© 2017, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 164 Volume 7, Issue 2, February 2017 ISSN: 2277 128X International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering Research Paper Available online at: www.ijarcsse.com Cloud Computing: An Operational Framework in the Implementation of ERP Vikram Gupta Research Scholar, UTU, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India Dr. Sarvjit Singh Bhatia PG Department of Computer Science, Khalsa College, Patiala, Punjab, India DOI: 10.23956/ijarcsse/V7I2/0109 Abstract— The present scenario for ERP is the shift from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud environment through utilization of cloud computing technologies. The characteristics of cloud computing offers many promises to cloud-based ERP systems. Cloud based ERP is an alternative to on-premises ERP systems. To implement ERP system with the help of cloud based technology faces many challenges. ERP system implementation is very painful, complex and time consuming and generate the necessity of a massive change in ERP framework to enhance ERP systems infrastructure and functionality. Cloud Computing (CC) platform possess the ability to overcome ERP systems discrepancies with cost-effective, customized and highly available computing resources. Cloud computing is a set of services that provide infrastructure resources using internet media and data storage on a third party server. The research presented in this paper, proposes a framework which is the sandwich of Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory and Technological-Organizational-Environmental (TOE) framework. The various components of DOI and TOE are integrated in such a manner that gives the flavour of ERP. All the constituents of DOI and TOE are spindled with the concept of Cloud computing. The present framework is a generic framework which is in favour of SMEs. Keywords— Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP); Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs); Cloud Computing (CC); Diffusion of Innovation (DOI); Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE). I. INTRODUCTION Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are the ultimate aspiration of the business community as they provide collaboration with partners, external applications and information systems. Traditionally, the development of ERP systems involves maintaining a set of hardware and network configurations, typically using a database as an information repository. ERP systems are becoming an integral component of organizational infrastructure, however, ERP solutions have many issues and challenges such as massive upgrading cost, integration among different components, fair utilization of resources, visibility, management change, financial performance tracking, bidding and quoting etc. Due to these problems, a radical change is required within ERP framework to enhance ERP infrastructural and functionality. The emergence of cloud computing is considered to be the best suited option to overcome ERP systems discrepancies [1, 2, 3, 4]. Cloud computing is a technique for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Cloud computing is an alternative of deploying applications and systems on-premises. In Cloud technology, organization can access the available services on-demand. They can access the computing resources at anytime and anywhere using Internet services. Cloud computing (also called utility computing) refers to an IT service model and platform that provides on-demand based IT services over the Internet. Although there are a variety of definitions of cloud computing, the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) definition (version 15) is considered to be the most accurate and comprehensive. According to NIST’s definition, the ingredients available in Cloud Computing are composed of five essential characteristics (networks, servers, storage, applications, and services), three Service models  SaaS (Software as a Service) which delivers software service on demand, such as, salesforce.com, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) service and Google Gmail;  PaaS (Platform as a Service) which provides the computing platform for companies to deploy and customize business applications on demand, such as, Google App Engine and Microsoft’s Azure;  IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) which offers data centre, infrastructure i.e. hardware and software resources on demand, such as, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and VMware vCloud Data centre. Both of these resources provide virtual computers for renters to run their business applications. And four Deployment models i.e. public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and community clouds. Companies normally adopt different service models and deployment models depending on their unique business processes and demands on IT services. SMEs have limited resources in terms of money, expertise and time. The Cloud