Cloud computing heats up

Today's reading has been especially interesting, as it has become clear that a) "cloud computing" is a concept that more and more IT people are beginning to understand and dissect, and b) there is the corresponding denial that comes with any disruptive change. Let me walk you through my reading to demonstrate.

I always start with Nick Carr, and today he did not disappoint. It seems that IBM has posited that a single (distributed) computer could be built that could run the entire Internet, and expand as needed to meet demand. Of course, this would require the use of Blue Gene, an IBM technology, but man does it feed right into Nick's vision of the World Wide Computer. To Nick's credit, he seems skeptical--I know I am. However, it is a worthy thought experiment to think how one would design distributed computing to be more efficient if one had control over the entire architecture from chip to system software. (Er, come to think of it, I could imagine Apple designing a compute cloud...)

I then came across an interesting breakdown of cloud computing by John M Willis, who appears to contribute to redmonk. He breaks down the cloud according to "capacity-on-demand" options, and is one of the few to include a "turn your own capacity into a utility" component. Unfortunately, he needs a little education of these particular options, but I did my best to set him straight. (I appreciate his kind response to my comment.) If you are trying to understand how to break down the "capacity-on-demand" market, this post (along with the comments) is an excellent starting place.

Next on the list was a GigaOm post by Nitin Borwankar stating his concept of "Data Property Rights" and expressing some skepticism about the "data portability" movement. At first I was concerned that he was going to make an argument reinforced certain cloud lock-in principles, but he actually makes a lot of sense. I still want to see Data Portability as an element of his basic rights list, but he is correct when he says if the other elements are handled correctly, data portability will be a largely moot issue (though I would argue it remains a "last resort" property right).

Dana Blankenhorn at ZDNet/open-source covers a concept being put forth by Etelos, a company I find difficult to describe, but that seems to be an "application-on-demand" company (interesting concept). "Opportunity computing", as described by Etelos CEO Danny Kolke describes the complete set of software and infrastructure required to meet a market opportunity on a moments notice. “Opportunity computing is really a superset of utility computing,” Kolke notes. Blankenhorn adds,

"It’s when you look at the tools Kolke is talking about that you begin to get the picture. He’s combining advertising, applications, the cash register, and all the relationships which go into those elements in his model. "

In other words, it seems like prebuilt ecommerce, CRM and other applications that can quickly be customized and deployed as needed, to the hosting solution of your choice. My experience with this kind of thing is that it is impossible to satisfy all of the people, all of the time, but I'm fascinated by the concept. Sort of Platform as a Service with a twist.

Finally, the denial. The blog "pupwhines" remains true to its name as its author whimpers about how Nick "has figured out that companies can write their own code and then run it in an outsourced data center." Those of you that have been following utility/cloud computing know that this misses the point entirely. Its not outsourcing capacity that is new, but its the way it is outsourced--no contracts for labor, no work-order charges for capacity changes, etc. In other words, just pay for the compute time.

With SLAuto, it gets even more interesting as you would just tell the cloud "run this software at these service levels", and the who, what, where and how would be completely hidden from you. To equate that with the old IBM/Accenture/{Insert Indian company here} mode of outsourcing is like comparing your electric utility to renting generators from your neighbors. (OK, not a great analogy, but you get the picture.)

Another interesting data point for measuring the booming interest in utility and cloud computing is the fact that my Google Alerts emails for both terms have grown from one or two links a day, to five or more links each and every day. People are talking about this stuff because the economics are so compelling its impossible not to. Just remember to think before you jump on in.