CARY, NC (IDCA) - An “Intelligent Planning Cloud” is the term being used by Cary, NC-based IT software company SAS, in announcing its latest initiative to run supply-chain clouds on Azure. The company claims its cloud is “AI-powered” so that companies in the retail and consumer goods spaces “can react in near-real time to operational and market conditions, as well as model future-state scenarios.”

SAS's mission seems to reflect a general trend the entire enterprise IT industry will see this year and beyond to obtain better utilization of cloud-computing resources. Higher use rates within servers has been a promised benefit of cloud computing from the beginning, but is difficult to achieve when applications and transactions are abstracted from the hardware doing all the work.

SAS promises “faster, more complete analytics so that businesses can realize time-to-market results more quickly” as well as sophisticated automated model building and management to address the operational efficiency issue. The company generates around $3 billion in annual revenue; its software and services can thus be expected to affect several times that amount in cloud deployments, and the resultant GHG emissions.

For its part in this cloud relationship, a Microsoft spokesperson points to "Volatility in consumer demand, (which) only exacerbates supply chain problems. According to Felice Miller, Business Strategy Leader, Retail & Consumer Goods at Microsoft, "SAS and Microsoft are (thus) building a rich portfolio of supply chain-focused solutions that help companies tap into real-time data channels to fortify their own ability to sense, predict and adapt to disruptions.”

Photograph from SAS.