Cutting Through the Hype:
Clouds in Context
Dr Paul Miller
The Cloud of Data
paul.miller@cloudofdata.com
cloudofdata.com

Topics
Some ‘truths’ about the Cloud
The Cloud Computing Stack
The Cloud and Higher Education
cloudofdata.com

Some more true than others!
What do you think?
Some ‘Truths’ about the Cloud
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/nickwebb/3024917166/

Microsoft Data Centre, Dublin Cisco, VMware et al pushing
on-premise Clouds
It’s just Off-Premise
cloudofdata.com www.datacenterknowledge.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/aerial-1000.jpg

Or music downloads, or mainframes, or...
It’s like the Electrical Grid
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/cpstorm/132212117/

Rode Cloud meme in 2008.
Listen to our 2009 podcast.
cloudofdata.com http://tr.im/dzxm

For elastic or periodic jobs.
Less clear-cut for ‘normal’ load
It’s Cheap
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/esdrascalderan/357434020/

Probably… but Simon Wardley
It’s Green
http://tr.im/greenclouds
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/venteco/2851026377/

Do you view cloud computing as a greener alternative to traditional computing infrastructures?
Not Convinced Too much hype Yes Green benefits unrealised
19%
35%
21%
25%
cloudofdata.com www.rackspace.com/downloads/surveys/GreenSurvey2009.pdf

Numbers don’t add up...
It’s Unreliable
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/raver_mikey/2300514593/

And your data centre is ???
It’s Insecure
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/8323834@N07/500995147/

PATRIOT Act and data territoriality are real… but manageable
USA will read my data
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/3484013571/

And Rackspace,
and Microsoft,
and Sun, and HP,
It’s Amazon and Google, and...
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/lucasartoni/2967023166/

Amazon Rackspace Joyent GoGrid
2,000 Guy Rosen has
begun tracking
trends, using
1,500
QuantCast’s top
500,000 sites
1,000
500
0
July August September
cloudofdata.com www.jackofallclouds.com/2009/09/state-of-the-cloud-september-2009/

With thanks to Simon Wardley
“It’s like computers on the
Internet, innit?”
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/fimbrethil/2642775023/

‘The Cloud’ lumps different
concepts/capabilities together
The Cloud Stack
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/3089163372/

“convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of
configurable computing resources...”
cloudofdata.com csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/

Traditional 3 layer model - there are plenty of others!
all ‘Cloud’… but DIFFERENT!
Software/Application [as a Service]
(SaaS)
Platform [as a Service]
(PaaS)
Infrastructure [as a Service]
(IaaS)
cloudofdata.com

outsource raw infrastructure - avoid
significant CapEx
scale to meet demand - Eli Lilly, payroll
SaaS - IBM Blue Cloud
hybrid
PaaS
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
computers (Amazon EC2, Rackspace, GoGrid...)
storage (Amazon S3, MobileMe, Google Drive...)
Elasticity (Rightscale…)
Bandwidth (Limelight, Amazon CloudFront…)
Electricity
Cooling
etc.
cloudofdata.com

‘does heavy lifting’
concentrate on your app’s USP
least developed but most potential?
SaaS
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Salesforce force.com
Apprenda SaaSGrid
Google App Engine
Microsoft Azure
Appistry
Talis Platform
IaaS
cloudofdata.com

light weight applications, delivered over Web
mostly low-end disruptors for now...
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Google Apps, Zoho
Acrobat.com, iWork.com
Kashflow, FreeAgent
WordPress.com
MobileMe
Salesforce.com
PaaS
IaaS
cloudofdata.com

data are at every level of the stack…
becomes more important as the
stack commoditises
SaaS
Data
PaaS
IaaS
cloudofdata.com

The Cloud and HE
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/xavierla/3838988544/

cloudofdata.com www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities.asp

Only UK award in latest round.
KCL, Cambridge, Bristol previous recipients...
cloudofdata.com aws.amazon.com/education/aws-in-education-research-grants/

Opportunities exist at each level of
the stack
But none are necessarily right for
everyone.
cloudofdata.com

virtualise existing on-campus
servers
JIT equipment for research groups, like Eli
Lilly
aggregate data centres locally,
regionally, nationally
‘Cloudburst’ for exam results,
clearing, registration…
cloudofdata.com

build internal software on
Platforms, instead of from the
bottom up
replace suitable desktop software
with appropriate Cloud apps
hand the pain of email and
scheduling to YahoogleSoft, and
go Web 2.0 for free
cloudofdata.com

Closing Thoughts
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/king-edward/2152782252/

yforecast
Technolog
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Spinnin
recent, useful.
cloudofdata.com www.pwc.com/techforecast
‘Evergreen IT’

‘The Cloud’ is not the answer
‘The Cloud’ probably doesn’t exist!
cloudofdata.com

Cloud solutions may well help
ease your pain points…
but only you know where those are for your
institution
cost? efficiency? scalability? green? self-service?
cloudofdata.com

Start simple
why not give that demanding research group
some EC2 credit instead of another server...
...and Simone’s email address instead of yours!
cloudofdata.com

cloud of data
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Dr Paul Miller
The Cloud of Data
paul.miller@cloudofdata.com
Made on a
skype: cloudofdata
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