Miscommunication: If you can't understand me, I'll repeat it slower and louder until you do
When I think of the cloud, I think of all of the companies out there trying so hard to get their message heard, and at the same time, trying to not to miss this phenomenon, that the flood of information is muddying the water for many people. So, instead of a long, drawn out description of my feelings on the subject, I decided that Adam Sandler's Cajun Man is a better way to describe what I think reflects the feelings many people have regarding the cloud...and how we at the Burton Group view the cloud.
When the cloud first emerged it seemed: Magnification. Amplification. Attraction. Concentration.
This led to further feelings: Over-promotion. Disorganization. Confusion. Obfuscation. Irritation. Frustration. Caution.
So, feeling frustrated with the situation, I began to explore the subject a bit more and through researching existing solutions, comparing vendors strategies, talking with Ken Oestreich, and talking with colleagues from the Burton Group like Anne Thomas Manes, Chris Howard, Mike Gotta, Jack Santos, and the DCS team, Anne and I drew this model (the whole stack represents different parts of the cloud):
After lots of internal debate we finally had: illumination. Definition. Disambiguation. Rationalization. Elation! Celebration! Congratulation.
I actually believe this is a high-level conceptual diagram, perhaps reference architecture even, of the cloud...because each layer can build upon the other. Platform as a service providers like Oracle can build their cloud strategy on top of System Infrastructure as a Service providers like Amazon's EC2. While at the same time, each step in the stack can/may stand on its own.
But then I began to think about the issues that come with the cloud...things like security, trust between IT organizations and the cloud, lack of API to initiate workloads in the cloud, workload mobility, storage and network state when things move, high availability and business continuity of cloud providers, service level agreements, etc, etc, etc.
No Standardization. Miscommunication. Slow-migration. Infatuation. Deflation. Depression.
So now, we have to ask: what are the things that can help enable the cloud? Because clearly, there are obstacles to overcome. I'll post more on these later, but a few key cloud standards would be: Open virtual machine format (OVF) to enable VM/workload mobility between clouds, Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) might be needed, a "cloud" API to help engage cloud providers, XML definition for SLAs, to name a few.
So now, at least we have a definition for the cloud and high-level architecture to build upon and flush out. Or, in Cajun Man terms: Clarification. Anticipation. Cooperation. Ratification? Reverberation? Validation.
[posted by Drue Reeves]
Comments