What is “Cloud Computing”, What’s needed to get there and how does VMware fit in?

By Rob Zylowski Director, Services and Director, IP GlassHouse Technologies, Inc.

VMWorld 2009

Wiki - Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet.  Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the “Cloud” that supports them.

I’m not sure everyone would agree with this definition.  The key term here that I find problematic is “resources”.  It seems that most people think of the “Cloud” more in terms of providing applications than infrastructure (though infrastructure can be supported) but “resources” indicates only rather than applications.

Consistent Themes

Doing a little research on the NET, it seems that several themes arise again and again with respect to “Cloud Computing.”

• “ I don’t care what’s up there as long as it works”
• Abstraction from the underlying technologies
• It’s provided as a service billed as a utility based on usage
• Closely aligned with Web 2.0 and Software as a Service (SaaS)
• May include HaaS — Hardware as a Service where the platform is what is being purchased as the “application.”
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What about VMware

Of course I am writing this at VMWorld 2009 and must consider VMware’s definition of the “Cloud’.  From a platform perspective most current “Cloud” offerings are built on open source infrastructure like Xen and KVM most likely due to price pressure.  Carl Eschenbach announced at the show this week that he believes VMware will compete strongly in the public space however it seems to me that VMware will be strongest within the Enterprise or what’s known as the “Private Cloud.”

What does it take to build a private cloud?  If we use the amalgamation of definitions found above the “Private Cloud” would need to appear to its end users as an abstracted service where they could use/purchase applications or business functionality paying only as they use these services.  Of course, that definition would apply only to end users in our IT world.  If “our” users were application developers or application owners then the abstraction might be to purchase application support services such as web, database, storage and compute; again as a utility.  As these are VMware’s primary clients the portion of the “Private Cloud” likely to be filled by VMware is only the platform services.

Service Provider Model

As stated above one critical aspect of the “Private Cloud” is that it must be provided as a service.  GlassHouse has been working with Enterprise IT groups for years working on ways to migrate their services to a “Service Provider Model” and I can attest to the fact that while extremely beneficial in many ways this is not an easy transition.  Most companies have built the financial policies and processes governing the IT function over many years.  These processes are ingrained into the corporate culture and very difficult to change.  The types of challenges I am thinking about here are:

• Project based funding
• Departmental or Business Unit ownership
• Yearly allocation of costs based on very high level budgetary numbers using a metric like number of desktops or number of employees
• No real understanding of the underlying costs associated with infrastructure or applications at a micro level

In order to successfully build a “Private Cloud” an organization will need to be able to function as service provider.  They must define their services and service levels in terms that their clients will understand so that the clients can make informed decisions on what service level they require.  In order to support the service definition the IT group must be able to predict and track their costs at a level which allows them to appropriately and fully cost each service.  With this level of information it will be possible to provide services on a utility or usage basis to the end users.

The Bottom Line

This is a VMworld 2009 brief so there is not enough space for me to fully expand on what work must really be accomplished to create a “Private Cloud” within your organization.  While “Cloud Computing” is currently much to do with marketing and hype there is certainly a high degree of optimism that this concept will enable us to simplify corporate computing in the future. 

One thing that is certain is that VMware and others are creating a significant buzz around this topic.  The buzz is driving development on a massive scale so that with the tools VMware and its partner community are bring in to the market Enterprises will eventually be able to deliver their services as true service providers.

However, what I wanted to get across here is that before this hype reaches any real fruition there is a significant amount of intense work to be performed by ISV’s and corporate IT groups to attain the ideal where users can go to a web site, then purchase and provision the services they need for only the time they need them.  But as they say Rome was not built in a day!