Practical Implications - Part 2.
The discussion around the definition of Cloud Computing is very active and not likely to be over anytime soon.
The purists would have us believe that only the providers of “in-cloud” infrastructure such as servers, OS images, storage, etc. are truly “Cloud” providers. They would argue that only the ability to spin up and down extra computing capacity falls under the definition of Cloud Computing. There are even acronyms to support this notion - PaaS and IaaS (platform and infrastructure as a service).
The purists would also argue that everything else (especially SaaS applications) is not Cloud Computing simply because they are not generic enough and often solve a specific vertical problem such as CRM or Vulnerability Scanning.
The idea of such a clean separation is indeed very appealing. It supports a traditional, decades-proven, layered approach to software development. I am personally a big fan of standards and interoperability, and therefore like this definition a lot.
The problem is, that in the case of Cloud Computing, it potentially leads us to the dead end.
There is nothing wrong with a definition like this. The issue is with the overly pure interpretation of it.
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The debate over cloud computing’s place in the universe rages on, and much of the debate lately seems to be around security.
Embracing cloud computing and SaaS typically means that application data resides in a datacenter not owned or directly managed by the end user organization. Also, cloud based applications typically employ a multi-tenant architecture that often means that many customers’ data resides together in one logical or physical (or both) place. Because of this single point of attack possibility, some organizations feel that cloud-based data is particularly attractive to malicious hackers and therefore at a slightly elevated risk of attack, and it’s a legitimate point.
But that risk is more than compensated for by the inherent benefits of data centralization and the extreme measures that SaaS vendors like Alert Logic take to properly secure customer data. Data security at most SaaS companies is a way of life because it has to be. It’s the cost of doing business. It’s necessary for gaining and maintaining customer trust. And it’s actually facilitated by the very nature of the SaaS delivery model.
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I attended ECS at Interop last week. It was really a very interesting experience. Here are my observations.
Practical implications
The very first (hopefully many to follow) Enterprise Cloud Summit (ECS) took place at Las Vegas Interop. Alistair Croll of Bitcurrent did a fantastic job putting the event together. But what was the goal of the summit and was it accomplished?
In general, Interop is the venue where the minority (exhibitors and educators) show what they know and the majority (attendees) are there to learn. The thin layer of attendees and exhibitors are also there to exchange ideas. Thus, Enterprise Cloud Summit was an educational event, intended to introduce IT folk into the “Cloud Computing” paradigm, explain why it is ultimately good for them, and how to get there.
So, if the goal was to educate people, was it really achieved? My personal impression – it was not.
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Get your SaaS off My Cloud – that is what Lori MacVittie says in this article.
This definitely a very interesting read - no doubt about it.
An attempt to separate Cloud from SaaS is honorable, but not really useful for anything beyond University discussion clubs.
The article lays out the idea that the Cloud is a platform (analogous to server operating systems 20+ years ago) and SaaS is an application that runs on that generic Platform/OS.
The author points out that SaaS vendors solve narrow, problem specific issues and therefore their approaches are inadequate for solving the broader set of security challenges encountered by platform vendors (read Amazon, Google, etc).
While this may be true in theory, in practice, this is actually wrong. Multiple SaaS vendors have already solved a broad range of scalability, user access, and data protection problems that are very much applicable to PaaS or IaaS environments. And that’s because, until very recently, SaaS vendors were forced to develop their own Platform upon which their SaaS application was delivered. And that platform had to be both highly available and secure.
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Industry chatter around SaaS and cloud computing sure seems to be heating up lately. Some of the chatter is being driven by the ongoing food fight between industry titans like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. These titans are correctly predicting a gold rush of buyers embracing cloud based infrastructure offerings and each wants to claim their turf. But the real driver of this crescendo of interest is cost, and the cost issue is being fueled by ever-tightening corporate budgets.
IT buyers are smart, and they’ve figured out that pushing the infrastructure of any application into the cloud typically reduces the cost of ownership by 50-80% over on-premise solutions, sometimes more. The more complex the on-prem application the bigger the savings, and it seems that saving money is at the top of every IT buyer’s to-do list these days. And SaaS vendors appear to be benefitting from this scramble to squeeze costs.
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