It’s Official: Open Cloud Manifesto

Today marks the official launch of the Open Cloud Manifesto. The list of companies and groups that support it include: AT&T, Cisco, The Eclispse Foundation, EMC, IBM, Juniper, Red Hat, SAP, Sun, Telefonica, The Open Group, VMWare, and many others.

The Manifesto states why cloud computing is important an starts with “a set of core value propositions.” It also covers challenges and barriers to adoption, as well as, the ultimate goals and promises of “open” cloud computing. It then ends by listing six key principles:

1. Cloud providers must work together to ensure that the challenges to cloud adoption (security, integration, portability, interoperability, governance/management, metering/monitoring) are addressed through open collaboration and the appropriate use of standards.

2. Cloud providers must not use their market position to lock customers into their particular platforms and limit their choice of providers.

3. Cloud providers must use and adopt existing standards wherever appropriate. The IT industry has invested heavily in existing standards and standards organizations; there is no need to duplicate or reinvent them

4. When new standards (or adjustments to existing standards) are needed, we must be judicious and pragmatic to avoid creating too many standards. We must ensure that standards promote innovation and do not inhibit it.

5.Any community effort around the open cloud should be driven by customer needs, not merely the technical needs of cloud providers, and should be tested or verified against real customer requirements.

6.Cloud computing standards organizations, advocacy groups, and communities should work together and stay coordinated, making sure that efforts do not conflict or overlap.

The organization’s web site is located at: http://opencloudmanifesto.org/

Manifesto details can be found at: http://opencloudmanifesto.org/opencloudmanifesto1.htm

Getting Technical: Security and Architecture

Moving forward, I will start adding articles and reference material that cover the technical aspects of cloud computing. While I’ll continue to focus on the evolution of cloud computing from a business and enterprise standpoint — with an emphasis on vendor solutions — adding another layer to the discussion centered around the technical implementation and implications of cloud computing is critical to gaining insight into how it will effect your business and technology strategy.

There’s an excellent podcast on Overcast that includes an interview with Chris Huff,  a cloud security expert. He talks about the benefits and shortcomings of security in the cloud, as well as, some of the security issues associated with multi-tenant architecture and virtualization.

In terms of architecture, Todd Huff wrote a detailed analysis on the subject by asking Are Cloud Based Memory Architectures the Next Big Thing? in the blog High Scalability. He starts out provocatively and then puts together a well-thought out argument in favor of memory based architectures based on performance, scalability, availability, and faster application deployment. His premise starts:

“We are on the edge of two potent technological changes: Clouds and Memory Based Architectures. This evolution will rip open a chasm where new players can enter and prosper. Google is the master of disk. You can’t beat them at a game they perfected. Disk based databases like SimpleDB and BigTable are complicated beasts, typical last gasp products of any aging technology before a change. The next era is the age of Memory and Cloud which will allow for new players to succeed. The tipping point is soon.”

Both of these features are well worth your time whether you are focused on the technical aspects of cloud computing or more on the business end. If the former, you’ll find people speaking your language with depth and experience. If you’re the later, it would be wise to gain familiarity with these subjects. In the end, both the business and IT need to have a common framework to build on. Getting to know each others perspectives can only help in setting the right strategy and expectations.

Open Standards for the Cloud

I’ve written about the need for cloud computing standards and the likelihood that such a movement will come to fruition. Well, it turns out that on Monday, March 30, the official Open Cloud Manifesto will be published for all to read and comment on. The goal, naturally, is to ensure “that the cloud itself should be open…an open platform.”

InfoWorld reported that the major driver of the Manifesto was IBM. Other big players like Cisco, HP, and Sun have been linked to it. This should not be too surprising to anyone. Standards are often started, cared for, and managed by vendors with the means to see the process through. It’s something that takes time, money, and resources.

Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised, then, that Microsoft cried foul. Steve Martin, part of the developer platform product management group at Microsoft, fired back a heartfelt, if not long-winded, rant accusing those spearheading the Manifesto  as lacking openness in its development.

However, as the authors of the Manifesto make clear this is just the beginning. And, not surprisingly, the authors welcome Microsoft’s future participation. One well respected blogger, even wrote it was all “much ado about nothing.”

Setting aside egos and the rhetoric, it’s good to know that the issue of standards will finally be taken up. It may be painful for those hashing through the details, but — if all goes well — customers and developers will greatly benefit.  And, ultimately, so will vendors of all stripes.

Better Cloud Performance, Amazon for Enterprise Apps, and Nicholas Carr on “The Big Switch” (to the Cloud)

Michael Healey, CTO of IT integration company GreenPages, wrote a report that discusses a five-step process for improving the performance of cloud applications. It’s worth your time, but if you want a summary go here.

An article in InformationWeek  argued that Amazon EC2 was a “superior alternative to SaaS” for hosting enterprise applications. Pentaho was referenced as a  vendor taking this route when it launched it Cloud Computing Edition.

Nicholas Carr, the author of “IT Doesn’t Matter” and “The Big Switch” gave a very interesting interview to Tom Sullivan of InfoWorld. The key take-aways were:

- Make no mistake about it: cloud computing is a natural evolution of computing in general; it is real and it will result in it becoming more like a true utility.

- We’re at the beginning of a 10-15 year transition period; while the hype may be ahead of reality, “the uptake of cloud services over the last year has moved faster than I would have expected.”

- Economics will outweigh the social and political challenges that arise as an enterprises, and executive management in particular, weight the benefit of reducing IT costs and improving profitability against the disruption within the IT department.

- Cloud computing will enable a whole lot more experimentation and innovation because the previous constraints on IT — the upfront infrastructure costs — will be dramatically reduced.

- A handful of big companies are buying about 20 percent of the servers sold today.  The implication is two-fold: it represents a confirmation that “more and more computing is done in central datacenters”; and, it demonstrates how much activity happens in the cloud and the changing nature of how we access content and services.

- The most significant thing enterprise IT needs to realize is the things that accounted for most of their spending and hiring “are going to go away…[and]  move out to the utility model over time.”

What Cisco’s Data Center Push and IBM’s Overture Mean for Cloud Computing

By now you’ve read about Cisco’s ambitious push into the data center with the Cisco Unified Computing System, which integrates “network, compute, and virtualization resources in a single system.” By combining Cisco’s IP with partners like EMC, NetApp, and BMC they have just made it easier, in theory, to launch a cloud computing system for enterprise consumption.

On the other hand, with each passing day it looks more and more likely that IBM will make an official offer to buy Sun Microsystems. As The Economist put it, “part of the attraction of Sun is that it has some assets, such as networking gear and data-centre software, which would beef up IBM’s ability to build private clouds.” IBM also gets its hands on some crown jewels: Java, MySQL, and further entree (and legitimacy) into open source communities.

Of course, one shouldn’t forget HP’s acquisition of EDS, which at the time looked a bit circumspect if only for the daunting task of incorporating one giant into another. But, given the speed with which cloud computing has taken hold, Cisco’s bold move in the data center, and IBM’s aggressive move to buy Sun, it appears that HP had certainly been just a prescient. HP gained a leading integrator with years of experience in building and running data centers.

So, what can we take away from these recent moves? Certainly, we’re witnessing convergence on a strategic scale, as demonstrated by the fact “that companies that used to be allies, or in totally different markets, are now starting to compete with each other.” It shows, emphatically, that the next wave of computing is at hand driven by economics, technology, and social aspects of how and why we we utilize computing to get things done. Cisco’s move demands that we look at them differently–as more than a networking company. IBM shows that it intends to lead by providing the most complete systems approach to the market–whether packaged as public or private clouds–wrapped up and delivered by IBM Global Services.

In short, Cisco’s push and IBM’s overture both demonstrate that cloud computing has come of age. Yes, there are hurdles, which I’ve talked about in other posts. But, the fundamental point is that the big boys of IT are not sitting on the sidelines, while upstarts like Amazon, Google, and Salesforce attempt to set the cloud computing agenda. With far more history, experience, and firepower the giants of IT are finally ready to act.

Sun Bursts Out of the Clouds; and more from Rackspace and Cloudera

Sun mad a big splash today (and I’m not talking about the acquisition speculation) at it’s CommunityOne developer event by announcing the Sun Open Cloud Platform. Not surprisingly it leverages core technologies like Java, MySQL, and OpenSolaris. Also, officials previewed the Sun Cloud, a public cloud offering targeted at developers, students, and start-ups.  Sun is positioning its Virtual Data Center (VDC) capabilities, which came with its purchase of Q-Layer, as a key differentiator over competitors like Amazon and Google. “The VDC provides a unified, integrated interface to stage an application running on any operating system within a cloud…[and] supports WebDAV protocols for easy file access and object store APIs that are compatible with Amazon’s S3 APIs.”

Another company jumping into the cloud is Rackspace, long known for its data center hosting service. Their products include Cloud Sites, Cloud Files, and Cloud Servers. As reported in InfomationWeek, “The move puts Rackspace into competition with Amazon Web Services and other infrastructure-as-a-service providers. The new services are an obvious fit with Rackspace’s managed hosting business, giving customers a broader set of options for running computing workloads on Rackspace’s hardware.”

Finally, Cloudera made very interesting news by announcing its first commercial version of Hadoop, which “allows cloud-powered servers to store petabytes worth of information,” as noted in an InformationWeek news story. One of the goals is to overcome the difficulty customers have in configuring and deploying Hadoop. That has been a major roadblock to much wider adoption and prevented them from achieving a wider goal: enabling “Big Data to truly disrupt the enterprise.” Given the successful deployment of Hadoop at Facebook, Google, and Yahoo, it’s probably only a matter of time before it reaches a much bigger audience of customers. And then we’ll see just how disruptive it can be. It’s another example of how cloud computing is expanding and adapting to the needs of vendors and customers alike.

Improving the Cloud Value Proposition: Two cases in point

It’s very exciting and encouraging to see continued innovation on the business side of cloud computing. It simply makes it more accessible and relevant to more potential customers. Let’s take a look at some recent news in this area.

Amazon launched EC2 Reverved Instances, which gives customers the option to make a low, one-time payment for each instance they want to reserve and, therefore, benefit by receiving a significant discount on the hourly usage charge for that instance. As reported in InfomationWeek, Amazon officials summarized it stating, “Customers can choose to reserve capacity as if they owned the hardware, but unlike traditional infrastructure, with Reserved Instances, customers do not pay to maintain and operate idle hardware, and instead pay usage charges only when actually utilizing the instances.”

If you’re interested in delving deeper into what this may mean for your organization in dollar and cents, then check out Geva Perry’s calculator. It turns out the break-even point is about 12 hours per day for twelve months. So if you’re running an instance longer than that then it makes financial sense to go with Reserved Instances. By the way, Geva is “obsessed with cloud pricing” and that’s good for all of us!

Continuing with the theme of better business ideas, as reported in InfoWorld, Microsoft announced they will offer standard SQLServer relational database support in their Azure cloud offering. As emphasized in the report, the major milestone is that “a developer can take an existing application and just change the connection string to point it to the cloud and have it just work.” Why is this important? Because “the vast preponderance of applications fall into traditional architecture infrastructures, which rely on SQL databases as the persistence mechanism.” Thus, “being able to take an existing app and move it into the cloud, or easily install a new app in Azure, makes Microsoft’s cloud service extremely appealing.” Score one for Microsoft.

Open Source ERP Goes Cloud; A Business Proposition You Gotta Love; and Don’t Forget the Channel

Let’s take a look at some interesting cloud-related offerings that have recently been announced.

Compiere, an open source ERP and CRM provider, has now moved into the cloud by offering these solutions through Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2). Compiere’s solutions have seen more than 1.4 million downloads. Teaming up with Amazon gives them a better way to turn those downloads into revenue by utilizing a joint value proposition that combines open source with cloud computing. They’ll be targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) and it should prove lucrative for both parties. Again, it’ll be interesting to hear how this progresses.

As reported in InfoWorld: “The Compiere-Amazon combination might also apply to smaller sites within larger companies, says Bruce Richardson, chief research officer at AMR. “If you talk to SAP and Oracle, they’re only waking up to the need for cloud solutions. They just don’t have a good SaaS or cloud offering.” This is another example of the shift going on in enterprise computing. It’ll be interesting to track Compiere’s success as the year rolls on.

And how about a value proposition whereby you pay nothing if the solutions doesn’t prove it’s value? That’s exactly what eGain is offering with their “solution-as-a-service” (yes, another new acronym: SLaaS) called eGain SelfService SLaaS Edtition (and, branding be damned). Seriously, though it’s has a compelling business proposition. Ahsu Roy, eGain CEO, stated in a report by InfoWorld: “Success is judged by usage, [meaning] the number of self-service sessions conducted by their end-customers each month on the client’s Web site. The more the usage, the more the success.” It’s a great example creativity and a willingness to be aggressive with one’s solutions, all of which wouldn’t be possible the software or solution was delivered in a traditional way.

Meanwhile, USA.NET has teamed up with HP to offer a set of “email, messaging and collaboration solutions as a part of their software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering for HP channel partners” as reported in Channel Insider. It’s worth noting because it shows that sales coverage matters in the world of cloud computing and that using the words reseller channel and SaaS is not an oxymoron.

Cloud Computing: Becoming the Fabric of IT

A couple of recent articles offered insight into how IT will evolve in the next two-three years. One was based on comments from datacenter professionals and the other was the result of new services launched by Cisco. In turn, it represents another set of data points for the ways cloud computing is becoming part of the fabric of enterprise IT.

InfoWorld published an interview between Afcom CEO Jill Eckhaus and InfoWorld Editor at Large Tom Sullivan, just ahead of Afcom’s (the association of datacenter professionals) Data Center World conference this week in Las Vegas. Survey results that Afcom had conducted showed that “some 77 percent of datacenter administrators are not planning to increase their use of cloud computing.”  More importantly was why? Eckhaus posited the reason for this was because “they don’t have just one clear definition of cloud computing.” Another insight came with the agreement “that business units, rather than IT” might drive adoption with the danger of bypassing IT altogether because of realities like time to market and ease of use. Ideally, both the business and IT will work together to lay out plans and policies for adoptiong cloud computing within the enterprise. As a result, those of us in the industry and in the media have a critical role to play as educators and as conductors of the conversation.

Another item that caught my attention was Michael Vizard’s blog in eWeek regarding Cisco’s announcement of a new set of managed e-mail security services from it’s IronPort division. These new services give customers the option of paying as you go or utilizing their managed services. The upshot is that it’s that this is further evidence of mainstream, global vendors recognizing the value proposition of cloud computing for customers. Vizard goes on to explain how “corporate customers are rethinking their approach to acquiring IT”, from treating IT as a capital expense to treating it as an operational expense. Thus, big up front expenditures are limited, if not eliminated, as well as the staff to run them. He sees this as a trend that is going to last beyond the eventual recovery, as IT “morphs” into a general contractor of sorts for “IT that are actually fulfilled by a host of sub-contractors.”

Weekly Round-Up (and what a week it was)

In the area of cloud computing, here are the news and articles that I found most interesting:

“Not long ago, the phrase “Windows cloud” was an oxymoron; no two words could be further apart in meaning. But cloud computing is evolving quickly, and Windows clouds are finally taking shape.” More here >

“Microsoft’s Azure, where you go to build cloud apps” More >

“One of the bigger challenges IT departments will face this year is whether they can take the plunge with cloud computing quickly enough to benefit their organizations as a whole.” More >

“Vendor lock-in is one of the primary fears expressed by IT leaders considering a move to the cloud, but much of that fear is caused by misconceptions.” More >

“So, before you merrily send your apps flying into the cloud, check their combined software licenses. If there are CPU restrictions in any of them, maybe those apps should remain grounded in the data center.” More >

“IBM, SAP, and Microsoft have just revealed efforts to use the cloud to move and manage the kinds of big workloads that are common in corporate data centers.” More >

“…from VMware’s point of view, cloud computing isn’t just an option that some leading-edge customers will deploy, but an evolution of virtualization that will eventually be adopted by all of its customers.” More >

“Lots of fresh research is coming out on the state of cloud computing. The following data points provide a snapshot of user attitudes in this fast-moving market.” More >

As I blogged about earlier in the week, we need to pay attention to SOA with equal interest, as we move forward with cloud computing. With that in mind, here are the news and articles that I found most valuable in the area of SOA.

“SOA is the ‘architectural pattern’, while ‘cloud computing’ is a set of enabling technologies as a potential target platform or technological approach for that architecture.” More >

“SOA has had time to mature, but discussions around it are still laden with buzzwords and unrealistic expectations. Learn what SOA is and isn’t with the first of a new series.” More >

“…James Kobielus explores the exploding use of cloud computing by enterprises and the fact that the expanded use of cloud services is causing issues around existing SOA governance policies and mechanisms.” More >

Finally, take a look inside a real-world SOA project by someone on the front lines of Fastenal Corp’s big project. More >