Cloud computing
Cloud Computing frequently is taken to be a term that simply renames
common technologies and techniques that we have come to know in IT.
It may be interpreted to mean data center hosting and then subsequently
dismissed without catching the improvements to hosting called utility
computing that permit near realtime, policy-based control of computing
resources. Or it may be interpreted to mean only data center hosting
rather than understood to be the significant shift in Internet application
architecture that it is.
Perhaps it is the name. Certainly it is more nebulous than mnemonic, if
you’ll pardon the poor pun. We happen to think so too. We’d rather use
the term service grid, frankly, but that name also has its problems. The
fact is that cloud and service grid computing are paradigmatically different
from their common interpretations, and their use can shed light on how
internet architectures are constructed and managed.
Cloud computing represents a different way to architect and remotely
manage computing resources. One has only to establish an account
with Microsoft or Amazon or Google to begin building and deploying
application systems into a cloud. These systems can be, but certainly
are not restricted to being, simplistic. They can be web applications that
require only http services. They might require a relational database. They
might require web service infrastructure and message queues. There might
be need to interoperate with CRM or e-commerce application services,
necessitating construction of a custom technology stack to deploy into
the cloud if these services are not already provided there. They might
require the use of new types of persistent storage that might never have
to be replicated because the new storage technologies build in required
reliability. They might require the remote hosting and use of custom or
3rd party software systems. And they might require the capability to
programmatically increase or decrease computing resources as a function
of business intelligence about resource demand using virtualization. While
not all of these capabilities exist in today’s clouds, nor are all that do exist
fully automated, a good portion of them can be provisioned.
Are the services that are provided by the cloud robust in the
enterprise sense?
Absolutely … especially if you mean the enterprise as we know it today.
While there are important security, privacy and regulatory issues that
enterprises need to sort through before full migration to the cloud, and
cloud vendors need to strengthen cloud capabilities in these areas before
enterprise applications can be effectively hosted in the cloud, there are
benefits that cloud technologies do offer today that can be leveraged in
the deployment of many enterprise applications. Further, cloud vendors
are likely to offer virtual private cloud functionality that quite possibly will
(at least temporarily) compensate for current deficiencies as cloud vendors
work to address them in a more strategic and long-term way.
Migration to the cloud will not be immediate because of issues noted
above, and because enterprises need to approach migration in a
staged fashion, just as they would undertake any significant technology
transition. The first stage of migration is to determine what enterprise
infrastructure and applications can be reliably rearchitected using cloud
computing technologies today to gain experience with a cloud-oriented
way of organizing and accessing digital technology. This stage may
include development of a migration path that progressively transitions
more of the enterprise infrastructure and applications to cloud providers
as they evolve more robust services that can support a broader range of
enterprise IT activities. The key goal of this stage is to define the roadmap
to replicate what is available on premise today using cloud technologies
(public or private) where this makes sense, and to define fundamentals
that will guide future architecture efforts. The second stage begins a
period in which explicitly policy based architectures that help to support
agility and innovation are designed. The third stage is the period in
which implementation of these fundamentally new architectures – that
are designed to support scalable networks of relationships across large
numbers of very diverse and independent entities (i.e., possibly leveraging
a more fully developed service grid) – takes place.
It is critical to give explicit attention to architecture when preparing to
migrate to the cloud, since this represents an opportunity for corporations to
rearchitect themselves as next generation enterprises. These globalized and
distributed enterprises must scale process and practice networks (ultimately
comprising an entire ecosystem) to include thousands to tens of thousands
of members, with the number of users increasing to the millions. This type
of scale requires an architecture and interoperability strategy modulated by
harmonized technology and business policies to scale business elastically.
Widespread adoption of clouds as a computing platform will require
interoperability between clouds and management of resources in one cloud
by another. Since current-day architectures are not structured to externalize
policy, the typical architecture fundamentals of applications that enterprises
deploy must be modified to effectively use and exploit new cloud capabilities.
In this context, we urge executives to develop more explicit cloud computing
strategies based on a more explicit and longer-term view of the likely
trajectories of cloud computing evolution. There are undoubtedly compelling
benefits to participating in clouds today. But the real power of cloud
computing platforms stems from the potential over time to re-think and
re-design IT architectures at a more fundamental level. Companies that gain
early experience with this new infrastructure will be in the best position to
harness these new architectural approaches to re-shape the broader business
landscape.
To seed this effort, we cull from various candidate definitions for both cloud
and service grid computing a set of concepts to be used as a thoughtful
framework of discussion for what happens next in Internet-based computing.
We present, here, a set of three papers that discuss:
Characteristics of what we believe to be next generation architectures that will
support substantive changes in global enterprise constructs and operations;
Transformation from existing to next generation architectures to simplify the
architectures and better align them with the businesses they enable, and
provide the means to externalize and manage policy across all architecture
layers;
?
Pain points that might be eliminated altogether by migration to next
generation architectures.
We understand that cloud and service grid computing, in their present state,
do not meet all distributed computing or enterprise needs. However, they
do meet many of them in a way that will provide a smooth transition to
whatever next generation distributed computing becomes, and they already
are significantly helpful in modulating the technology changes that enterprises
face today. The rapid pace at which cloud vendors are systematizing their
platforms and attracting stalwart industry supporters and users confirms
that ecosystems are forming that are based upon the capabilities that cloud
computing enables. The speed with which they are forming strongly suggests
that cloud computing will not only meet many of the needs of enterprise
computing as we have come to know it, but also could form the digital
platform for a shaping strategy guiding next generation enterprises in their
migration to and participation in such ecosystems.
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