Cloud Computing is Coming down to Earth
Several years ago when I still worked at a Fortune 500 company I came to realize that my company would need to develop the capabilities to provide information to anyone at any place at any time. What I did not fully comprehend at that time was how significantly that the corporate IT infrastructure would need to evolve to deliver on that concept.
Now the type of infrastructure needed for that concept has emerged and it even has a name: cloud computing. While sites like Wikipedia can provide a more detailed explanation of what cloud computing means, at a high level cloud computing is all about enabling companies to dynamically provision computing power, network bandwidth and storage resources to their applications when and where they need it. In effect it is enterprise IT delivered as a service via the internet, typically by external B2B or B2C service providers. Effectively, cloud computing is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) delivered from a hyperlink. It is this internet-based delivery system that distinguishes the approach and gives cloud computing its name.
Using cloud computing companies can increase or decrease the amount of resources that they dedicate to specific applications while incurring the expense or realizing the savings at the time the change is made. Granted, this is a bit of a simplistic explanation of how cloud computing works. But for cloud computing to even come to the point where companies can contemplate using it for some of their application needs, a lot of other technologies had to mature along the way. However one of the promises of cloud computing is that it promises to convert enterprise IT from the fixed cost model that exists today to a new variable cost model.
To effectively support cloud computing, the underlying infrastructure needs to support a couple of key characteristics. First, these systems are autonomic; that is, built-in automation technology eliminates manual planning and management tasks and allows the platform itself to respond intelligently to application needs. If the system requires human interaction to allocate and manage resources, it's not a cloud: it's just a traditional (distributed computing) data center.
Second, cloud computing infrastructure is agile, able to respond immediately to spikes in demand or changing workloads. In other words, built-in virtualization coupled with clustering technologies allow for rapid changes in growth or service level requirements. If the system requires hours, days or even weeks to react to new application or user needs, it's not a cloud: again it's just a traditional (distributed computing) data center.
Of these technologies, probably none is more important to delivering on the reality of cloud computing than virtualization. VMware went a long way towards popularizing and educating people on the concept of internal server virtualization. But server virtualization in whatever form it takes (Citrix's XenServer, Microsoft's Hyper-V, etc.) is only one piece of the total virtualization puzzle. To realize the full potential of cloud computing, it needs all of the virtualization pieces from the server through the network down to the storage system to interoperate with one another to deliver the autonomic, agile infrastructure that a dynamic cloud computing environment demands.
Without a doubt, automation, clustering and internal virtualization technologies absolutely critical to delivering on the reality of cloud computing. For companies looking to build cloud computing infrastructures or outsource their applications to hosted service providers that utilize cloud computing, these technologies must exist at the core of the server and storage infrastructure for the promise of cloud computing to actually be realized.
Not only do these cloud computing environments eliminate manual tasks like provisioning and data migrations, but the systems they use are aware of application requirements and dynamically respond to their needs. For instance, storage platforms like 3PAR's InServ Storage Servers are already used by hosted service providers and Software-as-a-Service companies that offer cloud computing. The InServ Storage Server combines automation, clustering and internal virtualization within all of its storage. It only autonomically allocates the storage that applications need, and dynamically load balances and re-allocates storage resources based on the changing requirements of the business. In so doing, it addresses the need of the customer to rapidly manage unpredictability within their infrastructure, which enables them to serve their clients better, faster while still turning a profit.
Cloud computing is still in its early stages but with recent advances in virtualization at all levels of the infrastructure and a broader understanding of its benefits, cloud computing is moving off of drawing boards and into real world implementations. As it does so, it is putting all corporate IT on notice. They cannot expect to cost-effectively and efficiently deliver on tomorrow's needs using yesterday's technologies. Products like 3PAR's InServ Storage Server are prime examples of the type of products that will make up tomorrow's virtualized infrastructures within these emerging cloud computing environments.
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