The Cloud Computing Scenario

Daryl Plummer presented a clear introduction to the cloud, with some fun (again).

He started with 8 myths about cloud computing:

1. Cloud is an architecture, an infrastructure
2. Every vendor will have a different cloud (whereas there is only one public cloud)
3. SaaS is the cloud
4. Cloud computing is a brand new evolution (Darryl describes it as a "revolutionary step in an evolutionary path" instead)
   
5. All remote computing is cloud computing
6. The internet or the web is the cloud
7. Everything will be in the cloud
8. The cloud eliminates private networks

From this, the Gartner definition of cloud computing is "a style of computing, massively scalable and elastic, in which IT-related capabilities are provided as a service to multiple customers, using internet technologies". In the cloud, users care about what is delivered, not how it is delivered.

Key aspects:

• Cloud versus cloud computing (the latter is a style of computing, where cloud services are provided and the former is an undefinite thing comparable to what the internet is).;
• Private clouds vs. public clouds;
• Socialized processes;
• Elasticity vs. scale (elasticity scales up and down);
• Global class, not just enterprise-class.

4 perspectives and their attributes:

• Only results count: acquisition model = service
• Do not want assets: business model = pay for use
• Access everywhere on any device: access model = the internet
• Economies of scale and dynamic sharing: technical model = scalable, elastic and sharable

There is a trend to an actual industrialization of IT. Gartner plans a high-growth period for the cloud in 2008-2012. 3 things will make it happen: service-orientation (helped by SOA), virtualization and the internet (with the web and WOA).

The cloud leads to a new provider-consumer relationship, different from the previous vendor-user relationship.

We are going from a stuff-in-the-box model where the user has to do everything (from installation to administration), to the hosted box where the vendor takes care of the installation, to "X as a Service" where the provider manages the infrastructure, to the cloud where the provider also administers the solution. At this last stage the user only cares about using the solution.

Elasticity is not really here today but it will be the sweet spot for the cloud. It will erase the headaches of capacity planning.

Offerings: Google is targeting the consumer (tactical applications, targeted at small teams of experts) whereas Amazon is the solution of choice for and is growing in the enterprise (50% of all cloud offerings are presently based upon AWS).

The "internal cloud" concept may be valid if all the attributes of the cloud are present: it means it has to be "global-class" (and not only "enterprise-class"), with the major difference being that it supports multi-tenancy.

And finally, a word about trust: the cloud provider should just be considered as the other partners, like all those the enterprises rely upon to do business (just consider the partners involved when a customer applies for a loan at a branch).