Cloud Strategy

Posted by Udayan Banerjee on September 3, 2009 · 16 Comments 

(This post is triggered by John Gannon asking me a question about “the implication of VMware acquisition of Spring Source?”)

IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service		PaaS: Platform as a Service	SaaS: Software as a Service
The proposition:		The proposition:	The proposition:
I will give you a virtual machine in the cloud which you can provision any time you want You pay for what you use You can scale it up or down whenever you wish You continue to use the same set of software		I will give you a software platform which you can use to build and deploy application in the cloud You pay based on usage You do not need to pay for any additional software	I will provide you with ready to use applications You just need to log in and use You not need to buy anything You have no administrative hassles You pay only for what you use
Questions / doubts:		Questions / doubts:	Questions / doubts:
Will things work exactly the same way it works now? Is my data secured with you? What guarantees do you provide?		I have to rewrite my existing applications I will also have to learn the new platform which is different I will get locked in to your platform	How do you take care of my needs if it is beyond or different from what you provide? How do I integrate with my existing applications?

Different vendor strategy

Here is a diagram which shows the strategy of some of the major player in the Cloud Computing space to counter the questions and doubts:

VMware: I already have the most popular virtualization software and I will integrate Spring Source and create the best PaaS offering.

Amazon EC2: I am extending my cloud facility to a virtual private environment so that you security concerns are taken care.

Microsoft: I am giving you a platform which is very similar to what you use so that you can seamlessly extend your application to the cloud and even the developers can continue to use the same set of tools.

SalesForce.com: I am giving you a Force.com with which you can build what you need over and above what I provide out of the box.

Google App Engine: I am creating a platform with which you get access to my complete infrastructure – practically unlimited processing power & storage and all my existing services.

What do I think?

This is my view for the longer term – 3 to 5 years.

To take full advantage of the power of cloud computing we need to break away from traditional programming paradigm – thinking bounded by …

1. …sequential processing
2. …relational storage
3. …the physical boundary of a machine

And, I think Google App Engine is in the best position to provide solution for the new paradigm.

 

Udayan Banerjee on Google+

Filed under Analysis, Cloud Computing, Trend · Tagged with Amazon EC2, Azure, Cloud Computing, Force.com, Google App Engine, SalesForce.com, Spring Source, Trend, VMware