What Cloud Computing Is & Isn’t
ABSTRACT
Clear Up The Misconceptions & Concerns That Surround The Cloud
FULL DOCUMENT
Clear Up The Misconceptions & Concerns That Surround The Cloud
Is the future of the enterprise in cloud computing? The answer to this may still be up in the air, because when it comes to cloud computing, there is still quite a bit of confusion and apprehension, especially among data centre and IT managers at small to midsized enterprises. Here we’ll define what cloud computing is, and also what it isn’t, to bring some clarity to the issue.
Why The Confusion?
Although cloud computing did attract attention and still continues to gain awareness, the actual adoption among small to midsized enterprises has only been a trickle, according to Karthik Viswanathan, head of marketing at Aspire Systems (www.aspiresys.com). “While the early adopters among large enterprises and start-ups have already joined the cloud bandwagon, SMEs are prudent in their approach to cloud adoption,” Viswanathan says. “The economic conditions in 2009 were not encouraging. The IT spending of SMEs drastically reduced in 2009, with focus only on buying tested and proven IT that helped reduce costs.”
Kevin Epstein, vice president of marketing at CloudShare (www.cloudshare.com), says there is confusion because cloud is simultaneously poorly defined and widely hyped as a must-have element of IT. "In a large company, you can assign someone to be your cloud expert, and you buy something labeled ‘cloud' from one of your standard vendors and trust that if you pay them seven figures, they'll make whatever it is work," Epstein says. But in a smaller company, he adds, you need to personally be the expert and make cloud work, even as the definition of cloud changes by the hour. Epstein says it doesn't help when marketers everywhere deploy smoke and mirrors around existing products and label it all a “cloud.”
For Kelly Beardmore, CTO and COO at Tenzing Managed IT Services (www.tenzing.com), cloud computing is the concept that enterprises can consume IT services as a utility. “Like electricity,” Beardmore says, “you subscribe to a service provider and pay for what you use. But the confusion starts where the analogy stops. Unlike common utilities, IT services are not created or consumed homogenously. IT services is an umbrella term for many different things—from CRM (customer relationship management) to data centre infrastructure to ITSM (IT service management) best practices—and each can be spoken of in the context of the cloud.” Beardmore says that as a result, the message to the end user about what the cloud is can vary considerably depending on who is speaking.
What Cloud Is
Vishal Sharma, senior director of cloud computing at NaviSite (www.navisite.com), says that at a very high level, cloud computing is all about delivering and consuming IT as a service in an on-demand fashion. “Cloud computing is both an evolution and a revolution,” he says. “From a technology perspective, cloud computing is a natural evolution of technologies and approaches, such as virtualization, automation, integration, and utility computing. The revolution is around how IT resources are managed and delivered.”
According to Beardmore, there are many different types of clouds. “There are public clouds, private clouds, semi-private clouds, global clouds, [and] regional clouds, as well as private SaaS (software as a service) and multitenant SaaS,” he says. “Each is a variation on the ‘IT services as a utility’ theme created by the different business requirements of cloud services consumers and the technological and business limitations faced by the producers of these cloud services.”
Beardmore explains that to data centre or hosting service providers, the cloud is the ability of the end user to subscribe to raw compute, storage, and network resources on demand to support enterprise workloads by utilizing virtualization technology at various levels of the infrastructure stack. To the SaaS provider, on the other hand, the cloud is the ability of the end user to subscribe to business services online. “What was once delivered to the enterprise’s IT department as a software package to deploy is now delivered on demand directly to the end user via an Internet connection,” he says.
John Barnes, CTO of Model Metrics (www.modelmetrics.com), says cloud computing at the highest level is defined as “computing power or services that are delivered over the Internet by an outside company as a utility and are billed based on usage.” Barnes notes, “The services fall into three main categories, SaaS (software as a service), such as Salesforce.com or Gmail; PaaS (platform as a service), such as Force.com and Google App Engine; or IaaS (infrastructure as a service), such as Amazon Web Services.”
What Cloud Isn’t
In Barnes’ opinion, cloud computing should not be confused with the older hosted ASP (application service provider) model where a firm would host an instance of an on-premises application for you. “Many software companies are trying to do this and claim it is cloud computing,” he says. “True cloud computing vendors are multitenant (that is, all clients running on the same stack) and running ‘version now’ (every one is on the current version).”
According to Beardmore, any IT service that is not consumed over the Internet is not considered cloud computing. He says there are some that like to equate cloud with “elasticity,” rather than the utility model, and thus, nearly any in-house virtualized compute environment becomes a cloud. But this only adds to the confusion. “Also, any IT service that is not consumed on a subscription (that is, a recurring billing model based on actual usage) is not considered cloud computing,” Beardmore explains, adding that “it is important to note that the degree of flexibility around usage rates, both at a contract and operations level, varies considerably from service provider to service provider.”
Epstein says that at the end of the day, be confident in your judgment and don’t be swayed by hype. “Great cloud vendors won’t force you to change what you’re currently doing in IT; they let you do the same things but in faster and more efficient ways,” he says.
PROCESSOR / By Chris A. MacKinnon
Why The Confusion?
Although cloud computing did attract attention and still continues to gain awareness, the actual adoption among small to midsized enterprises has only been a trickle, according to Karthik Viswanathan, head of marketing at Aspire Systems (www.aspiresys.com). “While the early adopters among large enterprises and start-ups have already joined the cloud bandwagon, SMEs are prudent in their approach to cloud adoption,” Viswanathan says. “The economic conditions in 2009 were not encouraging. The IT spending of SMEs drastically reduced in 2009, with focus only on buying tested and proven IT that helped reduce costs.”
Kevin Epstein, vice president of marketing at CloudShare (www.cloudshare.com), says there is confusion because cloud is simultaneously poorly defined and widely hyped as a must-have element of IT. "In a large company, you can assign someone to be your cloud expert, and you buy something labeled ‘cloud' from one of your standard vendors and trust that if you pay them seven figures, they'll make whatever it is work," Epstein says. But in a smaller company, he adds, you need to personally be the expert and make cloud work, even as the definition of cloud changes by the hour. Epstein says it doesn't help when marketers everywhere deploy smoke and mirrors around existing products and label it all a “cloud.”
For Kelly Beardmore, CTO and COO at Tenzing Managed IT Services (www.tenzing.com), cloud computing is the concept that enterprises can consume IT services as a utility. “Like electricity,” Beardmore says, “you subscribe to a service provider and pay for what you use. But the confusion starts where the analogy stops. Unlike common utilities, IT services are not created or consumed homogenously. IT services is an umbrella term for many different things—from CRM (customer relationship management) to data centre infrastructure to ITSM (IT service management) best practices—and each can be spoken of in the context of the cloud.” Beardmore says that as a result, the message to the end user about what the cloud is can vary considerably depending on who is speaking.
What Cloud Is
Vishal Sharma, senior director of cloud computing at NaviSite (www.navisite.com), says that at a very high level, cloud computing is all about delivering and consuming IT as a service in an on-demand fashion. “Cloud computing is both an evolution and a revolution,” he says. “From a technology perspective, cloud computing is a natural evolution of technologies and approaches, such as virtualization, automation, integration, and utility computing. The revolution is around how IT resources are managed and delivered.”
According to Beardmore, there are many different types of clouds. “There are public clouds, private clouds, semi-private clouds, global clouds, [and] regional clouds, as well as private SaaS (software as a service) and multitenant SaaS,” he says. “Each is a variation on the ‘IT services as a utility’ theme created by the different business requirements of cloud services consumers and the technological and business limitations faced by the producers of these cloud services.”
Beardmore explains that to data centre or hosting service providers, the cloud is the ability of the end user to subscribe to raw compute, storage, and network resources on demand to support enterprise workloads by utilizing virtualization technology at various levels of the infrastructure stack. To the SaaS provider, on the other hand, the cloud is the ability of the end user to subscribe to business services online. “What was once delivered to the enterprise’s IT department as a software package to deploy is now delivered on demand directly to the end user via an Internet connection,” he says.
John Barnes, CTO of Model Metrics (www.modelmetrics.com), says cloud computing at the highest level is defined as “computing power or services that are delivered over the Internet by an outside company as a utility and are billed based on usage.” Barnes notes, “The services fall into three main categories, SaaS (software as a service), such as Salesforce.com or Gmail; PaaS (platform as a service), such as Force.com and Google App Engine; or IaaS (infrastructure as a service), such as Amazon Web Services.”
What Cloud Isn’t
In Barnes’ opinion, cloud computing should not be confused with the older hosted ASP (application service provider) model where a firm would host an instance of an on-premises application for you. “Many software companies are trying to do this and claim it is cloud computing,” he says. “True cloud computing vendors are multitenant (that is, all clients running on the same stack) and running ‘version now’ (every one is on the current version).”
According to Beardmore, any IT service that is not consumed over the Internet is not considered cloud computing. He says there are some that like to equate cloud with “elasticity,” rather than the utility model, and thus, nearly any in-house virtualized compute environment becomes a cloud. But this only adds to the confusion. “Also, any IT service that is not consumed on a subscription (that is, a recurring billing model based on actual usage) is not considered cloud computing,” Beardmore explains, adding that “it is important to note that the degree of flexibility around usage rates, both at a contract and operations level, varies considerably from service provider to service provider.”
Epstein says that at the end of the day, be confident in your judgment and don’t be swayed by hype. “Great cloud vendors won’t force you to change what you’re currently doing in IT; they let you do the same things but in faster and more efficient ways,” he says.
PROCESSOR / By Chris A. MacKinnon