There have been multiple white papers and articles written by analysts - Is Cloud Computing Ready for the Enterprise?  The question is asked so many times now - Is Cloud Computing ready for the enterprise?  So, I have to ask - Is the enterprise ready for Cloud Computing?

I’ll start this discourse with a few PC and sincere comments (the two are not mutually exclusive unless one is running for political office).

First, I love Corporate CIOs and IT managers (not in a romantic way, of course, but with great admiration).

Second, they have the most difficult jobs in the corporate universe.  They are the brains and the central nervous systems of large enterprises.  They are also the most taken for granted of all executives.  They represent cost centers who get no credit for their corporations’ profits, while keeping the corporation alive.  If they achieve 99.99% availability of their services, an iota of kudos is given for that 99.99%, but a mountain of wrath is doled out for the other 0.01%.

Finally, I spent 27 of my 37 year career in information technology as an enterprise IT manager and Fortune 500 CIO.  You guys and gals are my comrades.

So, why do I feel the need to put my comrades on a pedestal?  Well, it started with some comments I made at a Wall Street conference and variations of it that I made to members of the technical press and analyst community.  I used the following analogy.

If you woke up in the morning and read in the Wall Street Journal that an eCommerce company like Overstock.com had stopped using the USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc. to deliver their goods and, instead, leased airport hubs all over the world, bought a fleet of jets and bought thousands of trucks and started delivering the stuff themselves, you’d think they were out of their minds.  So, why is is not equally insane for financial services companies, health care institutions, manufacturing companies, bio-tech companies, pharmaceutical giants, etc. to be spending a billion dollars or much  more each year on information technology infrastructure?

Well, that analogy has prompted several to accuse me of thinking that corporations are insane and corporate IT managers and CIOs are stupid.  I assure you that it not the case.

Then what do I do?  I really put my foot in my mouth.  I title this treatise “Are Enterprises Ready for Cloud Computing?”, as if to arrogantly proclaim that we are ready but enterprises are not.

But there is expiation for that as well (and I am not running for office, so this is a thought embellishment rather than flip flop).

Intellectually, of course you are ready.  Of course you have the experience and skill to adopt Cloud Computing.  And most of you have the resources.  Most significantly, you have always risen to the occasion when disruptive technologies have been thrust upon you.

But, practically speaking, whether you, I or anyone thinks that the future holds a world where all enterprises will get computing on demand and only pay for what they consume, we know that this will not happen over night.  I do see a world, though, in six or seven years, where this will be very much the norm and corporations owning datacenters will be the exception to the rule.

So, here’s where the Darwinian Theory of the Corporate Datacenter comes to play.

I have said many times that Cloud Computing is the most disruptive technology that has come along in a very long time.  Respected technology analysts say it will be bigger than e-Business and it’s potentially a quarter of a trillion dollar market (that’s almost enough to fund a fraction of a war!).  So, people ask me - Do you think Cloud Computing is a revolution or an evolution?

My answer is a resounding “Both”.

I believe that all evolutionary change starts with revolutionary change.  In Darwin’s Origin of the Species evolutionary changes start with a mutation.  Those mutations are the revolutions that result in evolution.  In most cases the mutation comes about as a mechanism to heighten the chance of survival - you know, to make the species more fit.  Subsequent to those revolutions, the evolutionary process gradually occurs as the most fit survive and the mutation becomes the norm - the standard.

Cloud computing is the mutation - the revolution.  Enterprise IT and Corporate CIOs/IT Managers will jump on the opportunity to evolve as they always have when revolutionary technology mutations have occurred.

So, here’s an example of a scenario of how the evolution will happen.

During the next couple of years two things will occur.

First, enterprises know that the hardest things to plan for with regard to capacity, performance, etc., are on line applications offered on the web.  They really have no control over who may log on, how many may log on, when they may log on, what they may do once they log on, etc.  So, the natural evolutionary step to mitigate this is to run those applications on massively scalable infrastructure that scales up and down dynamically as needed, using resources on demand, always there when needed and only paying for what is consumed.  These infrastructures are what we are now calling Clouds.

At the same time, the mission critical data and systems of records that are the enterprise life blood residing in their datacenters need to be isolated from these on line applicatons exposed to every internet user.  This will be accomplished through the use of secure virtual gateways in the Cloud, connecting, in a loosely coupled manner, rather than a fully integrated manner, to the enterprise datacenters, their databases and systems of record.

These gateways will take many forms.  They may be SOA gateways using XML and virtual XML firewalls, virtual messaging systems such as MQ, virtual EAI appliances or customized appliances encapsulating organizations’ proprietary techniques for reliably and securely communicating among systems (and anything new that comes along to supplement or replace these things).

Second, infrastructure/architecture agnostic Cloud platforms (what we at 3tera call Cloud Computing Without Compromise) will be installed in enterprise datacenters.  There will be two factors that will drive this.

(1) As more and more apps are offered on line, those same apps will often be used internally by the enterprise employees.  Why incur the cost of having separate experiences for employees and customers who are accessing the same information and functionality.  Also, when connecting the on line apps in the Cloud to the datacenter and SORs, having them on similar platforms will make it seamless and efficient.  ‘

(2) A Cloud infrastructure done right, behind the corporate firewall, enables the enterprise to run their datacenters as metered utilities.  It enables them to more efficiently use their hardware resources by provisioning what is needed for each application on demand and releasing those resources when no longer needed for other applications to use.  It enables them to more efficiently use intellectual capital by shifting IT administrators from managing machines to managing applications.  And, most importantly, it greatly decreases time to market because the lengthy provisioning, configuring, etc., of hardware and infrastructure resources is, pardon the pun, virtually eliminated.  So albeit humongously significant, forget all the talk about cost reduction and avoidance.  Cloud Computing in the enterprise has the potential to greatly increase revenue and beat the heck out of competitors implementing like products using traditional datacenter deployment methods.

OK - so what’s the next step in the evolution?

At the same time that enterprises are growing comfy with apps in Clouds and realizing the upside of dynamic provisioning and scaling, they will be developing new applications and replacing/changing existing ones.  They will start building the new apps in Clouds and as they change existing apps, will consider migrating them to the Cloud in the process.  This will afford them the advantages of much faster times to market, the ability to run applications on demand in multiple datacenters (globally if appropriate) creating their first truly complete disaster recovery abilities and concentrate on their core businesses which may be financial services, health care, manufacturing, etc., but certainly is not datacenter operations (they will leave that to the companies whose core business IS datacenter operations).

Now the final step (well, as my limited vision can see it - of course there will be much more beyond this):

Enterprises will find themselves with datacenters that only contain data.  Finally, a datacenter will be what its name implies.  All of their functionality - all the non-data tiers of their services, will be in Clouds connected to the datacenters’ data.  At that point, evolution will have to start behaving like the datacenter is an appendage.  Over time, the corporate data will move to the Cloud just as many smaller businesses without datacenters are using storage services in Clouds today.  The corporate datacenter will be a vestige, and eventually evolution will cause it to disappear.

Discussion of this step always raises questions of privacy and security.  I maintain that when corporate data is in the Cloud it will actually be more protected than it is in the enterprise datacenter.  But I’ll save that for a separate, devoted future posting.

In short, the corporate datacenter is not a stupid useless entity.  There have been no alternatives.  My hat is off to the brave men and women who devote their careers to thanklessly operating them.  They are profound necessities.  But neccesity truly is the mother of invention, and the corporate datacenter, with all of its overhead, has bred Cloud Computing.

So, as I started this with a PC comment, I feel like ending it with one.  As I composed this, I did realize that there are many people out there that discount Darwinian evolution in favor of Creationism.  I assure you that I have the utmost respect for all beliefs, no matter how different from my own.  And my references to evolution here, obviously have to do with the evolution of technology, not of the human race.  Furthermore, I am very happy to depict the corporate datacenter as the eventual dinosaur with a saddle on it’s back being ridden by a member of the Cloud Computing species.

Alex Handy at System Management News writes about Digg’s Kevin Rose and Ron Gorodetzky and how they are scaling Digg — see Digging His Way to Web Success.

With all the havoc about Twitter (if you spent the last few months on Mars, Google for it — there was even a post by Twitter’s founder describing what happened), it is refreshing to see someone who did it right and simple. The key point, I think, is that you have to start it simple — especially if you are a startup, you cannot and should not attempt to create the ultimate scalable system in version 1. Aside from this being impractical, it is also impossible for any system that’s actually interesting, because you don’t know which way your system will grow (trying to predict the future and plan for all possible cases is the surest way to never release anything).

Check out what Nati Shalom and Todd Hoff wrote about Twitter and scalability in a larger scope. Also, Todd Hoff’s excellent high scalability blog has a lot of useful info on how various big sites scaled, including Digg.

So how is this related to cloud computing: well, no matter how your application is deployed and operated, you still have do the architecture right for scaling: and not only in a static sense (a one time scalability design) but also in time, as your system grows and takes on different, usually unexpected directions to success. A good utility and/or cloud computing solution will help you in this: from offering ready made “best practices” stacks and solutions, to helping you build, debug, tune, monitor and operate your own particular architecture.

Onward and upward (or, for scalability freaks, outward!)

Being an entrepreneur is a risky business, and as such it certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. However, an email thread circling 3tera today shed a little light on one aspect of our character that I hadn’t seen before.

Tomorrow being the 4^th of July, the thread started out innocently enough wishing everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday. With each “reply all” though, the thread took on a new twist, talking more about fireworks and what we used to enjoy as kids. In the end the thread was about how to make explosions from safe-and-sane fireworks (or other items). In other words, how to break the law. Turns out more than a few folks had ways to make things go bang.

Of course, it isn’t surprising that a bunch of entrepreneurs are willing to take risks for fun. However, I wonder if it’s a requirement. Are all entrepreneurs rule breakers? Is that part of why we build companies instead of going to work for established firms? Is the excitement of seeing your system go live for the first time the same as watching that firework explode?

I’m no psychologist, but I think they are related. Accomplishing what others say “can’t be done” is exciting. And IMHO it is related to the elation of that exploding fire cracker you weren’t supposed to have. So as you’re celebrating tomorrow and hear the din of firecrackers, perhaps you’re listening to the job training of the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.

I just ran accross a podcast of Dan Farber interviewing Lloyd Taylor of LinkedIn from December that I highly recommend. It’s an excellent listen for anyone who wants to understand how a VP of Technology Operation should be spending his day - focused on adding value to his customers. Lloyd even states up front that he’s able to do this because his infrastructure is sound. The day to day stuff works.

For the record, they are not a 3tera customer. LinkedIn did it the old fashioned way, but that only adds to my admiration.

Layered Tech has taken the covers off their new DynaVol storage service.

In addition to offering a reliable and secure way to store data, DynaVol can also be used to serve static content, taking a lot of load off your infrastructure. Plus, with packages starting at just $15 month, the system is exceptionally affordable.

I’m looking forward to using DynaVol for near-line storage of application backups.

When I was in college the irreverant comic strip Doonsebury was in it’s prime. Because it featured college kids it was a favorite on campus. One frequent story line involved the young college kids workig as polsters during election years and in a particularly memorable line the polster responds to a woman who’d never heard of his candidate with “he’s never heard of you either.”

So, here I am going through that same dance with other startups at AjaxWorld. Sure, Oracle and IBM are here along with a few other industry stalwarts, but a large chunk of conversations between exhibitors is “so what do you guys do?” Ah, the life of a startup.

For startups, how you answer this question is an important decision, it’s your elevator pitch to use the venacular. What three sentences can you string together to convey what you do. If you’re building a faster, smaller, cheaper widget then your answer is pretty simple. On the other hand, if you’re building something new, as we believe 3tera has, then the job gets a little tougher.

Imagine showing a spreadsheet for the first time, a GUI, or maybe a mouse. I’m sure showing the first web browser stretched a few imaginations. Each of these is well understood today, but when first created the developers had to find a way to communicate. You search for a meme you can associate with.

I just did my video interview with sys.con.tv here at AjaxWorld and have a panel session this evening - all preparing for the day when no one will have to ask what we do.

After a couple decades building technology, you come to realize that technology development is really a cycle rather than a vector. For instance, the way in which AppLogic packages an application and its infrastructure is analogous to the way you’d launch an app on an SMP system with a shell script that starts processes and connects them through sockets. Jason Brooks has a short but interesting piece about this subject, and the way in which the iteration adds value.

Often the parallels aren’t obvious at first, because you start out trying to solve a problem rather than recreate a technology in a new space. As an example, we weren’t trying to create an operating system when we started AppLogic - we simply wanted to help folks scale web services. We wanted to give them a way to express the application structure so it could be implemented by a system rather than operators. Only after we had the first prototype running did it became clear we’d built a new kind of operating system, a meta operating system.

What’s unique is that a meta operating system has no APIs of it’s own, because the code runs in guest OS’s. Still, the meta OS controls resources, schedules processes and provides the user a console.

Realizing this was an important step and made completing the project easier. Realizing we had an OS meant we now had a template to refer to whenever we weren’t sure how to solve a problem.

I’m at Tier 1’s Hosting Transformation Summit for two days of meetings, presentationa and discussions with the leaders in the hosting industry. This is the second year I’ve attended and the Tier 1 folks do a great job of bringing together the senior execs from the major players.

Our CEO, Barry Lynn, did a great job on a pannel regarding utility computing. During the talk he made a rather controversial statement - that computing could eventually be made free.

The basis for his statement are calculations based on our user’s costs for operating online services versus traditional colocation. Projecting those calculations into the future there is indeed a crossover point - a time in the future when the cost of computing could be supported by some other monetization method such as advertising.

Sound ridiculus? So did getting applications for free at one point.