We started 3Tera to radically ease the way IT deploys, maintains and scales – MANAGES - applications. Our AppLogic® cloud computing platform provides the foundation of our partners’ orchestration of cloud services for public and private clouds around the world. Today, we’re taking the next step in moving toward making cloud computing mainstream by joining CA.

CA and 3Tera share a common vision for the future of cloud computing, and we are excited about the opportunities that this acquisition will create for our customers, partners and their cloud users.

This is a historic moment in Cloud Computing. The significance of this acquisition is a heck of a lot more than just a land grab in a hot space. We are confident that as a team, CA and 3Tera, will extend our leadership of the cloud computing market.

We are honored, given the plethora of Cloud Computing companies that have emerged in the last few years, that CA has chosen us. We really are!

It would probably be arrogant to suggest that we, in turn, chose CA. So I won’t suggest that. But the fact is, we had many options for the future and this is the one that excited us the most.

Now, there are only two kinds of people thinking about Cloud Computing: those who believe it is the future of information technology and those who are in complete denial.

I’ve been around a long time, probably longer than most of the readers of this post. During this time, I have seen three major paradigm shifts in IT.

For my first 20 years in this game, Moore’s Law was, as it always has been, and still will be for a while, in effect. Computers became exponentially more powerful, faster and cheaper. But, for those 20 years it was big central computers doing everything.

So, the first paradigm shift was away from these big centralized systems to client server or distributed systems. There were those who had the vision that inexpensive work stations and servers, connected over a network, would take on much of the load that the big central computers were processing. And there were also those who were in denial.

The second big shift was the rise of the browser and eCommerce. Some of you may be surprised that I did not say the Internet. The fact is, though, Internet technology was around for years before there was a consumer-based Internet, deployed by the government as a way to interconnect various agencies. It was known as the ArpaNet. The browser put a friendly graphical user interface on top of it and eCommerce was born.

There were those who had a vision that the Internet would be a common way for businesses and consumers to communicate and become widely used for effecting financial transactions. And there were those who were in denial.

The third shift is Cloud Computing. Computing is pervasive. It is no longer something used and accessed by an elite few. Computing is as much a part of life as telephone, television, electricity, etc.

So, the natural evolution of computing is for it to become a utility that anyone can tap into, like other utilities, consuming only what one needs–no more, no less– but always having enough available capacity when needed.

This is Cloud Computing – the encapsulation of applications as autonomous services, abstracted from infrastructure that its users do not care about, except that it’s available and reliable when needed – services that can be available anytime, anywhere, when called upon.

There are those who believe Cloud is the future and there are those in denial.

Like distributed systems, which became pervasive when the ability to precisely manage networks of servers and work stations became available; and, like the Internet, which became pervasive when the ability to manage dynamic web sites securely with high performance; so will go Cloud Computing.

I’ve heard some compare what is going on now to the internet bubble of the ‘90s. I’ve actually heard it referred to as the Cloud bubble. The big difference between the Internet bubble and the Cloud bubble is that today’s economy doesn’t dictate the kind of crazy valuations we saw in the ‘90s (or maybe today’s economy is just more realistic than that of the Internet bubble).

But they have something very significant in common, I believe.

During the Internet bubble, everyone and his brother with a web site, from giant infrastructure companies to retailers of boutique niche products, were perceived to be the future. When the dust settled though, most couldn’t maintain their value – except for the Internet infrastructure providers, that is. It was not just anyone with an Internet presence. It was mostly those who enabled the Internet – who provided the infrastructure to deal with it – to manage it!

Just as everyone tried to stake a claim to a piece of the Internet in the ‘90s, now there are a gazillion companies with Cloud presence. When the dust settles, though, the long term value will be retained for the shareholders of the companies that provide the infrastructure, enabling capabilities and management of Cloud Computing.

CA is a management company. Their mission has always been and remains centered on the management of information technology. Their ability to adapt and manage each generation of technology has enabled them to thrive through all of these shifts.

While there are several management vendors out there, we see most figuring out how to shoehorn customers’ needs into what they already have. But tails can only wag dogs for a short period of time. The big winners will be those who adapt and evolve what they have into real, more than wannabe, Cloud Computing management.

That’s the historic statement. CA has drawn that line in the sand, and we’re thrilled to be part of it.

The leading innovator of IT management technology and the leading innovator of Cloud Computing technology are now one and the same!

We’ve crossed a very significant chasm.

What chasm is that?  You may ask. Enterprises?  Mainstream IT?  Government?  Telcos? Yes, all of those are gaining traction by the second, but we have crossed one that is far more  significant.

We received an email last week that asked, “Could you please tell me about cloud computing, what it does, why does it help, and what does your company do with it?”

Good question!  Why is this so significant?  It came from a fifth grader learning about Cloud Computing.

Is the world taking Cloud Computing seriously?  It better be.

Today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders.  The fact that fifth graders and elementary school teachers are aware of Cloud Computing, and learning/teaching it, is probably the most strategic chasm that we have ever crossed and ever will.

And something even better happened as a result of this.  I thought hard of how to tell a fifth grader what the benefits of Cloud Computing are, and I came up with an answer that, in a nutshell, says it all.

Cloud Computing helps people spend more time solving the problems they need to solve, and doing the things they have to do with computing, rather than thinking about the technology.

I don’t know why, but I am still surprised when I hear the following question. What’s the difference between virtualization and Cloud? To me, it’s like asking the question – What’s the difference between a hammer and carpentry? The latter is a comprehensive craft. The former is one of many tools used by the craftsmen who practice it.

Simple – right? So why does that question occur at all?

It occurs, in my opinion, for two reasons, one right and one not so right.

The first reason is that all of the server virtualization vendors of any significance are also introducing Cloud offerings to the market. So, people are naturally associating the two (and rightfully so, just like one would associate hammers and carpentry). The difference is, though, no one thinks hammers and carpentry are the same thing.

So, the not so right reason – There are Cloud computing laggards out there who would like us to think that virtualization and Cloud are similar because they have embraced virtualization technology and do not want to appear out of step. As a result, there is a ton of noise in the market that is very hard to sort through.

So, how do I suggest one sorts through this noise?

When faced with a potential Cloud solution, ask a few questions about it.

Does it help me provision and deploy virtual machines on demand? If the answer is no, I’d ask why are you even looking at it? But if the answer is yes, just deploying VMs on demand does not a Cloud make.

Does it enable the encapsulation and on demand deployment of multiple VMs as a single entity? If rather than managing VMs, you want to manage frequently used “appliances” that are comprised of multiple VMs (e.g. a specific app server, a specific messaging system and a specific database server), can you do it? If the answer is yes, you are on your way to a real Cloud solution.

Does it enable the encapsulation and on demand deployment of whole software stacks (e.g. LAMP, Ruby on Rails, .NET, etc.)? If the answer is yes, you are certainly in the Cloud.

But, do you want more? Does it enable encapsulation and on demand deployment of entire multi-tiered apps? If yes, you have a very powerful Cloud solution.

More? Does it enable the encapsulation of the apps along with everything they need to run – network, storage, infrastructure, configurations, policies, documentation, etc., etc., etc.? If yes, then you have the most complete Cloud solution of all.

So, you might sense a theme here – Encapsulation. Yes. Encapsulation is key, but it is only half of the story. Encapsulation itself results in many benefits, especially operational cost savings and decreased time to market. But encapsulation alone does not make a Cloud. It does not create portability. It does not create the ability, by itself, to deploy anywhere, any time.

What’s the second half of the story? Abstraction. Not only do the most comprehensive Cloud solutions have to provide unlimited granularity of encapsulation, but they must completely abstract what is encapsulated from the physical resources (machines) they run on, so that they can run anytime, anywhere there are available idle resources.

In short, you do not measure a Cloud solution by how it does virtualization. You measure it by the granularity of its encapsulation capabilities and its ability to abstract VMs, stacks, apps/services and entire data centers from the physical resources they run on.

So, what is the future of virtualization and where is it going in 2010?

Virtualization is going the way of the hammer. It will be a necessary commodity for the Cloud, just like the hammer is a necessary commodity for the carpenter.

Now, before all the virtualization vendors get their shorts in a knot and start screaming at me that I am implying that all virtualization is the same, I am not. I acknowledge that some have features others do not, some outperform others, etc. But, can you tell who the best carpenter is only by knowing what brand of hammer he uses?

Once in a while, as you go about the routines of a normal workday, a number jumps out of the stream of consciousness and catches your attention. That’s exactly what happened today while one of our support engineers was working with a client on a new application. When checking system status he suddenly realized the client’s private cloud had been running continuously for almost two years.

While two years uptime in IT isn’t earth shattering, in the realm of cloud computing two years uninterupted service is noteworthy. IMHO that’s particularly true in a week that’s seen a couple private cloud announcements hard on the heels of another recent cloud outage. Private clouds aren’t simply about network addresses, they’re about control. It’s about giving the operations team the ability to affect uptime for their application.

It’s sometimes hard to remember that when we originally introduced the concept of private clouds many folks scoffed. Blog posts declared “If it’s not public, it’s not a cloud!” As this cloud turns two, though, pressure from users has made the need for security and control of operations clear. More vendors are looking to offer private clouds and the resulting competition will produce better services for clients. Next year, as this cloud turns three, I expect we’ll see a much broader set of applications in the cloud as a result.

Just in case you’re wondering if this cloud is an anomally, the second longest continuously running AppLogic private cloud is at 559 days . . . and counting. 

You may or may not have seen the recent press release.  Bill Coleman, IT/Silicon Valley luminary, Founder and CEO of BEA Systems, has joined 3Tera’s Advisory Board.

Yes, this alone is a great testimonial to what we have accomplished in our field.  Getting dignitaries such as Bill does not come easy.  But here’s the best part - this has a lot more than just marquee value (and I doubt that Bill would have joined us if all we wanted was marquee value).  Bill, especially since his most recent stint as Founder and CEO of Cassatt Systems, is an extremely knowledgeable visionary in the area of utility and Cloud Computing; and, data center automation.

So, Bill will be extremely valuable, reviewing and tweaking both our business plans and technology as we forge ahead to maintain our lead at enabling Cloud Computing in enterprises and service providers.

Needless to say, we are extremely happy to have Bill on Board.

Today was the first day of the AppLogic Bootcamp, and the partners and users that attended are recieving training in using and operating grids. With the success of the Bootcamp we’ll be adding additional venues soon.

NIH is one of the best known acronyms in our industry. However, for those unfamiliar with it, NIH stands for Not Invented Here, and refers to the tendency of engineering teams to devalue technology from outside sources. Unfortunately, NIH is alive and well in many parts of tech, and nowhere is it more prevalent than in Cloud Computing. Seems some folks just never learn that no single company can be all things to all people. Paul Miller wrote a great post on this after reading our AppStore announcement (so good that I borrowed his title) and he got me thinking.

We’ve lived through this cycle since the beginning of the computer business. IBM in the 70’s would deny service and support if you had any peripheral attached that wasn’t theirs, from a disk drive to a terminal (remember those)? Apple rocked the computer world in-part by building a completely open system that anyone could write code build peripherals for. Within a few years their were more applications available for the Apple II than any other computer in the world. When IBM introduced the original PC, the team learned from Apple and so the specs and OS were completely open and a whole industry grew to support and promote it. After th PC industry grew large, though, IBM tried to pull back with the introduction of Microchannel, but the industry turned it’s back on them and built an open platform. More recently we’ve seen digital rights management beaten down by consumers in favor of openly copyable MP3s. So, now we come to Cloud Computing and we once again see companies trying to close the system. It’s their language, their data center, their API. And, once again, I don’t think it’ll work.

Opening up is hard. Customers often do things with your system that you don’t expect. How will the system react? How can you test adequately? How can you offer support? How can you assure uptime? These are all valid concerns, but they don’t outweigh the advantages of being open. For customers, being open means they can add other vendors products to yours, offering more complete solution sets, and the ability to move solutions to meet business needs. For vendors, customers will show you new markets, introduce you to new partners, and also let you know where your product is deficient.

At 3tera, we never assumed we could build a worldwide cloud ourselves. That was part of the reason we chose to work with service providers, and as a result we have a user footprint that stretches around the globe. We don’t speak many of the languages of our customers, but our partners do. We also decided not to require APIs for accessing storage or networking and instead did the extra engineering work to properly virtualize IO. As a result customer constantly surprise us with what software they’re able to run on AppLogic. For instaqnce, we never envisioned someone using AppLogic as a phone switch, but a customer did.

With AppStore we want to make the cloud more accessible to a broader set of solutions for customers. Software developers will be able to publish their products, users will be able to drag and drop that technology into their applications, and we’ll connect the two. ISVs can tell who’s using their product, and users will be able to get support. It’s the quitessential town marketplace. Will there be challenges along the way, of course, but in the end customers will get the best system.

3tera and our partners at Cirrhus9 will be giving a seminar on private clouds on April 9th at L’Auberge in Del Mar. If you’re in the area and would like to join us you can register on their site.

Most purveyors of Cloud Computing claim that one of its great benefits is that it can turn capital expense into operational expense.  3tera’s AppLogic Cloud Computing Without Compromise, though, reduces all expenses, both CapEx and OpEx.

AppLogic encapsulates entire applications and everything those applications need to run – code, data, OS, middleware, DBMS, infrastructure, configuration, policies, etc. -  into a single, easy to manage entity that is abstracted from the hardware.  These encapsulated applications are “superimposed” on a server farm and dynamically allocate the resources they need to run.  Therefore, specific hardware is no longer assigned to specific functions – any idle hardware can be used by any active application.  Thus, hardware becomes much more densely populated, ergo, much less hardware is needed.  This results in greatly reduced CapEx.

As such, all servers in the farm can be commodity servers all configured the same way.  So there is no need for intensive server administration.  In most enterprises and at most data center operators, one administrator can manage approximately 50 servers.  With AppLogic, because the administrators are managing application instances each of which can consume any number – up to hundreds – of servers, the applications one administrator manages can be consuming hundreds of servers, thus, increasing administration efficiency by an order of magnitude.  This results in greatly reduced OpEx.

And, as great as this is, it is only icing on the cake.  The “cake” is this.  Because applications can be run on arrays of existing commodity servers, the time it normally takes to provision and configure hardware for specific applications is virtually, pardon the pun, eliminated.   Time to market is dramatically decreased creating huge revenue opportunity.

So, the next time someone proclaims, “You get what you pay for.”, tell them when you pay up for information technology infrastructure, you don’t have to pay more to get more.  With Cloud Computing Without Compromise, you get an awful lot for what you DON’T pay for!

This one’s been eating at me since September 17 at 10:09 AM.   That was when a speaker from Tier 1 Research concluded a presentation at the 4th Annual Hosting Transportation Summit (HTS) at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas.

HTS is a great event for anyone involved in the hosting industry.  It was attended this year by about 400 people representing everything that’s anything in the U.S. hosting industry.  Attendees, for the most part, have profit and loss responsibilities and were there to find new weapons for their arsenals to increase revenues.   I love these focused conferences.  Having them in Las Vegas is really smart.  That makes it easy to gauge attendees’ interest by seeing how much of the audiences at the various sessions are lost to the casino.  The sessions at HTS were well attended!

By contrast, that week was VM World, right across the street (which in Vegas means only a 15 minute stroll) at The Venetian.  VM World was impressive – close to 15,000 attendees, I am told.  My sense walking around there, though, was that the majority of the attendees were more technology oriented – looking for cool new technology – but were not the people in their organizations responsible for P&L, who make spending decisions, and, most importantly, who make strategic business decisions.

So, what happened at 10:09 AM Las Vegas time on 9/17?  I just finished watching and listening to a very well researched and prepared presentation by a Senior Analyst at Tier 1, who organizes the event.  He very thoroughly described how the Cloud people, the compute on demand people – people like Amazon and Google, were kicking the hosting providers’ butts as they remain a commodity whose ability to compete with these Cloud giants is starting to wane.

What he didn’t do, though (and this is no criticism of him – he did his job), was talk about what the hosting providers can and should do to combat this.

So, why now?  If it’s been eating at me 7 weeks, why am I writing about it now?

Well, for the last couple of months, enterprise interest in Cloud Computing seems to have emerged in spades (pardon the Las Vegas pun).  VMware, Citrix, Microsoft and others have all made announcements readying themselves for enterprise Cloud Computing.  Our own marketing efforts have been focused around the enterprise as, though we are largely used by hosting providers and our customers are largely hosted, we have a full Cloud Computing platform that can run behind a corporate firewall, and our number of customers who do that, particularly enterprise customers, are definitely growing.

So, let’s not forget our hosting providers.  They are not only the salt of the Cloud, but they will be an integral part of Cloud Computing’s future.  In fact, as Clouds begin to interoperate globally, it will be the hosting providers who jump on that bandwagon who will fuel it with much of its resources.

Note to Hosting Providers:

If you are worried about how you are going to cope with this new competition, there is something you can do about it.  This advice might sound like an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” mentality, but it is far from it.  The mentality is more of the nature that you should join a movement that they, too, will eventually have to join.

Whatever people think, there will not be a single dominant Cloud from any of these guys.  Cloud Computing, like any other utility, will evolve into a series of Clouds that can interoperate among themselves and are connected globally.  These interoperating Clouds will be run by hosting providers, will be proprietary Clouds like EC2, AppEngine, etc. and will be corporate data centers.

So, how does a hosting provider get on board?

Hosting providers need to implement Cloud Computing platforms in their data centers (of course, I think that platform needs to be 3tera’s AppLogic – plug, plug – surprise, surprise).  They need to build product offerings on these Cloud platforms.  Once there is a critical mass of applications hosted in all of these Clouds, the leaders will start interoperating with one another as people will want to share and reuse technology components, and, more importantly, companies will want to effect business to business transactions with companies running in other Clouds.

It will be inevitable that businesses running applications in proprietary Clouds will want to have the same capabilities, and in order to do so, their Clouds are going to have to start interoperating in the same ecosystem that yours do.

And guess what.  Many of the new enterprise customers we are attracting are and are wanting to run their web applications in external Clouds - HOSTED BY YOU.  So, there’s a whole new customer base here ripe for the picking.

So, hosting providers unite.  Get on board the Cloud train and in time, and not a real long time, the Amazons, Googles, Microsofts, Akamis, Salesforces, etc, of the world will have to join you or be beaten by you!