The Cloud
Del.icio.usMuch has been written about computing in the “cloud”. Within these pages references include “Software delivery models and SAP” and “Service-Driven Data Center“. Today is the first of several blogs where I give a comprehensive view of Novell’s approach.
The Significance of the Cloud for IT
Every so often there are sufficient changes in technology and customer buying patterns that the entire industry turns on its end.
In the 1960s, mainframes dominated and provided the first broad platform for computing.
In the 1970s, minicomputers proliferated. Computing became available for small businesses and departments. New companies rose to take advantage; new languages were popularized; and there was an explosion in professionals in the industry.
After the introduction of personal computing in the 1970s the 1980s saw mass adoption of PCs. New applications such as personal productivity and consumer related applications resulted from this shift. The paradigm of client/server and sharing within departments became prominent. Novell’s NetWare played a key role (which continues with Open Enterprise Server).
As we rolled into the 1990s the Internet and World Wide Web became the model for public access to data, and related intranet technologies were used inside of companies. Wide access to information became commonplace and programming technologies adapted to feeding information into people’s browsers.
Cloud computing is next. It will be equally transformational. The web provided clicking for “information” and cloud computing will provide clicking for “information resources”. Over time this will revolutionize every part of IT.
Within the rubric of cloud computing, IT organizations have different attitudes about how to optimize information technology. To address this, there are variations on cloud computing, including Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Each has their own value and solves its own problem. A user that needs instant access to a capability may employ SaaS, a developer looking for a platform may employ PaaS, and someone in search of capacity may employ IaaS.
Novell and the Compute Cloud
With Novell’s position in core infrastructure, Novell intends to play a major role in cloud computing. Several technology choices for the cloud are favorable to Novell— Linux is the favored operating system used by cloud providers; XEN—which we have discussed often— is the favored virtualization technique. Moreover, Novell’s strength in technology areas such as management and security is relevant.
Novell has key technologies but also has the right attitude. The compute cloud will democratize computing by utilizing open interfaces and avoiding platform lock-in. This is harmonious with our brand promise of “Making IT Work as One”. It is also characteristic of Novell as a company who is passionate about Open Source, yet willing to work on interoperability with vendors who are committed to proprietary platforms. No surprise that Novell is a supporter of the Open Cloud Manifesto.
The potential of cloud computing is great, but it won’t happen overnight—just as the other paradigm changes did not happen overnight. There will be many participants in this all playing different roles. For example there will be companies that provide cloud computing, and others -like Novell—that provide infrastructure software that are used by cloud providers or enterprises. Many layers of the compute stack will change to support the move to the cloud. Novell will not invest in all of them—no one vendor can have that impact. However, in the cloud infrastructure Novell will play a key role.
Novell’s Cloud Architecture
There are numerous components that are required for the cloud. Some of the key components were mentioned above—the Linux operating system and virtualization. Many of the other key components intersect areas of Novell focus.
We have been investing in these areas leveraging the ideas of our technical leaders and looking at market input. Many of the most outstanding ideas came from our breakout move initiative, while others came from activities in and across our business units; listening to customers and partners. Here are some of the key areas. With space running out I will only itemize the areas here—look to future postings for elaboration:
- Connect. The first part of our architecture is to connect to the cloud. The nature of client devices and their appropriate operating environment will change as we move to the cloud. Our work in operating systems, including our work in Moblin will be critical here.
- Secure. This access must be done with security. We will leverage the technologies of our Identity and Security Management business unit.
- Manage. Clouds have a different paradigm for resource utilization so they need a different paradigm of managing these resources. Each previous revolution in computing also revolutionized how resources are managed. We will leverage our Service Driven Data Center approach.
- Develop. Applications needs to be developed for the cloud. The key technology stacks will continue to be based on Java and .Net. We will leverage our unique combination of skills—the LAMP stack available with Suse Linux and Mono for .Net to play an enabling role here.
- Collaborate. Novell has a strong portfolio of collaboration technologies. This will enable us to play a role here as well.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:34 am
[...] out Jeff Jaffe’s blog on ” the cloud “. [...]
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:15 pm
After reading Dr. Jaffe’s recent blog on Novell’s approach to cloud computing, all I can say is where’s the beef? Based on the content of his blog entry I’d say Novell is asleep at the cloud computing switch. IBM, HP, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Sun (Oracle) and other lesser knowns are all busy delivering on the promise of cloud computing and Novell is still contemplating how it will enter this market.
If you Google the words Novell and cloud computing you won’t find much. My personal experience with Novell’s cloud computing initiatives included Novell’s aborted attempt to work with Novell reseller partners to figure out how to use Novell Open Workgroup Suite Small Business Edition (NOWS SBE) in the Amazon cloud earlier this year. And more recently in Novell’s IT Action Tour there was some mention that GroupWise 8.1 will be able to run in hosted environments.
Dr. Jaffe says Novell is well-positioned to provide some important cloud services but he doesn’t get into specifics. So I will. What about Novell Teaming hosted in the cloud? It is all Web based so why not host it in the cloud? What about eDirectory or Single Sign-On (SecureLogin) in the cloud? Customers are going to be using cloud services from multiple providers. Who is going to handle secure identity management to these services? Hello…Novell…are you listening? What about adapting Novell’s PlateSpin Orchestrate to manage a customer’s public and private cloud virtual computing environments? Novell should get on board with the Eucalyptus Project, which just received $5.5 million in venture funding to create a commercial sponsoring organization.
I don’t know what the problem is at Novell, but I just came up with a good handful of initiatives where Novell should be adapting its products and services for use in cloud computing environments.
Oh, what ever happened to that FOSSA critter?
June 26th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Thanks for your excellent and detailed feedback.
Your posting asks for the beef and indeed it was not my intention in a short posting to give a comprehensive description of what we are doing. We’ve already published some details about our plans in the cloud-computing area. This blog is neither the first word, the most complete word, or the last word from Novell.
Here are some additional resources related to Novell and cloud computing.
– Our April release of our Service Driven Data Center ( http://www.novell.com/ctoblog/?p=98 ) which incorporates several of your ideas.
– Our Architectural Foundations Document (aka Fossa project) whose architecture vision includes the needs for cloud computing as mentioned in the document: http://www.novell.com/company/architecturalfoundations/
– You asked about Eucalyptus – if you go to their website you’ll see that they work with openSUSE: http://www.eucalyptus.com/open/
Additionally, as I said in my last posting, I will provide elaboration on each of the key areas in the coming weeks.
July 2nd, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Hi Jeff,
Cloud computing, ain’t that just doing all your stuff with a webbrowser?
Is Novell now a days fully equiped with the major player in this field, apache.
So why all the fuzz.
Lots of nifty and good it pro’s have developed good and working webbased computing stuff for their organisations.
Sure, it needs skill and time to develop.
Look at your current customers and how they allready do it for several years, you would see that Novell has made this step a long time ago without knowing it.
Alex
July 8th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Dr. Jaffe’s reply to my earlier post regarding what Novell is doing about cloud computing brought up some additional comments and questions.
The “holy grail” of cloud computing is cloud interoperability.
Moving virtual machines from one providers cloud along with their associated workloads is going to be a basic requirement. Will PlateSpin Orchestrate be able to do this for both private and public clouds? Will PlateSpin Orchestrate be able to deploy and manage cloud computing platforms with a single management interface or tool?
I mentioned that “single sign-on” is going to be another basic requirement for customers who access multiple cloud services. Will Novell’s SecureLogin be able to do this? Where will the “identity store” reside?
Does Novell have anything to offer in terms of managing cloud applications and cloud data when the two are split between two cloud providers?
Does Novell have anything to offer that will help data exchange between cloud providers?
It is fair to point out that aside from some general agreement that cloud interoperability is desirable, there is little practical evidence that this is currently possible. However, IBM did demonstrate in February 2009 that they were able to move a computing workload around the world from one IBM cloud center to another. So we know that this is not impossible to do.
In an environment where there are not strong standards governing bodies at work, defacto standards like Amazon’s cloud APIs tend to become the basis for any new standard. And we know from history that whoever controls the APIs rules. So if we don’t want anyone to “own” cloud computing, then companies like Novell need to be front and center and leading the effort to develop non-vendor controlled clould computing standards that will cover many of the things I mentioned in this post and a whole lot more.
Cloud computing is the next IT paradigm shift. Over the next 10 years it will radically change the computing landscape. Will we like what we see when we get there or will we once again be subject to vendor lock-in when it comes to cloud platforms, data and services?
July 8th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Thanks again for your input. You might have noticed that two of the areas that I committed to discuss in greater detail are Manage the cloud and Secure the cloud. Keep watching this space
August 20th, 2009 at 9:01 am
[...] “The Cloud”, we identified five cloud infrastructure [...]
August 21st, 2009 at 4:44 am
[...] out Jeff Jaffe’s blog on ” the cloud [...]
August 21st, 2009 at 7:08 am
What is interesting is not cloud computing itself, but how to utilize relatively new technologies such as software appliances, virtualization (primarily server virtualization) and cloud computing (internal and external) as a group to solve IT issues such increasing data center costs, increasing complexity, etc. How does an IT manager determine which of these technologies to use for his set of workloads? The first order of business is to determine the characteristics, such as SLA requirements, security requirements, scalability requirements, support requirements, performance requirements, memory requirements, storage usage, mission critical-ness, licensing requirements, political requirements for the workloads. Novell has PlateSpin Recon (unless the name has changed) to help create this list of workloads.
If I were Novell, I would create at least two tables with the technologies heading the rows and the requirements heading the columns. In each row in the table indicate: how well a technology such as external cloud computing (entry for each of internal and external cloud computing) “handles” the requirements, such as SLAs, security, etc. What are the risks, etc? In some of these entries such as the column headed by Performance, you would indicate what affect the technology, say virtualization, would have on workload performance. In the column headed by SLAs and row headed by external clouds, you would discuss some of the issues around SLAs and external clouds. Create the same table again except this time each entry contains the name of one or more Novell products or product(s) in development or partner offerings that deal with the requirement or a description of how to deal with the requirement. These tables, with some refinements, could be used to clarify Novell’s data center strategy, not just cloud computing strategy, in customer engagements.
These tables would add some “beef” to the discussion showing that Novell has actually thought about these technologies and workload requirements and how they can be used by the IT manager (to probably to save his job).
October 26th, 2009 at 11:02 am
[...] Novell: “The compute cloud will democratize computing by utilizing open interfaces and avoiding platform lock-in. This is harmonious with our brand promise of “Making IT Work as One”. It is also characteristic of Novell as a company who is passionate about Open Source, yet willing to work on interoperability with vendors who are committed to proprietary platforms.” [...]