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TELECOMS AND SOFTWARE NEWS
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Is cloud computing just vapourware?
Steve Hodgkinson
Is cloud computing just vapourware?
Cloud computing is starting to take a beating for being over-hyped vapourware - with virtually any online service being branded as 'cloud' to get on the marketing bandwagon. Don't be fooled. There is substance in the cloud, and recessionary times will give CIOs new enthusiasm for seeking its massive scale economies. However, the cloud raises new challenges for providers and consumers alike. More than just hype
Cloud computing is part of an ongoing trend towards the consolidation of ICT services into ever larger, more interconnected and more remote factories - now on a global scale. In practical terms, cloud computing equals 'as-much-ICT-as-you-want-as-a-service'; it encompasses applications ranging from ERP systems through to widgets, application development tools & environments, storage, processing, systems management and security. While the term might have been over-hyped, cloud computing has many characteristics - from its provision as a standardised utility, to its delivery via the Internet, to its hardware independency - that make it worth considering as something new. A useful frame of reference is to consider cloud computing as like staying in a hotel, outsourcing as like renting a house, and your own in-house IT function as like owning a home. Then consider the scenario of accommodating a large extended and growing family. Some people will prefer the stability of the family home, others the flexibility of a rented house, and others the excitement and convenience of a hotel - be it budget or luxury, long or short term. New challenges for the customer
For start-ups and SMEs there is great appeal in the 'IT-department-as-a-service' provided, for example, by Amazon Web Services, Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3) and by Google Mail, Docs and App Engine, or in the access to computing infrastructure offered by Salesforce via its platform-as-a-service offerings. However, enterprises are right to be cautious about relying on such consumer-/SME-oriented suppliers for anything resembling a mission-critical application or service. While some concerns are similar to those raised by the creation of internal shared ICT centres or the outsourcing of ICT functions, i.e. 'How do you control, or come to trust, that which you no longer own?', a spate of service outages on the Amazon and Google platforms have increased enterprise caution about the reliability of consumer-market-oriented cloud providers. From this perspective, the cloud creates new management challenges more akin to those of the electricity grid. Under an outsourcing deal a CIO can always, as a final resort, insist on enforcement of the terms of a contract and its service level agreement (SLA). But, if the cloud is like the electricity grid, then we know that an SLA is of little value during a major power outage. We take it for granted that the electricity grid occasionally fails. We also know that when the power is out we are usually not the only one affected. We light our candles or fire up the generator, and wait. There is little point in calling the service centre or insisting on your rights under an SLA when a whole city block or town is dark. New challenges for the vendor
From the vendor's perspective, there are a range of challenges to overcome to build a cloud computing business. How to meter service consumption and create cost-reflective charging? How to architect pure, frictionless, virtualised applications that can truly scale seamlessly? How to manage service blackouts and brownouts - are all customers equal in the cloud? These challenges, which have many similarities to those faced by electricity utilities, are the focus of significant R&D activity by the major cloud players aiming to develop solutions to enterprise concerns regarding cloud trustworthiness and business models. For example, IBM is making substantial investments in cloud computing R&D; HP, Intel and Yahoo are partnering to create new cloud R&D centres; and Oracle and Intel are partnering on cloud infrastructure development. Cloud computing should not be written off as an option
Despite the challenges, cloud computing introduces new options and flexibilities for the CIO and ought not to be written off as an option just because the marketers have gone overboard with applying the label to virtually any online service. As the effects of the meltdown in the global financial sector spread throughout the economy, the cloud will become an ever more important strategy for reducing both capex and opex - giving CIOs new options for responding to budget pressures in recessionary times. Cloud computing can, and will, provide robust and reliable solutions for the enterprise CIO. However, it will require some new thinking from both the provider and client sides. The trick is to work out where these solutions apply, what new risks they create and how to manage them. The best advice for CIOs is to start the process of limited trials of cloud computing solutions in order to gain some practical experience of what it can and cannot do, and how the new management challenges can be overcome.
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This article is an extract taken from Ovum's Straight Talk service. This daily email bulletin provides our expert's views and opinions on important news and events in global IT and telecoms. If you have a comment or question regarding this article then please submit your details here:
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