Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Basic Debate on Cloud Computing
As we at Islanda have launched Islanda Cloud Services for Hawaii it was necessary to come down on one side of the ongoing debate about the definition of cloud computing. While everything in the world of IT seems to be driven by the current buzzword that no one can really define there are times when the buzzword develops from reality rather than fantasy. To me the simplest rule is to determine whether the buzzword is hoping to create some "buzz" about someones' idea for business processing or technology or whether something that was developing for several years but no one knew quite what to call it simply found a name.
Cloud computing is a combination of technologies that have finally found a name after having been proven to deliver greatly improved efficiency and a clear value for delivery of IT services to end users. The technologies that evolved from virtualization follow a standard technology model of attempting to solve a resource problem, poor utilization of hardware technology that also difficult to scale, and end up delivering a conceptual transformation to how you manage Information Technology. It's worked for enterprise IT departments and web services via Google and Amazon and now it is beginning to work for the last great IT frontier; small and medium sized businesses. That has always been my goal and we now have the tools (with a good name) that can do this.
But the real debate about cloud computing now stems from the tendency of IT companies to try to stick the name on everything and gain a competitive edge. Dell, HP and some other large enterprise providers are using the name "cloud" to describe virtualized data centers in the enterprise. There is a good bit of truth to the rants of Larry Ellison and others that cloud computing used in this context is little more than a marketing ploy with no meaning. Those arguments tend to miss the point about this type of technological transformation but they do identify that nothing much is really changing except the technology being used managed the infrastructure.
The other definition, which is the foundation for Islanda Cloud Services, is transformational as it allows a service level delivery of IT resources to a large group of businesses and organizations that don't know what a data center actually is. IBM has come down on this side with their new cloud division. This transformation allows Islanda and other providers on the mainland to begin delivering fully managed and scalable servers and virtual desktops with enterprise level security and policy implementation to offices as small as four or five people with a clumsy shared file system. We will evolve this to on-demand storage and processing power that can make significant economic differences to small entrepreneurial companies just beginning to exploit information based services as well as traditional small businesses who must become fully digitized and flexible enough to survey a major economic meltdown. I think that is the true meaning of "cloud computing" and that is the meaning we will work to expand and make practical for small businesses in Hawaii.
Cloud computing is a combination of technologies that have finally found a name after having been proven to deliver greatly improved efficiency and a clear value for delivery of IT services to end users. The technologies that evolved from virtualization follow a standard technology model of attempting to solve a resource problem, poor utilization of hardware technology that also difficult to scale, and end up delivering a conceptual transformation to how you manage Information Technology. It's worked for enterprise IT departments and web services via Google and Amazon and now it is beginning to work for the last great IT frontier; small and medium sized businesses. That has always been my goal and we now have the tools (with a good name) that can do this.
But the real debate about cloud computing now stems from the tendency of IT companies to try to stick the name on everything and gain a competitive edge. Dell, HP and some other large enterprise providers are using the name "cloud" to describe virtualized data centers in the enterprise. There is a good bit of truth to the rants of Larry Ellison and others that cloud computing used in this context is little more than a marketing ploy with no meaning. Those arguments tend to miss the point about this type of technological transformation but they do identify that nothing much is really changing except the technology being used managed the infrastructure.
The other definition, which is the foundation for Islanda Cloud Services, is transformational as it allows a service level delivery of IT resources to a large group of businesses and organizations that don't know what a data center actually is. IBM has come down on this side with their new cloud division. This transformation allows Islanda and other providers on the mainland to begin delivering fully managed and scalable servers and virtual desktops with enterprise level security and policy implementation to offices as small as four or five people with a clumsy shared file system. We will evolve this to on-demand storage and processing power that can make significant economic differences to small entrepreneurial companies just beginning to exploit information based services as well as traditional small businesses who must become fully digitized and flexible enough to survey a major economic meltdown. I think that is the true meaning of "cloud computing" and that is the meaning we will work to expand and make practical for small businesses in Hawaii.
Labels: cloud, computing, smallbusiness
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