Re: The Business of Building Clouds

Greg: are you thinking of Plan 9?

http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/about.html

-Noah

On Jun 5, 2:17 pm, Greg Pfister <greg.pfis...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 4, 4:54 pm, "Reuven Cohen" <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
>
> > There is an old saying in the venture capital world that consulting doesn't
> > scale.
>
> Like Accenture, IBM Global Services, ...
>
> [snip]
>
> > Lately it seems everyone is in need of assistance with their clouds, from
> > architecture, setup and deployment there seems to be real need for the
> > "Cloud Consultant".
>
> Thank you, Reuven, for spontaneously verifying a thought I've been
> having: Clouds are erector sets. Ya got'cher DB, load-balancer, DNS,
> authenticator, auto-deployer, etc., etc., and All You Have To Do is
> connect 'em up with a little glue -- your VALUE ADD -- and off you go,
> scaling to the heavens. Right.
>
> Why do you think IBM loves Clouds? The hardware and software revenue
> is fine, but in addition this is a brand new opportunity to grow
> services -- and not just SaaS, traditional-style consulting services.
>
> [snip part about how everybody's cloud facilities being different
> makes this even harder, which is true, of course.]
>
> > One way may be to create a common cloud specification. David Young over at
> > Joyent, attempted to do this, he has called for a common cloud specification
> > called "Cloud Nine<http://www.joyeur.com/2008/05/08/cloud-nine-specification-for-a-cloud...>".
>
> Seems to me that Dennis Richie (or maybe Ken Thompson) had a follow-on
> to Unix he called Cloud 9, back in the late 80s or earl 90s. But even
> Google can't find it, so what the hey.
>
> [snip things about core components in Joyent's Cloud Nine]
>
> > ...he
> > says "a developer
> > should be able to move between Joyent, the Amazon Web
> > Services<http://finance.google.com/finance?q=amzn>,
> > Google <http://finance.google.com/finance?q=goog>, Mosso, Slicehost, GoGrid,
> > etc. by simply pointing the "deploy gun" at the cloud and go." I think he
> > nailed it dead on with this statement.  At the end of the day our job as
> > cloud builders is about creating simplicity and making IT easier to manage
> > and faster to scale.
>
> Well, yes, it would certainly be simpler, easier, faster, etc. But
> this is exactly parallel to how it would be easier to move
> applications if there were a standard OS. There isn't one, for any
> number of reasons, and there isn't likely to be one --- except,
> possibly, and only in the server context, Linux is a fair imitation.
> Because it's free.
>
> Anybody up for becoming the Linus Torvalds of Clouds?
>
> Otherwise, isn't this exactly the realization that produced the Globus
> Alliance for Grids? The big difference is that Google, Amazon, (?
> Microsoft?), and a pile of smaller players weren't actively engaged in
> making money from their own grid walled gardens.
>
> > Reuven Cohen
>
> --
> Greg Pfister

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cloud Computing" group.
To post to this group, send email to cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cloud-computing-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.ca/group/cloud-computing?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---