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!

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?

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!

OK, you can call me a geek, but I really like CLI’s. It could be that they so seldom have serious UI issues the way GUI’s do. Or it could simply be nostalgia for the days when screen savers actually had a purpose. Either way, I had to smile when I first came across goosh, a shell like interface for google.

Now if google would just put the database on a floppy . . .

Just found this one via slashdot. Enjoy!

Twenty Experts Define Cloud Computing (with source links)

http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/read/612375_p.htm

Poll: should we add our own?

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Update, 7:30pm: Bert adds his view on why we shouldn’t try to make our own definition

One of the truisms of promoting new technologies is that the market never forms as fast as you expect. Spending sixteen hours a day, seven days a week working on steeped in the nuances of your technology, it can be frustrating trying to breakthrough the FUD accumulated in consumers minds by years working with the status quo. So, when you start to see that people get it, the moment is really gratifying.

One such moment was finding an article on ZDnet about Accenture Technology Labs’ assesment that utility computing is a green technology:

“Industrial-scale computing facilities can be located so as to optimize across land costs, power costs, bandwidth costs and power reliability . . . This can result in significant savings and is not an option most enterprises have available to them. “

The use of virtualization to enable utility computing has become pretty well accepted over the past year. So much so, that it’s almost comical to think of some of the responses we got three years ago when we started 3tera and were touring VCs and potential partners with our Powerpoint slides.

Unfortunately, some folks take the idea too literally and believe that virtualization and a SAN is all that’s required. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. AppLogic has been in production for 18 months and EC2 for twelve, so we now have data about what services are required for utility computing.

Peter and I just finished an article for fishtrain that discusses how virtualization fits into utility computing and what additional services are required. Hopefully it’ll stir a little bit of discussion.

I’ve been asked more than once during interviews whether utility computing will ultimately cost IT jobs. With fewer physical assets to manage and with the ability to automate a great deal of the mundane labor intensive operations, the logic is there should be need for fewer system administrators. However, this is a rather poorly though out analysis.

Utility computing eliminates labor by substituting technology. At 3tera, we routinely find system administrators who run hundreds of systems. Even a thousand isn’t out of the question. Compare that with 20 to 30 in typical IT environments and the ROI become pretty obvious. So, what about the jobs?

Economics, and the history of technology, suggests that when we encounter a step function in cost overall usage increases by a greater multiple than the cost reduction. Of course, this assumes demand is elastic and I haven’t seen any indication that demand for computing overall has been satisfied. This is why minis, PCs and the Internet didn’t reduce the number of IT jobs. With each of these new innovations IT related projects got done quicker and more cost effectively. After a period of ajustment each caused a rapid increase in IT jobs associated with the new technology that dwarfed any losses of older job functions.

Accordingly, I find it odd to suggest that utility computing will eliminate IT jobs. Quite the contrary, I expect to see a rapid expansion of IT jobs as more users learn the advantages of utility computing.

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.