Venyu Blog

I always try and give credit where credit is due. When the book on cloud computing is finally written, its first chapter — dedicated to the time the concept rose from the metaphorical “primordial ooze” (apologies to the intelligent design types who pay attention to this blog as well as my 7^th grade biology teacher Mr. Bonadies) — VMware will likely be recognized as the progenitor of the creature and concept that became cloud computing.

That being said I’ve been reading with interest a series of articles in Forbes Magazine written by Vittorio Viarengo, vice-president of desktop products for VMWare, the most recent entitled “Cutting Through The Cloud Hype.”

What I found fascinating about Viarengo’s article is his perspective. In brief, he contends that in order to figure out how to harness the power of cloud for individual users, applications and organizations, we first need to examine its building blocks, literally its DNA and adapt our choices and architectures accordingly.

Like the first scientists armed with their petri dishes and their microscopes, Viarengo believes that IT departments will have to “transform” their infrastructure and business model to accommodate end users that have become increasingly spoiled by the immediate gratification derived from their experiences consuming cloud services in their private lives. He counts elements such as ubiquitous access where users are able to access their services from anywhere and usage based pricing where users or business units only pay for what they actually use. These user expectations are then used to inform how cloud computing gets sorted out at the infrastructure level.

The upshot is that all of this immediate gratification invites, if not requires a transformation on what Viarengo calls some of the “behind-the-scenes” elements of their infrastructure and business model in order to derive the most benefit from cloud computing. This includes such architecture changes such as:

• Resource Abstraction. Application and services need to be abstracted from the underlying infrastructure, so that they can move around freely from server to server, cluster to cluster or even from one data center to another.
• Resource Pooling. Where individual machines are transformed into “pools” from which IT capacity can be automatically allocated based on demand.
• Automation and Elasticity. Fostering a “zero-touch” infrastructure where routine operational tasks (e.g. the automatic provisioning of application and services, scaling based on load) enables the infrastructure to efficiently meet the dynamic demands of multiple services.

With the “hype” cycle around cloud computing spinning at full-bore, Viarengo’s back-to-basics insights are not only refreshing but also instantly accessible by anyone who has ever looked at cloud computing and wondered what was in it for them. Whether your organization perceives cloud computing as the promised land or an incremental step in your evolution, it’s clear that after reading these articles you’ll know either way if you’ve made the right decision.