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A respected colleague of mine explains how Dutch Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) has been "greening" the IT by eliminating lots of physical servers by virtualizing them.

There is not only an environmental and financial benefit to this move to virtualization, it also creates the possibility to offer self-service hosting facilities on demand to our consumers, reducing platform delivery from weeks or months to hours or even minutes, at no effort.

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Cloud Computing Explained

We are heading toward Cloud Computing. About one year ago I published a posting about this trend. But what is Cloud Computing at all? Does it replace the SOA and EDA hypes? Answer on this last question: No! Cloud software takes full advantage of the cloud paradigm by being service oriented with a focus on statelessness, low coupling, modularity, and semantic interoperability.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology - NIST - has defined Cloud Computing. This definition perfectly matches my own vision and awareness. I think it may be worthfull to share this vision. In this posting I'll add two of my own pictures to support the understanding.

First of all, to understand Cloud Computing it is very important to understand the viewpoint of IT-services from a layered perspective. The picture below is a simplified version of the model I've always at hand in my daily practice and which I published before on my blog.

IT-services stack
[click to enlarge]

IT-delivery offerings in the market tend to concentrate on each of these layers. Each layer provides services to the next higher layer in the stack adding abstraction and value to its lower level layer. This is a move-away from the stove pipes where every application relies on dedicated solutions throughout the stack.

(Honesty demands to mention appliances, which are hardware stove pipe boxes for the sake of - very - high performance requirements. The consumer of the services should however be unaware of these lower level implementation strategies.)

When you understand this layered view, you will be able to understand Cloud Computing. NIST defines Cloud Computing as follows:

Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.

Essential Characteristics

On-demand self-service
A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service’s provider.

Broad network access
Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs).

Resource pooling
The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction (e.g., country, state, or datacenter). Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, network bandwidth, and virtual machines.

Rapid elasticity
Capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out and rapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be purchased in any quantity at any time.

Measured Service
Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.

Service Models

Software as a Service (SaaS)
The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through a thin client interface such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email). The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.

Example: Google Gmail

Platform as a Service (PaaS)
The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly application hosting environment configurations.

Example: IBM Cloud Burst

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
The capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, deployed applications, and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls).

Example: Amazon EC2

My visualization
[Click to enlarge]

Deployment Models

Private cloud
The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an organization. It may be managed by the organization or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise.

Community cloud
The cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise.

Public cloud
The cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or a large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services.

Hybrid cloud
The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load-balancing between clouds).

Thank you, Peter Mell and Tim Grance! In return feel free to reuse my pictures...

The CIO's top 3 priorities

New waves of technological innovation lead to new businesses for IT-delivery. These new businesses use very fast and ultra large scale models to deliver IT-services to consumers. These businesses deliver infrastructure like high volume processing, storage and network facilities within minutes at rates of a few cents per hour usage. Consumers can access virtual PC-s in virtual LAN-s at any size for any period of time on demand using protocols like RDP (Remote Desk Top), which gives the user a local experience of high capacity. On top of this infrastructure other businesses deliver application functionality at the same ultra large scale. Amortizations are spread over huge amounts of users world wide connected over the Internet.

In every enterprise time-to-market as well as IT-costs are continuously under pressure. As emerging new businesses promise - and currently start to prove - to dramatically cut down time-to-market and costs, the enterprises' IT-departments must prepare for change. Although the change will be fundamental, it is not realistic to rely on a big bang.

To deliver application functionality and platform services to the enterprise, policies need to be established with regard to:

A. In-house delivery
B. Outsouring to partners
C. Consuming services from the cloud

During the next 5 years a hybrid situation will evolve with changing weight from A to B to C. Many organizations already witness the change from A to B, starting with consuming housing services and evolving to consuming hosting services.

To guarantee flexibility and interoperability in a hybrid context - which will last for a long time, if not "forever" - extensive platform standardization is required. Three subjects will dominate the CIO's agenda for the next couple of years:

• Platform standardization


• Sourcing strategy


• Commodity utilization

1. Platform standardization

Application platforms (a framework essentially consisting of Portals, ESB-s, DBMS-s, Application servers, Web browsers) and infrastructure platforms (essentially offering OS, network, storage and underlying hardware) need to be highly standardized in order to allow easy interoperability and scalability and flexible deployments. These platforms need to be based on open architectures to allow for seamless integration internally and externally.

2. Sourcing strategy

Delivery will be outsourced to specialized parties, whose core business is IT-delivery. The enterprise can take advantage of the competences and efficiency of scale of specialized suppliers. Focus will change from own in-house delivery to orchestration of delivery by multiple sourcing partners.

3. Commodity utilization

Platform services and application functionality is emerging from the cloud. PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service) will become available instantly on demand and on a pay-as-you-go basis with automated fast-scale facilities. Global scaling benefits of tens of thousands of highly standardized virtualized resources lead to huge cost reductions with hardly any pre-investment for the consumers. After a level of trust has been established with regard to performance, availability and security, enterprises will massively embrace these offerings. Small organizations and start-ups with little or no budget and hardly any legacy will be the first ones and are already consuming these services today.

Another great document on Cloud Computing

I recognize a lot of cynicism about Cloud Computing. People see it as a buzz word, which it is, and for this reason play down this technology trend. I think CIO's should not be happy when this happens in their office.

I am not going to explain or evangelize Cloud Computing in this blog posting. What I will do is refer to a downloadable powerpoint presentation by Pat Helland.

Pat Helland remade a paper of Berkeley's called Above the Clouds. Pat has made this document to an easy approachable yet comprehensive powerpoint presentation.

Every CIO dealing with applications in datacenters should be aware of what Berkeley try to tell us. I am really impressed by Berkeley's paper and Pat Helland's powerpoint sheets.

The 8 questions Berkeley answers in the paper are:

• What is Cloud Computing, and how is it different from previous paradigm shifts such as Software as a Service (SaaS)?
  

• Why is Cloud Computing poised to take off now, whereas previous attempts have foundered?
  

• What does it take to become a Cloud Computing provider, and why would a company consider becoming one?
  

• What new opportunities are either enabled by or potential drivers of Cloud Computing?
  

• How might we classify current Cloud Computing offerings across a spectrum, and how do the technical and business challenges differ depending on where in the spectrum a particular offering lies?
  

• What, if any, are the new economic models enabled by Cloud Computing, and how can a service operator decide whether to move to the cloud or stay in a private datacenter?
  

• What are the top 10 obstacles to the success of Cloud Computing—and the corresponding top 10 opportunities available for overcoming the obstacles?
  

• What changes should be made to the design of future applications software, infrastructure software, and hardware to match the needs and opportunities of Cloud Computing?

Proudly Presented: The Cloud

I came across a book titled "Collaboration in the Cloud". It's about business, collaboration and Cloud Computing. A PDF-copy is freely available and may also be distributed freely. You can download the 6MB PDF-file by clicking the link below:

Collaboration in the Cloud


The book is written by 5 experts, 3 from Sogeti and 2 from Microsoft. The authors address the changes and opportunities that come with a new world that is starting to show all around us. They talk about autonomous, bottom up organizations where innovation and collaboration are part of the culture. Analogies with the industrial revolution are used to illustrate the extraordinary era we witness today.

I share this file on my weblog to supply my blog readers with some interesting thoughts in order to make up an opinion about how conventional companies (till the extend of large enterprises) can gain the same advantage of these technologies as the bottom up organizations do. It may help you to develop a vision and to establish strategies.

Cloud Computing: From Custom-build via COTS to SaaS

A decade or two ago, we built all of our applications ourselves (well, except some generic products like WordPerfect). Common practice in most organizations nowadays is to first look for Commercial of the Shelf Software (COTS) before building an own solution.

But the weather is getting "cloudy" these days, and a storm is ahead.

With the maturity of the Internet a third branch is emerging on the decision-tree. Is the solution available as SaaS? Yes, do it. If not, is the solution available as COTS? Yes, do it. If not, build it yourself. And after you've built it, deploy it in the cloud.

The facts

Oracle has acquired SUN to get into the data center business. Microsoft and Google and others invest huge amounts of money to build data centers all over the world. Amazon offers virtual desktops (EC2) at a few cents per hour -and you only pay when you are logged in. Linxter offers an ESB in the cloud, Microsoft calls it the Internet Service Bus. Microsoft also offers Windows-in-the-cloud (Azure). Google offers rich email services to companies with (an ever growing) 7 GB storage at the price of one and a half cup of coffee a month. Salesforce offers business functionality at rates interesting enough to be taken seriously, no investments needed. Since the early days of the Internet suppliers offer storage in the cloud and their prices are decreasing. BPM is offered in the cloud to click together you business processes based on SaaS and your own local applications and services, using a Service Bus in the cloud and/or your own to route the messages around.

Virtualization to share resources not at an enterprise level, but at a global level decreases costs with a magnitude beyond any imagination. Pay-as-you-go and fast-scale models will make any investment and so any business case in your organization superfluous.

Identity services based on OpenID authenticate users in the cloud. In combination with secure federated provisioning services and legal certifications of cloud services providers, adequate levels of security are guaranteed.

In the short term emotions ("This is not secure enough for us... We have different needs then other companies... It's not flexible...") will be the main speed limiter, but eventually rationalism will win: do things ourselves in-house against huge costs, let things do dedicated for us by a provider in the cloud against high costs, or make use of multi-tenant and virtualized solutions with globally shared resources at extremely low costs.

Now is the time for organizations to establish a vision and policies and be prepared. Retink the role of the IT-department because things will change, soon, fast and overwhelming. If you as an IT-department don't, the business units will. Because most of what the enterprise's IT-department offers will be offered in the cloud as well, very fast, very scalable, very cheap, and instantly available to everyone. No company-WAN is needed; a cheap ADSL- or cable-access point will sufice to connect the business unit's LAN to the cloud. Be prepared!!

Cloud Computing: 16 corrections

What is Cloud Computing?

James Governor posted a list of 15 statements that explain when it's not Cloud Computing.

But is he right?

Do you recognize the cloud trend?

Let's focus on four business organizations (orange buttons), or enterprises if you like. They own and manage there own software systems (green dots). Even in the Before-Internet-Era, let's say the nineties of the twentieth century and before, there were heavily used mechanisms to have software components communicate (blue lines) across organization boundaries. See figure 1.

Figure 1: the nineties of 20th. century (before Internet)

Then the Internet came raging across the world, let's say in the first decade of the current century, and dropped a cloud. Pioneers on the Internet started offering software solutions from the cloud, much for free, enjoying the pride of being the first.

Commercial SaaS products started to enter the cloud domain and nerdy hobbyists (some from Google, some not) started to create mashup platforms and solutions in their spare time. I won't mention the Google Maps cliché. At the same time standardization organizations were making overtime to define and support open application level communication standards and protocols.

Figure 1 (above) changed to figure 2 (below), the blue lines between the organizations became a blue cloud surrounding the organizations. And more, the cloud not only offers communication facilities, but functional business services to be used as part of your own business processes as well. The green dots not only reside on the orange buttons, but also in the blue cloud. And they are directly in the hands of your employees and colleagues, without interference of your central IT department.

These green dots in the blue cloud are new and they are multiplying like mice; non-stop. Try to imagine what that means... if you can.

Figure 2: first decade of 21st. century

You doubt? What about a very recent example very close to me: Selling discount train tickets on eBay (green dot in the blue cloud). I just found this out by surprise today. I am an employee of the IT department of Dutch Railways and I really didn't know Dutch Railways started offering tickets that can be bought (including payment) on the Internet - as a temporary campaign. A colleague of mine informed me after he was notified by the Google Alerts service (another green dot in the blue cloud); not by the respective employees. Our IT department has completely been kept out (what could we do at all?). I even promoted a more sophisticated variant of a green ticket selling dot in the blue cloud, a few weeks ago on this blog, without knowing anything of this initiative nearby.

And what about yourself? Haven't you ever looked up your supplier via Google? Or looked at the CV of your colleague on Linkedin? Sent a business relevant email via Gmail? Subscribed to business relevant RSS feeds? Ordered some books for your company library via Amazon after querying a service that compares the prices of several book-stores? Booked a business flight via an air booking site? Published the pictures of your department party on Flickr? Sent a file that was too large for email via Yousendit to a colleague at an other location? Archived some files on box.net to be accessed from elsewhere? Well, I did.

Okay, these examples sound all a bit trivial, but it has just started. You didn't do all of these things 10 years ago, or 5 year ago. Before reading this post, did you realize that you and your employees already started using the green dots in the blue cloud as part of your business processes? And that some of your employees already depend on some of these public dots to fulfill their tasks adequately? It will be more and it will be pervasive. Don't be afraid and don't fight it, but seek to cope with it.

The green dots in the blue cloud become more and more robust, reliable and secure. Even better than organizations can organize and guarantee in their own orange button. And at a price that low, that the costs become irrelevant to business cases and ROI's: cost will be no hurdle to usage and change. Just because the software you originally owned and used by yourself is now used by thousands or even millions of users everywhere on the globe. Just because the blue cloud turned up.

Do you think of the electricity costs when you turn on the light in your bathroom? The cost of using software (or listening to music or watching movies) will go the same way as the cost of electricity at home; pay-as-you-go at a very low rate. Because of the scale. And that will become visible in the second decade of our current century.

As figure 3 shows, the green dots will leave the orange buttons and start a new life in the cloud. Some green dots that are very tightly glued to an orange button will stay there. These are the very specific applications that must guarantee your business advantage. But all the others will eventually populate the cloud. Do you notice that figure 3 starts looking a bit like the inverse of figure 1?

Figure 3: second decade of 21st. century

And now back to today, 2008. Do you recognize this trend? Do you think it will go this way? Can you mention any reasons why not? What do you think will happen if you don't believe this, but your competitor does? If he turns out to be right? Are you going to take that risk?

Whether you believe it is rapidly moving this way or not, it is not a bad idea to formulate a vision on this subject and either develop a strategy to cope with it or explicitly conclude you safely can ignore this trend...

Invisible IT

According to York Earwaker's Weblog we are entering the era of invisible IT. He published a picture which tells us so. Unfortunately he didn't mention the source of the picture (might be his own) and he doesn't go into depth on the aspect of invisible IT. But it makes me think of my expected SaaS evolvement and cloud computing.

This is the picture...

About a Loser's Model

Today I read a posting on Joe McKendrick's blog called Is Cloud computing too good to be true for enterprises. His blog entry was inspired by postings of some of his colleague bloggers on ZDNet. It is a nice article discussing the pros and (a bit more) cons of cloud computing for the enterprise from the perspective of SaaS, PaaS, Google and Amazon. So be it.

Reading the article two things came to my mind.

Firstly

The following quote attracted my attention:

In many cases, even 20-year-old mainframe programs contain custom processes and logic that provide market advantages.

I wouldn't put my cards on a company that relies for its market advantage on 20 years old IT-systems... It is a loser's model nowadays! Modern IT evolvements are currently inclining the world explosively. Not the least reason because of the introduction of ultimate connectivity; every home nowadays has multiple IP-addresses (I even carry one with me every day in my pocket), to mention just one of todays IT-characteristics that didn't exist 10 years ago. Knowledge of the occurrence of even the smallest event spreads around the world within a few seconds (by everyone, from every home, at no cost, and with audio and moving pictures!) to mention just another of today's characteristics. Relying on software (and supported processes), build in an age when these characteristics were laughed away as irrational fantasies, needs not be a big issue. But if your business depends on it for its current market advantage... o boy!

Secondly

Of course cloud computing is the way to go!

I do cloud computing myself every day by handling my financials via a web browser connected over the Internet to an external service provider - my bank - whose systems (and data centers) I don't know, whose personnel I've never met, whose office I've never visited, and whom I yet allow to safeguard my money. This is an extreme example of outsourcing sensitive processes to an external service provider. This external service provider deals with my most risk sensitive assets like my salary - and pays my bills from my own money partly even without any of my interference. And I control the process via the cloud. What the heck security issues and no future for cloud computing... It is just going to happen and you'd better be prepared if you want to stay in business.