peter freer's List: FI_IT_Competitors

As I am inundated with cloud computing references everywhere I turn, I wonder if the cloud is cirrocumulus or stratocumulus. Or is the internal cloud cirrocumulus and the external cloud is stratocumulus? Or vice versa? Seriously, with the wide definition of the cloud, is my question that far off? 

Let’s go back a few years; talk of a great dynamic datacenter concept where workloads could be dynamically provisioned, monitored, metered, and charged for. Wow, a great concept. Hmm, wasn’t this coined as “Utility Computing”? Sounds familiar, sounds like a concept straight from the clouds. But what happened? The computing power was there, dynamic storage was there, virtual networking was there. So why didn’t utility computing take off? Simply, the customers did not come. The customers would not take the chance with high profile production workloads on a dynamic platform that they could not feel or touch.  By feel and touch, I am not referring to the physical, but rather, lifecycle management. 

The workloads needed the cradle to grave management experience to convince customers that utility computing was enterprise grade. Toolsets to self provision, meter, monitor, migrate, scale, charge, and retire, etc. were future concepts that were not available. Thus, utility computing fizzled away.

Flash forward to September 2009, cloud computing is buzzing everywhere! But isn’t this what we were expecting from utility computing a few years back? Or do I have my head in the clouds? Possibly, but if the application lifecycle software stack was at this level of maturity a few years back, utility computing would still be king. But no matter, it has a rebirth as the glorious cloud.