Well, the place you're pointing to is largely an affirmation of what I was saying... they have to maintain a collection of various different hardware types and assign from that pool accordingly. Virtualization is simply a means of avoiding that sort of hardware-platform issue on the provider's part.
For me? I don't need an API to consider it a cloud. For me, it's more about the flexibility aspects of it. But, again, this comes back to "five people, seven to nine definitions" :-) There is no One True Definition. Cheers, D On Jun 12, 2011, at 4:14 PM, Sean OMeara wrote: > Also, it should be noted that virtualization doesn't need to be a part > of the equation. > > Here's an example of a bare metal provisioning cloud service > > http://www.newservers.com > > No API, No Cloud. > > /3 cents > > On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 8:01 PM, Sean OMeara <[email protected]> wrote: >> In my (and a lot of other people's) mind, what differentiates an IaaS >> "Cloud Provider" from a simple VPS provider is the presence of an API >> interface to do operations on storage and compute resources. >> >> So, for example >> >> AWS EC2 == Cloud >> >> Linode == Cloud >> >> Rackspace "Cloud Servers" (formerly the Slicehost tech) == Cloud >> >> GoGrid == Cloud >> >> Rackspace "Old school service offering, rebranded as Private cloud" == >> Not a Cloud >> >> Ye Ole Hosting provider with a VMWare Cluster marketing their offering >> as "Private Cloud" == Not a Cloud (unless they expose the vSphere API >> to you) >> >> Your Corporate IT Department's VMWare Cluster, where you have to fill >> out paperwork and get the blessing of the SAN administrator to >> provision a VM == Not a Cloud >> >> Internal Openstack or Eucalyptus driven internal "self service", API >> accessible provisioning == Cloud. >> >> For a really good example of a cloud programming library, see here: >> https://github.com/geemus/fog/tree/master/lib/fog/providers >> >> >> /2 cents >> >> -s >> >> >> On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 3:26 PM, Tom Limoncelli <[email protected]> wrote: >>> On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 3:10 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> just the topic of what "Cloud" means is a substantial presentation on it's >>>> own. >>> >>> Ive stopped using the term cloud except when being generic or ironic. >>> I use SaaS, IaaS and PaaS so that I say exactly what I mean. >>> >>> SaaS: Software as as Service: Salesforce.com, EventBright.com, Google >>> Apps, etc. >>> IaaS: Infrastructure as as Service: Amazon EC2, Eucalyptus, etc. >>> PaaS: Platform as a Service: Google App Engine and similar systems. >>> >>> Alternatively... >>> SaaS: It's a web site! >>> IaaS: It's a VM! >>> PaaS: It's a framework! >>> >>> Tom >>> P.S. This article gives some good definitions. It isn't that >>> technical and I can give it to CTOs and executives: >>> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/4/81493-a-view-of-cloud-computing/fulltext >>> >>> -- >>> See you in Boston! >>> Dec 4-9, Boston, Usenix LISA, www.usenix.org/event/lisa11 >>> Dec 4-5, Boston, ACM CHIMIT, chimit.acm.org >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Discuss mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >>> This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators >>> http://lopsa.org/ >>> >> _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
