Demystifying the Cloud: Cloud Computing 101

Cloud computing, its a complex set of ideas that always sounds good in techie conversations, but translates terribly when referenced with reality. I am as guilty as any for ringing the cloud computing and services-based delivery bells in public without truly explaining its real applicable truth. So, with the full intent of disclosing all I know and making it easy to digest. Here we go...

In a Nutshell
Imagine two web servers, both configured identically. One web server hosts website A; an online store selling men’s shirts. Website A gets a good amount of traffic, but is really only drawing about 15% of the servers resources (memory, processor cycles, storage, etc.). Website B hosts streaming video and has a great deal of traffic. At times, Website B is drawing 100% percent of its host server’s resources and, quite often, the delivery of the content suffers. Meanwhile, a server (hosting Website A) has 85% of its system resources sitting dormant and unused. This is the computing world in which most of us live. Resources unused while other resources are strapped. It results in many machines not being utilized to their full capacity. Cloud computing addresses this...

Cloud computing allows us to disengage from the idea that an application runs on a physical machine. In cloud computing, all available servers that are designated to be part of ‘the cloud’ can chip in. In our previous example with Website A and Website B, both servers would exists as one ‘cloud’ therefore, while Website A would only use 15% of the resources, the other 85% would be available to any application or website (in our case--Website B) in the cloud. The result is a much more efficient method for utilizing system resources and a much more enabled environment for delivering applications and services.

Who’s Playing in the Cloud?
Many players, both private and public have jumped at the idea of shared processing power, shared storage and easily deliverable application infrastructures. Most notable, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have all designed arenas for application clouding and some even offering software as a service (SaaS) for many of their newer retail enterprise offerings.

A first step into cloud computing is online storage. Instead of having a local storage area network (SAN) or a RAID array to store your local data, providers believe that enterprise storage should be offered like a service (imagine paying for storage like electricity or natural gas--pay as you go, only for what you use). Amazon has entered the market with Simple Storage Server (or Amazon S3), however, slow speeds have provided Amazon and its customers with a fair share of problems.

Another player is ParaScale. ParaScale promises a tighter, faster offering for cloud storage, however the organization is still in beta funding stage and only employs 22 people.

What it Means to You
The reality is that regardless of what you provide, software as a services (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Virtualization and Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and services will affect the way you buy and sell services. Continue to explore your options, keep yourself up-to-date on the terminology and tune in to [the rockpile] for more on where the Cloud is headed!

All the best,
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