Cloud Computing
Apple Mac OSX in the cloud?
Oct 2nd
A colleague of mine, Mark Medovich, turned me on to an interesting solution for Mac users, like me. I am a recently converted Windows user to the MAC. (now for a little over a year) I have to admit, I love my MAC. I still use many Windows applications. I like outlook better than entourage, and the powerpoint presentation still works better with the version in which it was created. Hurray for Fusion… But I digress…. This solution is about running a MAC OS on top of vsphere. What? Really? I thought that wasn’t allowed? Actually, the great community over at DiscCloud have created a way to do so, without actually “running” the MAC OS on vsphere. http://disccloud.ning.com/
You do still have to run the Mac OS on your Mac and you can’t run the MAC OS on a non MAC Hardware. Pretty cool stuff. The way this works, is that it mounts the MAC OS instance as another instance on your mac client. Everything you work on, is stored and secured on the vsphere server. Backups can happne in the cloud.
All of the FAQs are here, including how it doesn’t affect the Apple EULA. http://disccloud.ning.com/page/disccloud-faq
This is a real world example of how the cloud can benefit the average MAC user, like me. This example brings home the how the cloud will eventually be a natural way of how we all will do our computing, in the future. Apple, as we know, has had a resurgence in popularity in the last several years with the iPhone being one of the major drivers. But us with MacBook Pros, have also helped. This is all conusmer/end user driven growth. Not Enterprise driven growth. Actually the MAC causes traditional enterprise IT shops difficutly. This is not unlike of how vmware got its momentum through individual server administrators that were tired of doing work at 2am on Sunday morning. And now, DiscCloud, a group of passionate MAC users and developers have developed a very inovative solution using vSphere and a cloud computing mindset. Here’s to the community, individual and innovation. Now its up to companies like vmware to take those inovations and enhance their ability to be managed within the enterprise.
What will your role be in the cloud?
Sep 10th
Chris Everette is a colleague of mine, a Sr. Systems Engineer out of Detroit. He is a very sharp, seasoned, virtualization industry pro. In working with him over the past two years, I’ve noticed that he writes very well. So of course, I’ve been trying to get him to start a blog, or contribute to this one, for quite a while.
My hard work has paid off 
It looks like for now he’ll be a guest blogger here on Virtual Insanity. Whether or not he starts his own blog remains to be seen. Please welcome Chris Everette to Virtual Insanity!
During VMworld last week, he sent me his first post, which I’m just now getting a chance to post …
What will your role be in the cloud?
Well being at my 3rd vmworld gets me thinking. I am wondering about this “cloud thing” just like everyone else who has been in IT for a long time. I sometimes follow other blogger’s articles, and I like Chris Wolf’s writing. He got me thinking, as well. His article, titled the “Cloud and the Wal-martification of IT” struck a chord. If this Cloud thing really takes off, which by all indications it has and will continue to gain momentum, companies may scratch their heads and wonder if it makes sense to have their own IT assets and resources and IT professionals. Especially companies where their core business is not IT. So, what does that mean for IT professionals and particularly my customers? Are we really going to all get our computing from several large cloud providers and many smaller ones? Does anyone remember mainframe time sharing?
Do I think that companies will outsource all of their IT to the cloud in the next year? Probably not. Chris Wolf uses the timeframe 5-10 years. However, will portions be moved to the cloud? I was speaking with one of my customers and he reminded me that he is already “outsourcing” web filtering and spam filtering to two different providers. Many companies have their web presences already “in the cloud”. Software as a Service has had some bumpy starts and stops, but is now a reality for many types of applications. It will be an evolution. Security is still of concern. There will be companies that will try something, not like it, pull back, only to move again to a model that provides them more flexibility and reduces costs.
What does this mean for the IT professional? I believe that if you are working for a company that is not an IT company, that you will want to manage your companies migration to the cloud. Get out in front of it. Volunteer to do the research. Use it to further your own knowledge and career. Can you convert your IT department from a cost center to a profit center and be a cloud provider for other types of similar businesses? If all else fails, take your expertise to a cloud company. The exciting thing is in the future you can work for a company that will service many different types of customers and provide you many interesting job challenges. I believe cloud providers (since their business is IT) will be on the forefront of exciting and new technology as well as need the best and brightest to operate them. Do an inventory of your skills. Do you understand databases? Great, cloud providers need to manage many databases (if not for their customers) for their own internal systems for billing, monitoring, reporting, etc. Do you understand networking and security? Cloud providers are going to need to guarantee that data cannot bleed from one customer to another. Same for storage. And obviously, also for virtualization.
We call this concept of being able to support multiple customers on the same infrastructure as multi-tenancy. Since a cloud provider’s model is multiple customers on the same infrastructure (“cloud”), it better be secure. Is your expertise Enterprise Applications, messaging, development? Guess what, cloud providers need application expertise as well so they can meet the business needs of their customers. If you are a developer you need to be able to write applications that are “cloud aware”. Applications that can ask for more resources if they need them. Applications that may service more than one customer. Do you understand service management? Do you work with infrastructure services such as backup and recovery, business continuity or data center design? Do you work for an IT provider, already? Your customers of the future may change to include a mix of large “cloud providers”. They exist, today and are called many things. They may provide Hosting (infrastructure as a service), application services (Software as a service) or multiple platforms including items such as storage (Platforms as a service) and even voice services. I am sure there are some cloud “thinkers” that may challenge my simple definitions of these terms, but you get the idea.
I believe the security concern is the single largest inhibitor to companies running full tilt into cloud computing. However, just like we use VPNs, SSL web services, and other forms of digital encryption of data on the public internet, these security problems will get solved and enforced.
IT is an interesting business. Sometimes things build up until there is a tidal wave and things change rapidly. Sometimes things move more slowly and there is an evolution. However, if you hear the term “cloud” and think it is only a marketing term, you may want to think again. It is already affecting and will affect all of us in IT sooner than we may think.
What do you think?
Some of my Thoughts on Cloud Computing
Apr 15th
Everywhere I turn, everybody’s talking about cloud computing. And I agree with Mike DiPetrillo, very few people understand what the cloud is today and what it could and/or should be tomorrow. I’ve kept silent on the topic of cloud computing on this blog until now, mainly because I prefer to know what I’m talking about before I put something out there for the world to see But now that I believe I’ve got a good grasp on it, I’d like to share a few of my thoughts …
What’s in a name?
First of all, I don’t like the name "cloud." I think it’s a stupid name. Let me explain why. I was with a customer the other day talking about the future of cloud computing and he said, "man, what a horrible name, it just sounds like the most insecure, undefined, unmanageable place … why would I ever want to put my apps in a cloud?" I couldn’t agree more. For years we’ve been preaching about putting applications in data centers, and the importance of securing data with things like firewalls and intrusion detection. You don’t even have to know what a firewall is, what it does or how it works, but the name just sounds safe. And in my opinion, referring to the next generation of computing as the "cloud" would be like if someone called the first firewall "come on in" and the industry adopted it.
To me (and many of the customer I’ve spoken to), the word cloud conjures up images of dancing ferries, unicorns and other mythical creatures all prancing around in some fluffy place somewhere northeast of never-never-land. But alas, cloud is the name the industry seems to have settled on. And since, at this point, I don’t have a better name to offer, I too will refer to it as the cloud. But for the record, I think the name should be something strong and manly, like Spike, or Butch, or Krull the Warrior King!
By the way, I like the name vShield Zones, a new VMware offering that will logically partition a cloud. I think a name like this conveys a much better image about where an organization’s apps and data “live.”
What is the cloud? An explanation for the business owner (IT people, you may want to stop reading now)
Most people still think about IT as servers and networks and storage, all powered by a bunch of computer geeks that hibernate in a data center or crawl around under desks when a computer breaks. Actually, they probably still think about IT this way because this is by and large the reality for almost all organizations.
But let me ask you this … why are thinking about IT at all? Unless you’re in the IT / Hosting business, shouldn’t you be thinking about, um, your business? You don’t think about electricity or the plumbing do you? No, you don’t. Unless of course, the electricity goes out or the toilets backup … then you can’t stop thinking about them! But I’m pretty sure an advertising company, for example, doesn’t have an electrician or a plumber on staff.
When cloud computing is fully realized, IT should be very much the same thing. It is a tool that should serve you and your business, not the other way around. Now, it’s not like servers and networks and storage and IT geeks like myself will cease to exist. No, we’ll still be here, but you won’t think or care about us anymore. *sniffle*
To understand the cloud, you need to STOP thinking about the plumbing behind the applications (i.e. servers / networks / storage), and you need to START thinking about what matters most, the applications and data you need to run your business.
When the cloud is fully realized, your applications will be always on, extremely reliable, accessible anytime and from anywhere, and they will “live” in a cloud. Now that cloud might be external to your organization, or it might be an internal cloud, built on your existing infrastructure. Either way, you’ll be able to self-provision new applications with a few clicks of a mouse and pay only for what you use.
Sounds pretty good, yes? Don’t go beating up your IT department just yet. While many pieces of cloud computing are in place, the cloud is still forming. Standards are being hammered out, committees are being formed, and it seems like everyone has a SOAP box, apparently even me (yes, I meant to capitalize SOAP, it’s a little joke for the developers)
I have more thoughts. More to come.