Carrenza makes legacy apps `as-a-Service’

Here is an approach to getting legacy on-premise applications out into the world as a cloud-delivered service that could give them a significant mid-life kicker.

Intershop, a provider of omni-channel commerce solutions, and IaaS specialist, Carrenza, have come together to deliver the legacy Intershop’s client/server application and deliver it as SaaS running on Carrenza IaaS infrastructure. This will allow the firm to offer it to customers on a utility based pay-as-you-go op-ex model, with flexible pricing options based on defining the best fit for each individual customer.

The pair has been quietly working on building this relationship for a while. It has already established a number of successful deployments, delivered in conjunction with Intershop’s integration partners, such as Javelin Group. These include deployments at Majestic Wine, Pottermore and de Bijenkorf.

Among the successes of this partnership is the support of Dutch retailer de Bijenkorf's Three Crazy Days sale in October 2013. During this event, the client's website was the second-busiest ecommerce platform in Europe, so it was vital the firm could rely on its partners to scale its offering quickly for the occasion.

“The service provided by Carrenza and Intershop provides the flexibility and scalability required to meet the needs of our online business, both today and for future growth,” said Richard Weaver, Ecommerce Director at Majestic Wine. “We wanted a best-of-breed product capable of meeting our requirements and the solution from Carrenza and Intershop delivers.”

Carrenza is using its approach to automation to simplify the deployment and management of the Intershop omni-channel platform. This has allowed Intershop to offer customers a true `as-a-Service’ option to customers without having to rewrite the software.

This consists of a range of open-source tools that are able to streamline all aspects of the deployment and management of the Intershop application, as well as the related databases and the underlying infrastructure. The result is a service with built in scalability and resiliency.

According to Udo Rauch, VP Channel at Intershop, the partnership with Carrenza has enabled the company to offer fully scalable, on-demand solutions to its integration partners and customers. The extension of the partnership is expected to give Intershop the resources and support to address new markets.