Monday March 29 2010 by Peter Hanselman

 

The last number of years IT technology has made several steps forward which makes it possible to offer standard solutions to businesses and consumers against low prices and standard conditions. Besides this, by the intensive use of the Internet, the browser has been accepted as the general user interface. Mind set and technology has come together and created many services that are available on line. 

 

The Cloud offerings are all over the place. Many solution providers are rebranding their products and are in the process of transforming itself into Cloud service providers. A lot is ‘Cloud’ nowadays. Time has come to separate the chaff from the wheat.

 

 

Let’s bring in mind the definition of Cloud Computing by Gartner, “A style of Computing where scalable and elastic IT capabilities are provided as a service to multiple customers using Internet technologies”. This is a broad definition of a general term cloud computing. Striking are the terms ‘scalable’ and ‘Internet technologies’. 

 

 

Adept IT processing to changing business levels is nothing new. Adding new servers or extra storage is business as usual. New is the agility and speed of scaling according to the needs of the business. Scaling up and down within the same box is already business as usual. Now you can also scale out, which mean that you simply can add servers and storage, almost limitless. It is just like managing the electrical grid.

 

In the ‘old days’ the deployment of a new server had an elapse time of 4 to 6 weeks. You have to order a server, install and test it. Assess the needed facilities like power, cooling, floor space, etc, etc. Many labor intensive small activities were needed to get your server up and running.

 

In a real Cloud environment you can deploy a new server not in weeks, not in hours but within a couple of minutes. You log on to the Service portal and if you are a qualified user you just order what you need. The capacity is managed on the fly in a virtual environment.

 

The same goes for scaling down. Go to your Service portal and stop the server you don’t need anymore. In this way you only pay for what you use. From a financial point of view it means that you turn your Capex into Opex and that is very rewarding in times of economic crises. 

 

An acid test for a real Cloud service is the possibility to scale up and down within a very short period of time and without paying for a minimum level of service. That means that you can scale down till zero any moment you want without paying anything to the Cloud Service provider. It is like a real life utility (water, electricity, gas), you pay what you consume.

 

 

The use of Internet technologies makes it easier to connect and add content to web applications. Web 2.0 enhances the use of social network sites like Hyves, Facebook, Twitter etc. Internet becomes more and more interactive. 

 

 

There are many different aspects to cloud computing. In our opinion there are 6 main characteristics of Cloud services.

 

 

In order to make scalability possible, the service provider should make use of the virtualization technology. This technology makes it possible to create multiple virtual servers on one physical server. As a consequence the utilization rate of CPU resources goes up and you are able to scale up and down easily. 

 

As we said before easily scaling up and down and out makes Cloud services stand apart from the rebranded ‘old’ services.

 

 

To be cost effective the hardware platform should be a shared one. In this way the cost can be shared with many users resulting in lower costs than usual. 

 

 

Cloud service providers offer a ‘pay what you use’ model, often per user per time unit. Keep in mind that it should be possible to scale down till zero any time you want. So you are not paying the vendor for a minimum service level.

 

 

With Cloud computing you can easily create and delete virtual servers within a very short time, as described before. 

 

 

Another characteristic is the possibility to scale automatically depending on the traffic levels.

 

To enjoy the benefits of the economics of scale the Cloud services are highly standardized and offered against standard conditions. There is not much room for customization and negotiations.

 

Analyze the Cloud Services offerings against these 6 characteristics before you take a decision to go for a fancy Cloud service provider.