Three debates that will benefit cloud computing

Cloud computing is one of those operations models that has already started to disrupt the way in which everyone consumes software.

It is also starting to have an effect (albeit tiny right now) on the way in which people and organizations consume (or don't consume) hardware. Cloud computing has become a part of the core information technology "fabric" of many.

Cloud computing does, however, generate more than its fair share of disagreement and debate. Vendors, customers, bloggers, twitterers, and even consumers have spend many thousands of hours, hundreds of thousands of words, and millions of dollars trying to convince the world that their view of cloud computing is "the one." Meanwhile, thousands of other very smart people are questioning the core assumptions on which cloud computing's value proposition rests.

You would think this dissent would be detrimental to the adoption and growth of cloud computing, but it's not. Partially that's for the relatively lame reason that every new definition and every new "must-have" feature expand the possibility of what cloud computing is...thereby growing the term "cloud computing" through a sort of linguistic acquisition strategy.

However, it is also in part due to the fact that these debates are spurring a huge amount of brain power to focus on some really difficult-to-solve cloud-related problems. The tension created by disagreement and debate in the cloud computing marketplace is spurring entrepreneurs, vendors, and even individuals to achieve their independent visions of what could be. Tension drives innovation, in this case.

Let me give you three examples of what I am talking about. These are probably the three most important examples of how disagreement is driving technology road maps industrywide. Some of these disagreements are clearly self-serving--established systems vendors protecting their markets while enthusiastic entrepreneurs attempt to redefine the markets outright. Some are just different ways of seeing the same subject, but with profound effects on the choices made by vendors and individuals on each side of the debate.

Consumer and small/midsize business versus enterprise

One of the biggest sources of tension among those that debate cloud computing definitions is the difference between the needs of individuals and small/medium businesses (SMB) versus those of their larger enterprise counterparts.

The former is looking to minimize cost and complexity as much as possible by eliminating the need to own things. Consumer/SMB is a market in which providing service through standardized devices reigns supreme, and the requirement to own anything other than basic access devices--laptops, Netbooks, smartphones, and the like--is detrimental. This marketplace sees the issue as outsourcing as much information technology as possible and is willing to place a high level of trust in providers to achieve that.

Enterprises, however, tend to be much more concerned maintaining their existing investments in IT while gaining a return on investment for new spending on new technologies or processes. A tremendous amount has been spent on making IT a trusted resource (though clearly with mixed results). Enterprises won't move forward on cloud unless they can maintain that level of trustworthiness without excessive expenditure.

So the consumer/SMB market is trying to drive the enterprise towards pure IT as a service, and the enterprise is trying to get cloud providers to up their game in security, control, service levels, and compliance. All are very good for cloud customers as a whole.

Public cloud versus private cloud

Closely related to the problem of how to run IT is where to run it. And by running it, I don't necessarily where the hardware is running, but where controls that define "the cloud" are maintained. Who owns the systems that manage the cloud and that define things like access rights, available software images, and network service configurations?

This is essentially the heart of the debate about how much service is provided by IT--how much cloud must be on the Internet for it to be cloud. Those who believe "private clouds" are unnecessary generally believe that you can get everything you need from your public cloud provider. Take Amazon Web Services, for instance. Using its console, its messaging infrastructure, its data stores, and so on, many developers are arguing that there is little reason to build and operate new applications anywhere else.

The argument for private clouds, however, is generally based on the risks inherent in external public clouds--things like lock-in, data ownership, regulatory concerns, security, etc.--as well as the alleged ability of private clouds to provide a smoother migration path to external clouds than going straight to public clouds today.

So, the public cloud crowd is pushing internal IT and individuals toward using third-party services to replace capital intensive IT, while the private cloud crowd is pushing cloud service providers to see interacting with existing IT infrastructure as an enabler for cloud adoption. Again, both are good for cloud customers.

Open source versus proprietary

While the previous two arguments have been about how and where to operate IT, this debate is a little different. It is about software technology, and it is actually about much more than cloud computing. On the surface, it's the same old "free versus commercial" debate. But when you dig down from a cloud perspective, you find nuances that will be critical to the future form of the cloud.

You've probably read about the debate regarding whether cloud computing is the logical conclusion of open source. Many open source companies note that in order to profit from open source, they must be exceptional service businesses. As cloud computing is all about service delivery, it is a natural model in which to sell open source services.

That argument, while critical, isn't the whole story, however. The other side of the coin is the debate about whether one can build competitive cloud services using anything other than open source. Most of the leading clouds available today are heavy users of open-source software, and many of the most compelling server images in Amazon's image library are based on open source.

Folks like Microsoft and VMWare, however, would beg to differ and are working furiously to prove to the market that their value add is worth the cost of their software. The argument is that these companies can pay for innovation and for a partner ecosystem that drives new business and have the customer relationships to work through long-term cloud deployment issues.

Here, the open-source community is playing a critical role in driving a new business model for software delivery (free software, for-fee service), while the so-called "proprietary" platforms are building ecosystems that push open source to continually reinforce its value to developers.

In the end, while I have preferences in each of these debates, it is impossible to declare any winners at this point. And that is good, as our constant testing of each others' principles will lead to an ever-increasing richness in cloud computing offerings for years to come.

[Schratboy]

By 'seasoned' field technologist are we talking about spicy, aged, smoked or dried?

As for the whole cloud phenomenon, it's merely the next hype cycle for revenue generation. On deck, the return of the main frame and 3270 terminal emulation.

[dsherr1]

Your Argument #1 that SMBs are more interested in cost control than Enterprises is not quite right imho. In this continuing long term downturn (looks to be 18-24 more months), Enterprises have no choice but to focus on bottom line while there is little distraction from top line opportunities. It is in the opportunity cost that makes Enterprises focused on ROI over IT cost efficiency. Increasingly, Enterprises will evolve into flexible federations of SMBs (Lines of Business). The promise of Cloud by all your aspects of the debate is to facilitate rapid scale up/scale down IT with changing mixes of Enterprise LoBs.

[randyb-gogrid]

Spot on as usual, James. More and more I'm thinking this is just a natural bifurcation in the cloud stratosphere. SImply put, at one end is public, open source, for SMBs and at the other end is private, closed source for Enterprise.

Not to say Enterprise won't consume some of the public clouds or use open source. Simply that there two strong poles here and folks will gravitate towards one based on needs. I think that leaves a lot of room in the middle to do interesting things.


--Randy

[DMGuru]

Great piece James. On my Blog (http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConBlog.5) we've been discusssing the data migration issues specific to cloud computing and what a cloud DM architecture would look like. I have to confess to being a novice at all this and although I've spoken to some of the open source vendors about thier contribution I have yet to get to grips with what impact private clouds will have as a route to migration. Loads to think about. Thank you.

Johny Morris

[RandyClark]

Your point about the ?tension? created by the ongoing cloud debate actually driving innovation is an interesting one. Perhaps I can release some tension from the public vs. private debate by pointing out that IT departments are not forced to decide between one approach or the other. A hybrid private/public cloud approach gives organizations the best of both worlds. For enterprises with a large inventory of underutilized IT resources or business-critical applications, migrating to private clouds first is the safest starting point from both a security and reliability perspective. This gives IT the opportunity to transform into more of an internal service provider, i.e., putting the right workload on the right infrastructure today, while creating gateways to migrate some applications to the public cloud in the future.

One essential point relative to existing infrastructure that shouldn?t be overlooked is the importance of a technology agnostic cloud computing management platform that supports any collection of hardware, operating systems and virtual machines. This will ensure organizations are really able to leverage past investments and corporate standards if and when they migrate to private clouds.

Randy Clark, CMO Platform Computing

[Khurt]

Unfortunately the Cloud Hype Cycle is drowning out the voices of those in Enterprise IT who have concerns about how these cloude services will provide the security (confidentiality, integrity and availability) that enterprises have come to depend on. Who wants to tell the CIO that the cloud hosted payroll or order processing system will be offline because the cloud vendors systems went dark? These are issues that the vendors need to address to encourage large enterprise to adopt the the "Cloud".

[beancounter_1]

Well done! Painting the arguments from all sides is good and I think the really important thing to note is that none of them are wrong! For a large enterprise they have their needs which are very different than the needs of the SMB's. CTO's should stop running scared seeing it as a replacement to their departments and embrace it as an add on tho their core infrastructure.

For the SMB's Cloud computing (per my personal definition) gives them access to technology, expertise and accessibility that would be cost prohibitive in an internal model. Our company HostedSolutionsInc.com provides private clouds that can ensure the security and confidentiality of their data and applications. It is also agnostic in the software so they pick the software and we plug it in.

An additional debate on that note is the software developers licensing models. So far Microsoft, Citrix, and Intuit are now offering pay per use licensing for service providers to offer to their clients. I hope that others like Adobe and Sage will come around in the same manner.