Let's clear up what cloud actually means then. There are three types of cloud computing:
IaaS - Infrastructure as a service Think Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine here. The only thing provided to the user is the hardware / vm. The user is responsible for providing the operating system, updating it, apply security errata, installing and managing all applications, tuning the OS - databases - application servers etc. It addresses a real concern in the industry by reducing the time to market for getting servers quickly. With IaaS, you can spin up 1000 machines in a matter of minutes and grow as demand quires it. The only problem, no one knows what their final bill will be every month. You have to bring your sys admins, application code, and users along with you. PaaS - Platform as a service The OpenShift, Heroku, CloudFoundry here. PaaS sits on top of IaaS to automate even more of the environment. Typically the PaaS will manage all aspects of the environment for you. This includes database tuning, automatic scaling, application server management, security updates to OS and runtimes, etc. Users of PaaS need to deploy and be responsible for the application code that is deployed on the environment to ensure it is robust, scalable, and cloud friendly. You have to bring your application code and users along with you. SaaS - Software as a Service Think salesforce.com, facebook, gmail, dropbox here. Software as a service is a WYSIWG environment. The platform manages everything for you and often times you can't customize the application code. This is the cloud technology that has been around the longest and widely adopted. You have to bring your users and your data to the table here. The adoption rate among these three cloud technologies are as follows: SaaS - Huge adoption. This was a buzz word 8 years ago and we really don't hear much about it anymore because its widely accepted and in use by 99% of all corporations today. IaaS - medium adoption. People still have concerns about moving their workloads to a public cloud provider (ec2) but a lot of people are making this move. When I talk about cloud computing to companies, one of the first things I hear is -- we can't put our users email address and data in a public cloud. Our data is so important we need a 5 million dollar oracle RAC server behind 15 firewalls. I think ask them what they use for sales automation tools. They proudly respond with Salesforce.com. Face -> Palm. People don't realize that they are storing much more than users data in the public cloud today. With SF.com they are storing all of their financials and forecasts. Having access to someone sf.com environment is more damning that having access to their internal oracle db. PaaS - low adoption. This is the new kid on the block. I fully expect this to be mainstream and every developer will be using a PaaS in 3-5 years as they see the benefits for development. The tidal wave is coming. It's best for us developers to go ahead and get familiar with it because it is coming! Now, just to be clear. You will hear a lot of other crap about cloud computing. IMO ignore it. People and companies will tout things such as mBaaS (Mobile backend as a service) MWaaS (Middle Ware as a Service) etc. All of these new buzz word terms can be recognized in one of three main categories (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS). I don't know why people are clinging to and making up new as a services acronyms. It just further confuses everyone knew to cloud computing and is hindering the adoption of this fantastic technology. -- gs On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 10:29 AM, Jason Klebs <[email protected]> wrote: > In my opinion, 'the cloud' is a buzz-word, and regarding it, people act > accordingly. Buzz-words are meant to diminish understanding of > something, not enhance it. Therefore, a lot of places don't weigh the > benefits and drawbacks of what is essentially a move to another hosting > provider. > > While we're opening up cans of worms... > I have assumed (even pre-Snowden) that every EC2 instance comes with > root access for the NSA built-in. Thoughts on this? > > -Jason > > On 12/12/2013 10:21 AM, Jonathan Duncan wrote: > > On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 8:03 AM, S. Dale Morrey <[email protected] > >wrote: > > > >> For the most part, you can't just migrate existing systems to "the > >> cloud(tm)". You really do need to think of it as a re-implementation > task > >> and expect your costs to follow accordingly. > >> > >> Agreed. The Cloud is just another tool. Like any tool, if used properly > > can be helpful, if used improperly can be deadly. The company I am > > currently with is in the process of migrating all services to the cloud. > > This includes an entire rewrite of the code base and entirely new system > > architecture. It is a mistake to think of the Cloud in the same way as > one > > would think of traditional physical servers. For me, learning to use the > > Cloud effectively has required me to adopt a new paradigm. > > > > /* > > PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net > > Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug > > Don't fear the penguin. > > */ > > > > > /* > PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net > Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug > Don't fear the penguin. > */ > /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
