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report, with nearly an entire page devoted to the impor-tance of cloud computing, stating that all agencies should be working toward virtualizing data centers,consolidating them and their operations, and ultimately adopting a cloud computing business model.3 There’s little debate that the concept known as “cloudcomputing,” coined as an über-reference to subsume that which we once referred to as SaaS, has dominated the industry over the past 12-18 months and continuesto be placed high on the top-10 lists of IT managementpriorities.4 Figure 1 illustrates the historical searchvolume trends for SaaS and cloud computing. Cloud computing has arrived, is rapidly maturing, So how will you respond when asked by your manage- and is nearing a tipping point for some enterprise solu- ment team, “How might using a cloud result in faster, tion realms. A recent Cutter Benchmark Review reveals cheaper, or better IT services?” Perhaps your first that 38% of surveyed organizations are using cloud response should be, “First, let’s chat a bit about what computing solutions and another 37% are considering we mean, exactly, when we consider cloud.” them.1 Much has been written in regard to this trend,and it’s now time to more fully consider a futurewhere computing as a commodity becomes the norm. CLOUD (RE)DEFINED
This two-part Executive Update series explores howcloud computing is setting the pace for change.
Here we go again. There are certainly hundreds ofcloud computing definitions in the wild today. The I assume you’re a forward-thinking CIO or IT manager, semantics are as wispy as cirrus, as the term often means judiciously following the latest cloud computing trends different things to different people. The leading defini- and industry research. Perhaps you’ve already been tions circulating on the Internet today include: actively thinking about your enterprise in terms of the Cloud computing is a general term for anything that opportunities arising through cloud computing. Have involves delivering hosted services over the Internet.
you imagined (or already realized) a day where your These services are broadly divided into three categories: CEO or CFO walks into your office to ask for an analysis Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service of current IT hosting spend compared to today’s leading (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The name cloud cloud solution? Perhaps you’ve responded by quickly computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that’s often dismissing the notion, suggesting that the cloud is used to represent the Internet in flowcharts and diagrams.5 (pick one or more of the following): (1) too new, (2) tooinsecure, (3) too unreliable, (4) too unregulated, (5) toorisky, or (6) too costly to consider.
If you work in the private sector, perhaps your managerhas read a recent CFO article describing how a CIO suc- Cloud Computing
cessfully moved nearly all of his company’s traditionalbusiness applications to Web-enabled software as aservice (SaaS) solutions priced in a subscription model.2 If you work in the public sector, including state, federal,and local government departments, perhaps youragency director noted President Obama’s 2011 budget Figure 1 — Google Trends plot of SaaS vs. cloud computing.
Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby Consider a remark by Larry Ellison of Oracle from 2008, shared resources, software and information are provided now often quoted and criticized: “The interesting thing to computers and other devices on-demand, like a public about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do.” Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, In one sense, this is certainly the case and leads me to on-demand network access to a shared pool of config- contemplate the difficulty we have with today’s cloud urable computing resources . that can be rapidly provi- definitions. One must think of cloud, not as a new tech- sioned and released with minimal management effort or nology breakthrough, but as a new name for something very familiar to us — proven, proprietary, or standards- Why do we continue to wrangle with a viable definition based computing, which has now become commodi- for the cloud? It’s not surprising considering the most tized to be delivered as a utility. In the case of cloud, liberal definition of cloud computing services includes apart from the creative mechanisms to market, provi- easily “mashable” applications (often considered as sion, deliver, and meter, there truly is nothing new platforms or frameworks for social networking), such under the sun in terms of core technology.
as Twitter, Facebook, and the suite of Google Apps,alongside enterprise-class, vertical solution applica- Let me introduce yet another but perhaps more concise tions, such as Salesforce.com. IaaS providers can be definition for cloud computing, which promotes what I broadly defined to include not only traditional Web site believe to be the differentiating characteristic — that of hosting providers popularized over the last decade but the packaging and delivery mechanism for resources also Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), or such specialized providers as Rackspace, which can provi- Cloud computing — IT computing resources packaged as a sion a single dedicated server, loaded with your choice commodity and delivered as a utility. of Windows or Linux. At the extreme, it’s plausible thatanyone with a high-speed Internet connection, a Linux STACKING UP THE CLOUD
build, and a spare server or two could theoretically rentout that server, serving as a de facto cloud computing Now that we’ve defined “how” cloud computing is service provider, to a willing customer.
packaged and delivered, let’s talk more about “what”can constitute a cloud computing service. There are var-ious visualizations regarding what has become knownas the cloud computing stack. The most prevalent ver-sion involves categorizing cloud services as application,platform, and infrastructure (see Figure 2).
IaaS
In a cloud computing delivery model, IaaS involves the
provisioning of “near bare metal” computing capacity
exposed through virtualization technologies by the IaaS
provider and metered according to reserved instances
or on a pure usage model. This involves provisioning
processors, storage, and memory. In some specialized
realizations of IaaS, specific physical computing
resources (i.e., dedicated servers) are provisioned and
reserved for a particular subscriber. Subscribers can
choose to install and manage their own OS or, as is
more likely, a default OS image is provided, generally The Executive Update is a publication of the Business-IT Strategies Advisory Service. 2010 by Cutter Consortium. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction in any form, including photocopying, faxing, image scanning, and downloading electronic copies, is againstthe law. Reprints make an excellent training tool. For information about reprints and/or back issues of Cutter Consortium publications,call +1 Executive Report, Executive Summary, and Executive Update); online/electronic ISSN: 1554-7086.
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2010 Cutter Consortium
based on a Linux OS, or (for a higher cost) Microsoft defining a model for cloud computing architecture Windows. By adding in VPN subscription services, IaaS based on open standards. One such movement is the resources can be logically mapped to appear as network Open Cloud Manifesto, which promotes the cloud com- resources in your own TCP/IP address space, making puting stack visualization shown in Figure 3 and sets them arguably as secure and certainly as accessible as forth the following as its guiding principle: “Cloud com- any other resource on your private enterprise network.
puting must evolve as an open environment, minimiz-ing vendor lock-in and increasing customer choice.”8 The Cloud Computing Grid
PaaS involves “IaaS plus.” The “plus” is a managedsoftware stack on top of the virtualized hardware and We must get past the notion that cloud computing is to OS, which allows for developers and solution providers be a passing fad, failing to achieve mainstream adop- to design, develop, manage, and deploy/provision cus- tion. In my opinion, cloud is as inevitable for computing tom applications. PaaS offerings can differ in whether as was large-scale electric-power generation, transmis- the IaaS layer is hidden from the developer or whether sion, and distribution in the early days of the grid. The the IaaS layer is also exposed and configurable.
following is an oft-quoted historical account of the elec-tric utility grid transformation. Analogously, we see these same principles apply neatly to cloud today: SaaS provides customers a turnkey application suited By allowing multiple generating plants to be intercon- to be configured and run “out of the box” for common nected over a wide area, electricity production cost was business applications. With SaaS, the IaaS and PaaS lay- reduced. The most efficient available plants could be used ers are largely hidden from the customer and managed to supply the varying loads during the day. Reliabilitywas improved and capital investment cost was reduced, entirely by the SaaS solution provider.
since stand-by generating capacity could be shared overmany more customers and a wider geographic area.9 THE NEW PATH OF THE CLOUD
As a former IT executive in the electric utility sector, Iobserve with fascination the continued developments Open vs. Closed (Commoditized vs. Differentiated)
in mass improvement and efficiency as electric “smart Cloud Computing Models
grid” technologies come to fruition and that more As both new and established solution vendors maneu- regulated utilities are now required to buy back excess, ver and attempt to differentiate their current products, consumer- or cooperative-generated power from the architectures, and revenue streams to a cloud delivery grid in a model known as “net metering.” model, there is also a corresponding campaign toward Figure 3 — Stack promoted by the Open Cloud Manifesto.
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To further establish the aforementioned analogy, in 5This definition is widely syndicated across the Internet. See December, Amazon announced “spot pricing,” for http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/ EC2 compute instances, allowing cloud consumers to automatically provision unused or excess computing 6“Cloud computing.” Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/ resources when those resources become available at less than a customer’s strike price. We can see the 7Mell, Peter, and Tim Grance. “The NIST Definition of Cloud writing on the wall for customers of cloud solutions, Computing, Version 15.” National Institute of Standards and as reserved (but unused) compute resources will soon Technology (NIST), 7 October 2009 (http://csrc.nist.gov/ be able to seamlessly “flow” back onto the computing groups/SNS/cloud-computing/cloud-def-v15.doc).
grid, and, in effect, reverse the meter and further reduce 8Cloud Computing Use Case Discussion Group. “Cloud costs and/or increase profits for cloud computing Computing Use Cases White Paper Version 3.0.” Open Cloud industry stakeholders. Furthermore, assuming the Manifesto, July 2009 (http://opencloudmanifesto.org/ cloud computing “grid” interchange standards mature, Cloud_Computing_Use_Cases_Whitepaper-3_0.pdf).
there is virtually no technical barriers to private cloud 9Hughes, Thomas P. Networks of Power: Electrification in Western data centers to flow excess computing capacity back Society 1880-1930. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.
onto the grid, in effect, turning the enterprise datacenter from a cost center to a profit center. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mitchell Ummel is a Senior Consultant with Cutter Consortium’s
CONCLUSION
Enterprise Architecture practice and President of UmmelGroupInternational, Inc., a US-based business and technology manage- The question to ask is not if but when cloud computing ment consulting firm. Mr. Ummel is a visionary who is best will make sense for each of our enterprises. Cloud serv- known for championing practical applications of innovative but ices will continue to evolve, mature, and become more lightweight IT process improvement methodologies within large flexible in the breadth and depth of solutions available.
organizations. In recent years, he has advised state governments In Part II, we’ll discuss how the CIO of tomorrow and private-sector enterprises in their planning and architecture becomes a concierge for information services, boldly efforts for large, multimillion-dollar business and technology championing cloud computing solutions when they Mr. Ummel’s IT experience spans 25 years and includes servicein a variety of CIO, executive management, training, coaching,mentoring, and consulting roles for government agencies and ENDNOTES
companies in a wide variety of industries. Earlier in his career, heserved as a US state of Kansas agency CIO, where he contributed 1Piccoli, Gabriele (ed.). “SaaS and Cloud Computing: No Longer to the inception of the Kansas statewide technical architecture, Just a Promise.” Cutter Benchmark Review. Vol. 9, No. 4, 2009.
helped define next-generation project and portfolio governance 2Ghahremani, Yasmin. “Software’s Temperamental Star.” processes, and led technology initiatives enabling electronic CFO, 1 December 2009 (www.cfo.com/printable/article.cfm/ health surveillance records management, vital records security/ privacy, national bioterrorism response, GIS integration, and 3Budget of the US Government, Fiscal 2011. Office of public health and environmental informatics among local, state, Management and Budget (www.whitehouse.gov/omb/ Mr. Ummel holds advanced degrees in mathematics and com- 4A January 2010 survey of 405 IT professionals conducted by puter science from Fort Hays State University. He is a graduate CIO magazine shows cloud computing services top the list of of, and contributor to, Kauffman Foundation’s Entrepreneurial technologies that are showing up on the radar of, or being Leadership and New Tech Venture Development Programs, is actively researched by, IT organizations (www.cio.com/ a frequent speaker at national business and technology confer- article/573663/Numbers_You_Need_Top_Tech_Priorities).
ences, and is a member of the Project Management Institute.
He can be reached at [email protected].
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