of PaaS.

Need of PAAS:

Developer needs to concentrate on just the application development as the platform itself takes care of everything.

IaaS:

A range of of virtual computers, cloud storage, network infrastructure components like firewalls and configuration services etc, is nothing but IaaS.

The System Administrators are the subscribers of this service and by considering per hour CPU utilization, storing of data, network bandwidth and infrastructure consumed respectively, the cost can be added and services can be used.

For example: monitoring, auto-scaling etc.

Fees structure of IAAS depends on all the above mentioned factors and can be calculated by considering each of them.

IaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control:

In case of a newly established company, IAAS can be very useful in launching any application or website.

The term “cloud computing solutions“ has been widely discussed by market researchers and trends in information technology. For many, it means a new technology or even architecture for the consumption of services over the internet. But its significance is much broader, and is not restricted to the use of technology, software, hardware or platform.

When we speak about “cloud”, we are not discussing about a new technology or architecture, but a new form of delivery of information technology to reduce costs, better utilization of resources through rational use and demand.

The pillars of this new form of delivery are determined by the use of structures already known:

SaaS - Way of delivering software as services based on the rental of software through a service provider, the Internet or dedicated connection. Provides streamlined licensing costs of software and support, can be hired for periods of use;

PaaS - Form of delivery of the software development platform through standards. Can manage the entire development cycle, ensuring the testing, approval and entry into production of the product developed. You can also support the operation execution of administrative routines and coordinate updates of the platform;

IaaS - Form of delivery of the hardware platform such as servers, storage, networking and implementation of various other technologies that can provide high availability, scalability and security.

The set of structures that conceptualize cloud computing can provide opportunities for review of business and management processes for a large number of companies. Especially for those who have no budget to invest in solutions with high maintenance costs – due to specialized professionals, new platforms or adequate infrastructure.

The middle market may be one of the main consumers of this model due to the cost of software, the use of management processes and information technology and well-defined business models that can be implemented with low fitness.

For companies that do not clear processes or integration between their applications “cloud” should both improve their business processes to enable performance improvement and analysis, providing visibility. For them, the adoption of solutions and business processes has great impact on performance and results.

The cloud computing is a new delivery model, which determines the rational use of resources and on-demand infrastructure, hardware platform, software and applications.

According to the analysis for the market of “Software As a Service, SaaS“, it is grown by 20.7% in 2011 as if compared with 2010 and reach $ 12.1 billion, and it will continue until 2015 – first and then the sales will amount to 21.3 billion dollars, i.e. more than twice as many as in 2010.

Under the SaaS, it includes software, which are owned, managed and delivered remotely by one or more service providers. Consumers use the software by subscription or on contract and pay for services as consumption.

Analysts say that the popularity of this model to applications is growing. They explain this by saying that budget cuts forced businesses to look for cheaper ways to use the software, services, SaaS becomes more mature, and cloud computing technologies are attracting more interest. In connection with the development of SaaS services and the prevalence reduced initial concerns about security, response time and service availability. Vendors expanding network of partners to provide these services, increased industry specialization of services, strengthening community partners and consumers.

In the last couple of years some buzz around SaaS subsided and shifted towards cloud computing – a broader concept that also covers technology and SaaS, which is a layer of applications in the general stack architecture of clouds. However, the key indicator of the success of SaaS cloud computing concept is now about 75% of services and SaaS can be considered as cloud services, and by 2015 this figure will reach 90%, since the SaaS model will become more mature and fuse with the cloud solutions model.

The biggest market segment of SaaS is customer relationship management (CRM). According to forecasts, in 2011, its volume will reach $ 3.8 billion (in 2010 – $ 3.2 billion) and will be 32% of the market SaaS. According to analysts, with the development of services “CRM-on-demand” is expanding its distribution.

Revenue from the delivery of ERP SaaS model will reach $ 1.7 billion (in 2010 – $ 1.5 billion). In fact, the ERP market share in the SaaS model accounted for only 7%. With the SaaS model most commonly used means of human resource management and enterprise resource management and production approach, SaaS almost does not apply.

I guess not many people ask this question because by default it is assumed that SAAS has to be accessed through the browser. And the truth is that the vast majority of SaaS applications are accessed via web and logical thinking.

But although we know that everything is not SaaS web and some are SaaS web apps, all the web applications are not and therefore there is no need to access them from a browser to retrieve. Saas reviewing concepts that relate to this issue are:

1.  Access to the software without installation or investment
2. Maintenance and upgrades of application by provider
3. Access via internet, ie from anywhere in the world.

None of them means that the application must be accessed through the browser, but sometimes it is more natural.

And then, if not accessed through browser, what other forms of access does it have? Through certain runtimes that allow code or perform other applications located on servers, ie out of your PC. The most popular are: Java Web Start Java JRE, Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Air and Microsoft Silverlight.

Java Web Start is installed with the Java JRE on client server and ensures that you’re running the latest version of the application on your dedicated server. You can run it from the browser or the desktop of the client.

Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft Silverlight are plugins that need to be installed in the browser to run applications located on the server. Apparently it seems that you are accessing it via browser and the application is running on common standards like HTML, CSS, DOM, JavaScript, XML but you’re actually running the runtime.

Adobe Air is installed on client runtime running applications located on the server. In the event of Adobe Air you can schedule when you want the application to be updated but it is a very easy task.

The most notable disadvantages are :

1. You need to install the runtime on your PC. Adobe Flash Player has it easier because 95% of all browsers already have it installed but  runtime no longer updates itself.
2. The access time to the application is greater at the first time
3. Increased consumption of resources of the client PC

The advantages would be :

Still keep the look of client applications lifetime. You do not have the limitations of the technologies associated with the browser (HTML, CSS, DOM, JavaScript, XML) in terms of compatibility, interface, etc.

All cross-platform (including Silverlight is), ie, the runtime can be installed on different operating systems and applications work the same way.

Development time is usually much smaller

In my opinion, saas have a relatively short comparison in all web users or those who purchase, happens to have a commercial use, I prefer this solution for all these advantages. For the rest, this solution with Adobe Flash Player (because of its ubiquity) also may be worth even the safest, if you want to reach a large number of users, using standard browser technologies.

And you, what do you prefer?

For several days I was thinking to write a post about the differences between ASP and Saas and yesterday I decided to do because of an email I received from one of the readers of this humble blog. In the mail, there was a series of questions using the acronym asp and other using the acronym SaaS, and I was unable to identify whether it was a matter of right or use of the acronym that were really confusing.

If you seek information from the term ASP and Saas and even if “differences between ASP and Saas” many entries appear that attempt to explain the terms but most of the comparisons confuse the term ASP hosting and from there the comparison does not fit with Saas. I would like to clarify first “what is ASP and What is Hosting?” based on these definitions:

ASP is a paid platform. Within its single fee it include licensing, dedicated hosting, maintenance, etc.

In regime, Hosting pay licenses and / or project and servers can host it on your property or perhaps the provider.

I think it is clear that pay-per-use ASP Hosting and pay licenses to use products and machines can be yours or rented but are in provider’s premises. Clarifying these concepts, I will try to clarify the differences between ASP and SaaS.

ASP stands for Application Service Provider and the Wikipedia explains in its first paragraph that it provides software services.

Among the factors that characterize a PSA highlights the widespread use of Internet , the ability to accelerate the deployment and implementation of applications and portability of services and operations to third parties. The main barrier to a PSA lies in convincing their customers that their information with a third remains secure. On the other hand, own and operate the software and hardware environment and rented to customers to use computer applications.

Let us now turn to the definition that makes SaaS wiki:

“Software as a Service (SaaS) is a distribution model of software where the IT company provides maintenance, daily operations, and support software used by the client. In other words, it is to have the information, processing, inputs and outcomes of the business logic of the software. In simple words: The customer has the system hosted in the IT company. It is software accessed via Internet . It is not necessarily to operate through Web browsers, business logic resides in the central city of provider.

And the truth is written in different words but there are very few differences:

• Accessed via the Internet.
• In a service operation and maintenance.
• You pay per use, not license.
• The data and business logic in provider’s premises.

Applications will not necessarily be delivered through web browsers and therefore at times be necessary to install software on the client and not others.

And then ” What are the differences between ASP and SaaS?”. For a though, it does not seem if there are differences:

ASP is a proprietary software from other ISVs . In the SaaS model there are those ISVs (software developers) that offer hosting and software in one package.

Many of the applications running in the ASP are not prepared to provide access via the Internet. I’ve seen agreements of HP, SAP, etc. with ASP to offer internet through the same applications that were designed to run in-house.

These same applications were not designed to serve multiple clients from different companies, moreover, is running an instance for each client of the ASP. Most applications as a service (SaaS) are designed to deliver the application to multiple clients through a single instance (multitenancy).

Relating to the above, to provide coverage instance to several clients at once it is necessary that the application has a high level customization for each client.

Although we have seen that not necessarily the applications offered as a service (SaaS) are consumed through a browser and therefore do not require installation on the client, in fact most of them are consumed by the browser. In fact I know that Saas is not the case. The applications running on ASP may or may not run through the browser and therefore require additional installation on the client (a Windows emulator or unix, remote desktop, terminal server , citrix).

Related to the above, ASP can offer different applications and different types depending on the agreements reached with the companies that own software. This however is more complicated to get into the SaaS model, normally ISV offers a single software but we also have example like google apps.

Finally, something more than evident is that SaaS can enjoy direct support, more personalized, and without intermediaries who can pass the buck to a software problem.

I hope the post has been cleared to add more questions and that in any case in controversy, sufficient to get us to clarify the terms.