Re: FW: [ Cloud Computing ] Compute surface as a traded commodity?

Jim,

At the end of the day, the notion of "Cloud Computing" suggests, as
folks in this thread have implied, that there is some common
understanding to the term such that "Cloud Computing" implementations
are alike. Likeness would be required to solve any of the issue raise
in thread in way that are not highly specific to a given
implementation.

How could laws be applied to this space that have any enforceability
without some commonality? Doesn't law set standards by which behavior
can be compared in order for the court or a jury to assess lack of
compliance to those standards?

There have been several standards efforts that have skirted what is
now known as cloud computing. Most of these efforts have been
operating under the banner of grid computing. Isn't cloud computing
more or less grid computing where the grid is owned by someone other
than the person asking for computing resources or time?

I have heard several times in this industry that standards somehow
lead to commodization. If that were true, wouldn't the fact that there
is a standard brick size mean that buildings are commodized. The
current brick size was worked out by the Egyptians some three thousand
years ago. Surely that is enough time to reader the inevitable
devolution of buildings into commodities? If that were true, then
houses of the same sizes and characteristics would be the same price
no matter where the houses were. That is surely not the case. Wouldn't
also the standard lightbulb size, current flow, and metrics, render
lamps as much a commodity as coffee and sugar? Wouldn't the rise of
Ethernet and TCP/IP as the inviable computing backdrop be a omen for
the demise of differentiation in network based technologies? Perhaps
clouds with a view will fetch more than those without?

On the other hand, it is the lack of standards of what is a cloud,
what constitutes computing resources in a cloud, what constitutes
visibility on the part of the hosted process to other resources in the
cloud, accountability of the cloud owner and the cloud customer, and
other unresolved issues, be a hinderance to trusting these computing
resources? It would worry me to hand over the processing and data of
my business to a third party without recourse when things go astray.
It is the standardization of what cloud computing is that would move
this notion from brittle and custom technology, like race cars, to a
reliable product, like mass produced cars. Perhaps cloud computing
ought to be the utility in utility computing?

Steve Hand

On Dec 16, 8:16 am, "Jim Houghton" <jrhough...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Interesting thread ... I had discussions with executives at a large
> investment bank (one of the few still around today!) as far back as 2002
> when we were implementing large grids for risk & portfolio analysis that
> leveraged 'scavenged' resources for some of the compute footprint.  I agree
> this will happen, but interoperability is not the only obstacle.  Placing
> security off to the side - let's assume for the discussion someone has
> already overcome their technology or compliance hang-ups - there is a major
> business challenge to overcome.
>
> We all know what an ounce of gold, or bushel of corn, or a barrel of oil is
> around the globe.  So what is the equivalent unit of trade for computing
> cycles?
>
> Think before you answer ... 'CPU hour' just wants to jump off your tongue,
> but as we all know not all CPU's are created equal (even by the same
> manufacturer).  Then of course there's memory, bus speed, network bandwidth,
> network throughput, operating system, latency to/from your origination
> point, disk read/write speed ... I could go on and so can you. I've been
> living this for 6+ years working with clients who want to build internal
> utilities (clouds), and even there it's difficult to get agreement as this
> forms the basis for what they are going to get charged for the resources
> they consume.  It's not much of a 'utility' if users got a flat annual
> allocation charge, is it?  Yet that's by far the most common situation in
> large enterprises today.
>
> There's the closet economist in me who feels (hopes) someone will just start
> such a market and soon thereafter the laws of supply and demand will set the
> appropriate prices.  Those with high quality service will be sold out and
> can increase their prices, with the reverse also true.  However, especially
> with the current state of global economic affairs, I am doubtful it will
> happen anytime soon.  Nor do I think we can count on any standards forum to
> tackle such an issue, and the major vendors will undoubtedly look at
> normalization (translate: commoditization) of their technologies as a bad
> thing.
>
> Anyway, hopefully this provokes some thoughts - look forward to your
> responses.
>
> Jim
> _________________
> Jim Houghton
> CTO and Founder
> Adaptivity, Inc.
> (845) 494-9419
>
> www.adaptivity.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto:] On Behalf Of Simon Plant
> Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 7:03 AM
> To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [ Cloud Computing ] Compute surface as a traded commodity?
>
> Bruce wrote:
> >Will the "Cloud" ever become a pool of hosting providers who pitch their
>
> prices, SLA's and storage cost so customers will come to their "cloud" for
> services?
>
> I foresee a time into the future where the compute surface is virtualized
> and standardized enough that hosting contracts can be traded as a commodity
> on a market, rather than the RFP type process we have today.
>
> Such agreement would allow business to place a deal on an exchange much like
> FX today and get bids to run based on some parameters.  IT hosters would
> price the deal with a spread in the same way as a currency trade today, the
> deal done in a matter of seconds and hosted for the duration of a contract
> window.
>
> If virtualization vendors deliver on their hybrid end-vision, this could be
> a reality of packaging workloads with SLA manifests and using internet
> vMotion-type tools to migrate. It would fundamentally change the way we
> write software frameworks and applications themselves to be more self
> contained and highly standardized to achieve the best 'tradability'.
>
> Interoperability via standards between VM platforms, portability of data,
> code business logic and processes are all key to how we build out the Cloud.
>
> Such openness may be a far extreme view, but would you want the opposite
> view of the world where switching costs and lock-in are extremely
> constraining and we are forever stuck in a platform cycle of
> distribute-and-consolidate?
>
> Simon Plant

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