Cloud Computing Definition #2

Ph. D. Julio Fernandez Vilas

¿Any comments? jfvilas@gmail.com

If we think that “cloud servicing” is not a kind of cloud computing, what should be considered cloud computing? There are still 2 parts of our cloud computing stack: applications and cloud infrastructure. Let’s talk about cloud infrastructure, a.k.a. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). EMC (the storage giant famous by its Symmetrix boxes) bought VMWare several years ago. As it occurred with no other companies bought by EMC, VMWare has not been included into the EMC Corp., and it has been kept as a separate company instead. It’s just a bit of history.

EMC sees IaaS as a “double-cloud infrastructure” built by the private cloud and the public cloud. What EMC thinks about “clouding the infrastructure” is closely related to what its award winning ESX is designed for. According to EMC view, companies using virtualization infrastructure (I think EMC’s theories are right for ESX or even for Xen) should enter in a “virtualize-everything” mode. This way, the virtualized infrastructure can hold all the infrastructure needs of the company.

The infrastructure can grow or decrease according to business needs. The benefits of virtualization are clear: changing the capabilities of the infrastructure is as easy as adding a new server to the virtualized farm. Companies will be positioning this year and next one in this “virtualized datacenter stage”. In fact, the private or internal cloud is an evolution of the virtualization of the whole datacenter.

How can datacenters prepare for the IaaS? I´ll point out just three guidelines:

1. Create (or expand) a virtual infrastructure to support the running business services.
2. Prepare your systems to be run in the cloud, that is:
1. Reduce the number of different cluster you manage.
2. Create the fewest number of different clusters that support your business.
3. Expand your cluster(s) with all the nodes you need.
4. Deploy all the software you use to run your business to all the nodes.
5. Use a load balancer to specialize the workload of each node or group of nodes.
3. Manage your virtual infrastructure.

Nowadays I don’t see an easy way to move (i.e., LiveMigration, VMotion or whatever) an OS image running in your private cloud to the public cloud (is there any public reliable ESX service?).

What would you do with your storage?

• Suppose you use FC: you should have a very clear extended SAN that crosses your private SAN boundaries (maybe with FC-IP) and expands to a hypothetic public SAN service, so when you move your OS images to the public cloud, FC access should be provided to the nodes of the ESX farm.
• Suppose you use iSCSI: you show work with communications staff in order to create alternative routes to your storage when you move OS images to the public cloud.
• You may use CNA's: you have a problem.

There are several beta experiences related with the VMware ecosystem: bluelock, hosting.com, Logica, melbourneIT… It is very important to note that they are all beta services. So, going back to our main discussion, can virtualization be considered cloud computing? We can say, without a doubt that virtualization is the base for IaaS. But I prefer to restrict the term cloud computing to other things more closely related to what computing means.

Finally, in Cloud Computing Definition #2 we exclude virtualization as a main objective and we think of it as a booster of IaaS. In future articles we will talk about XaaS (Everything as a Service) ans its relation with cloud computing.