Author: Jerry Fahrni

InformationWeek: “What if, instead, applications throughout the data center could run at closer to 90% utilization, with the workload spikes sent to cloud service providers (a process called “cloudbursting”)? What if 85% of data center space and capital expenses could be recouped, with a small portion of that savings allocated for the expense of sending those bursts of computing to the public cloud? This tantalizing possibility–enterprise IT organizations managing an internal cloud that meshes seamlessly with a public cloud, which charges on a pay-as-you-go basis–embodies the promise of the amorphous term cloud computing. Step one with virtualization has been server consolidation. The much bigger benefit will come with the ability to move workloads on and off premises. “Anyone can build a private cloud,” says Rejesh Ramchandani, a senior manager of cloud computing at Sun Microsystems. “The gain comes if you can leverage the hybrid model.”” – So much for the purity of the cloud. I’ve read several articles lately that refer to “hybrid” or “private” clouds. Crud, my hard drive at home is a “private cloud”. I can partition it, virtualize it, and grant other users access to it. The very idea of a dynamically scalable and virtualized service over the internet disappears quickly when you begin to tie these services to local infrastructure. Having data reside locally for a short period of time to improve retrieval makes sense, but that information should eventually move to the cloud where it stays until needed again. The article above goes on to talk about the lack of standardization in the development of the cloud model. It sounds like everyone is headed in a different direction. I really hope the trend doesn’t continue as I think carving the cloud up into different models to suit your needs will only dilute a really good idea. Creating hybrid and private clouds will ultimately lead to another group of segregated services and a complete waste of the theoretical advantages of the cloud.