I think we all know–or think we know–what cloud computing is. If you don't then you've probably been hiding in a cave with your mainframes for the last five years and fine tuning your COBOL skills. At its most basic, cloud computing is accessing services that you do not host or manage using TCP/IP. The derivation of the term is mundane–network diagrams have for years used a "cloud" symbol to represent the Internet. The term "the cloud" is now commonly used to refer to services available using the Internet–as in "our corporate e-mail is on the cloud." This translates to something like "we have outsourced management of our e-mail to a third party which hosts the mail server(s) in a data center that we access using the Internet." Based on those criteria, Google Mail, Hot Mail and Yahoo Mail are all cloud services–even though they are rarely referred to as such. Maybe the cloud only pertains to services you pay for. It's all in the marketing.
Money, Money, Money
Google Apps provides an online service that offers e-mail, calendaring, productivity products, collaboration sites, and file shares for businesses that do not want to host or service those applications using on-premise resources. The basic cost for this service starts at around $50 per-user per-year. Google Apps is operating-system and browser agnostic. And that is a very attractive proposition. What CIO really wants to measure his success by providing core services? Microsoft's BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) will provide Exchange, SharePoint, Office Live Meeting, and Office Communications for $2-$3 a month per user. To my way of thinking–using these sorts of cloud services makes good sense. I've been around IT services for some time now and providing the infrastructure, support, and service-level agreements (SLA) around e-mail service is totally boring. I would welcome the opportunity to allow a vendor–one that has a core competency in providing services such as these–to provide them. But that's just me. I don't do my own yard work, either.
The Other 80 Percent Isn't Visible
Google Apps and BPOS are the tip of the cloud iceberg–some would say the low hanging, easy-picking fruit–like Salesforce.com. The services provided are applications that traditionally were hosted and managed within the corporate data center. Now those services are provided by a vendor and accessed using the Internet. Let's call this first generation cloud computing. First generation clouds exist because a substantial mix of productivity applications can be delivered using thin-client, browser-based technology. Google Docs offers "Office-like" applications that work within the browser and support file formats like .doc, .xls, .ppt, and .pdf. Microsoft itself offers online versions of their Office suite. In fact, they are included in the SharePoint Server 2010 product line and will be available using SharePoint 2010 on BPOS. What I'm characterizing as first-generation cloud offerings are really just Software as a Service (SaaS). SaaS has been around for about 10 years (and 10 years ago no one referred to it as the cloud). Software as a Service is nothing more than software that is deployed over the Internet, and most often accessed using a Web browser. Microsoft, in particular, has marketed their BPOS offering as cloud computing–and that is fine, but let's be clear that SaaS is just a specialized segment of cloud computing.
The Rest of the Iceberg
The other side of cloud computing is the infrastructure, which is able to provide the services we have already discussed. Only instead of purchasing software services you can purchase raw computing power. The Amazon EC2 (Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute) service allows subscribers to obtain, configure, and bring online new server instances. Take a minute and think about the time elapsed between approving the purchase of a new server and that server being racked, stacked, connected, built out, monitored, backed up, and ready for configuration. If your experience is anything like mine, that time period is not trivial. Cloud infrastructure services can provide servers on demand. Virtualization is at the root of this side of the cloud. Blade technology may be cost effective to provide rapid access to new servers but the real players here are using virtual machines. Beefy physical servers are able to host multiple virtual machines, which can be deployed with little or no human intervention.
Cloud infrastructure is not a revolutionary concept–it is at best evolutionary. Ten years ago when I was running an e-commerce enabled Web site at a third party data center I was able to fold a new Web front end server into the mix with a phone call. The data center had new servers racked and stacked that I could add to my farm when needed. That solution probably wasn't all that efficient–the provider needed to have servers waiting but powered down and ready for action. I suspect they didn't actually pay for the boxes or the licenses until they flipped the switch, but that scenario is clearly not as elegant as spinning up a new virtual machine. I contend that my old school hosted solution is really not all that different from a cloud solution. The principal difference is that I had a dedicated line to the data center and it required 24 hours to add a server. A cloud solution is connected via the Internet and servers can be added on demand.
The Internet
There's a common thread that runs through the heart of all cloud computing–the Internet. And what is the Internet? It is nothing more than a system of networks that have tacitly agreed to interconnect. The ownership of the Internet is undefined–it's a mix of government, public, and private networks that are connected using a wide range of methods and technologies. There is no SLA for the Internet. There is no true governing body. There is no "the buck stops here" for the Internet. It's been around in some form or another for 40 years or so and for the most part it is fairly reliable, but there is no service guarantee. I may have an agreement with a telecomm provider to connect me with big fat pipes to the Internet and I may have a great SLA with that provider, but there is no guarantee that the Internet will be there when I need it. During the gasoline crisis after Katrina my local gas stations were operating properly, but the distribution system had failed. It didn't matter how well the local Shell station was run…they had no fuel to sell. The Internet is a distribution system over which we have little or no control. Keep that in mind when you are selling the executive committee on a cloud solution.
The Truth
That bothers me. It also bothers me that I may have proprietary, restricted data in a cloud solution (meaning someone else has ultimate control over my data). It also bothers me that identity management and authentication is limited in the cloud–multiple factor authentication is best managed on a private network. And it really bothers me that I am not capable of managing SLA's. Yet when a system is not available my customers will still hold me (meaning IT) responsible. That is a terrible place to be. One of the major providers of Software as a Service offers about three nines of availability (that equates to approximately 8 3/4 hours a year of downtime). That sounds great, but if they fail to meet that SLA their penalty is financial–they won't charge you for downtime. My penalty for missing an SLA could be losing my job.
Get Real
So what is the cloud really? One well known technology think tank lists certain characteristics that define cloud computing. It is service based, it is scalable, it is shared, it is metered, and it uses Internet technologies. Everything we have discussed so far fits into that description. Almost. The clouds we've discussed have all been provided by a third party or a vendor. If the cloud is really about a scalable, service-based provider why can't we just host our own cloud? What's the downside?
The downside is obvious–it's the reason businesses even began considering third-party hosted solutions. Managing servers, patches, licensing, backups, etc. is expensive, both in terms of dollars and manpower. The upside is that you gain all the other advantages that cloud computing provides.
A Private Cloud
Let's consider one use case for a private cloud. Your firm has thousands of users who only occasionally need to create documents, spreadsheets, etc. Those users regularly consume (i.e. read) those types of documents but rarely edit or create them. Currently you license a full fat-client suite of productivity applications for those users. We know that Web-based versions of these tools are available (Microsoft Office Web Apps). Wouldn't it make sense to host those Web applications in your own data centers and lose all those licensing fees? Of course, the Web version is not as full featured as the real client, but it provides enough functionality to satisfy 90-plus percent of users. There just aren't that many power users out there and you can ensure that those individuals have the full version. Sure there will still be licensing fees and there are costs associated with the data center(s), but I challenge you to run the numbers and see what makes sense. Serving up a Web productivity application doesn't require all that much processing power. A bank of virtual servers with "spares" waiting to be added on demand is a viable solution.
How about the other side of the coin–providing raw computing power on demand as a service? How many different "types" of machines do your developers and testers use? Maybe three flavors of Unix/Linux…and maybe a couple of Windows Servers–perhaps two standard desktops. How long does it take to stand up a database server, a middleware server, a front end server as well as a couple of development boxes and some test clients for a new project? I don't know how that works where you live, but it could easily take a month in my world. A private cloud could easily be configured to provide the proper mix of servers, development machines, and client machines for testing–on demand. A virtual environment could easily be built with a pre-defined mix of machines that can be provisioned when needed. Usage can be easily tracked for charge back to the appropriate project.
Your Own Private Cloud
A private cloud can provide the same services that any third party cloud can offer, without the problems and worries associated with doing your business in someone else's data center. A cloud is actually just a step or two away from a data center. The primary difference between a private cloud and an on premise data center is that a private cloud abstracts the data center down to certain service offerings. If you are able to define the service offerings that make sense for your organization you may be ready for a private cloud. Think about it. I know I sleep better knowing my SLA's depend on things I have control over. I think you will too. TD
Please address comments, complaints, and suggestions to the author at prolich@yahoo.com.
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