What is in a cloud?

Just finished a 20 part OpenStack Series on my blog.  May be it is a good idea to step back to take a look at what a cloud is.

According to NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) publication 800-145, Cloud Computing is defined as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

This document further defines that a cloud computing has 3 service model and 4 deployment model and 5 essential characteristics.

Wow, it is so theoretical.  Who want to memorize these definitions?  I am not taking any certification exam from NIST.

But when I read what they are I find that these service models, deployment models and essential characteristics are being used widely in all the cloud related articles. Let’s take a quick look and see if you agree.

Cloud Service Model

• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas)

Every day we some form of Software as a Service.  Most people use Yahoo Mail or Gmail.  Microsoft Office 365 is another form of SaaS.  User of SaaS only interfaces with the application and do not know what and how it is being supported.  You may be surprised to know Facebook is a form of SaaS.

I think the best way to describe Platform as a Server is that user is responsible for the application and data that is associated with it.  The hardware, OS, network and storage is hided from the user.  AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Google App Engine and RedHat’s OpenShift are good example of PaaS.  In this model the OS license is not a concern of the user even Linux is free there is no need to worry about when to apply the latest security patches or have to schedule down time.  The development or production platform is just there to be consumed.  The PaaS provider will take care of providing a platform according to the SLA.

Infrastructure as a Service will provide all the hardware for compute, network and storage including the hypervisor and use is responsible for maintenance and security patches of the Operating System that is running on the infrastructure.  Software license is a big consideration in this model.

This diagram best describe the 3 cloud service model the modules in green are the responsibility of the user and the modules in grey is the responsibility of the provider. (A picture is worth a thousand words).

Image source: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/iaas-paas-saas.jpg

Here is a good article that compares the 3 service model.

Cloud Deployment Model

• Private Cloud
• Community Cloud
• Public Cloud
• Hybrid Cloud

I believe every heard of private, public and hybrid cloud.  Community cloud is for exclusive use by a community and can be hosted on or off premises.  I would think soon we will have a Personal Cloud add to the list.  The main difference between private and public cloud is whether the cloud is hosted on or off premises. 

For Public cloud everyone knows about Amazon Web Services and Google Compute Engine and lately Microsoft Azure.  And for private cloud OpenStack is a hot topic and yet I don’t think it is being deployed as wide as its publicity.

I see lots of potential in the use of Hybrid cloud and VMware rebrand vCloud Hybrid Service into VMware vCloud Air and is promoting a complete cloud solution.

Image source: https://communities.vmware.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-6265-10766/cloud_roadmap.png

Cloud Essential Characteristics

The essential characteristics defined by NIST are

• On-demand self-service
• Broad network access
• Resource pooling
• Rapid elasticity
• Measured service

These are all self explanatory.  Amazon Web Services has CloudWatch for monitoring and since it is a paid service, billing is of course has to be in place.  OpenStack is catching up on this with the Ceilometer but on the billing side, it is only taking care of the measurement portion.  A complete billing system is not in place for OpenStack

Reference:
(Csd), Nist Computer Security Division. NIST SP 800-145, The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing (n.d.): n. pag. Web.

VMUG - a platform for us to learn from each other.

This week I do not have any technical information to share because I have to prepare for the Southern California VMUG Conference that was held on Sept 24, 2014.

I think VMUG is a good platform for us to learn from each other.  I always like to say “I know some and you know some, let’s share what we have”.

 

Southern California VMUG Conference is a one-day event and we are fortunate to have Scott Lowe to be the Keynote speaker.   

Scott is a well-known author, speaker, and blogger.  His blog is here which has tons of useful information.  Scott said that he did not blog as much as before because of his busy schedule at VMware.  Scott is a very dynamic speaker.  A seasoned IT guy told me even if Scott talks about XML(a very boring subject), he will still listen with eagerness.

Scott has a slide to introduce himself.  This slide has his name, him being a VCDX, his twitter handle, blog URL and interestingly also include his life guiding principle – Col 3:17 NIV. 

The title of Scott’s keynote is “Closing the Cloud Skills Gap”.   The basic idea is that we need to venture out to sharpen skill to stay relevant.  According to IDC there will be 7 million cloud related jobs worldwide in 2015.

Scott asked what kind of skills that we are working on.  There were many answers from the audience.  Some say Docker, some say OpenStack and so on.  All the answers are technical skills.  Scott show us this slice:

This got us all by surprise.  I have never thought of this before.

The top 5 job skills that are needed in a cloud computing environment are:

1. Risk Management
2. IT service management
3.  Project/program management
4.  Business-IT alignment
5. Technical skills in cloud implementation

As you can see from the list technical skill that we got the answer from the audience is only the 5^th in the order.  Business leaders will not care if OpenStack or CloudStack is used.  As long as the ROI (Return On Investment) is met or business goal is met the tool used is not important to the business leader.

The cloud industry needs someone to bridge the gap between the technology and the businesses leaders.

After the keynote, there are other breakout sessions and the agenda can be found here.

After lunch was the vExpert panel and various things were discussed.  The hottest topic is EVO:rail and the hyper-convergence platform.  One panelist mentioned that Hyper-convergence is only good for SMB. One of the panelists Alastair Cooke mentioned that we need to understand the application and the work load before choosing a hyper convergence platform.  VVol was another topic being discussed.  When I looked up VVol I was surprised that this was around in 2012.  You can find a good blog about VVol here.

After the vExpert panel was other breakout sessions.

This year I did not attend any breakout sessions because I was fortunate enough to have 2 vBrownBag presentations at the conference.  I like the idea of sharing what we know. Check out my vBrownBag presentations on VXLAN and Virtual Design Master.

For me twitter is also one good platform to share ideas besides technical conferences.

After the conference there were parties hosted by Veeam at Marriott where the conference is held and Nutanix at Morton's Steakhouse.  I met different people at both parties and had good conversations.  Sometimes you can learn more by talking to different people than going to technical sessions in a conference. 

The sliders at Morton’s were very good.  I wish they have draft beers also.

Let the Journey Begin!

Server virtualization is only a beginning.

Now is the era of the cloud.  There is the public cloud such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft’s Azure. There is also the private cloud where companies host the cloud services on local premise. Of course there is the hybrid cloud where companies have both private and public cloud.

I think in a few more years there is the personal cloud just like the personal computer where individuals will have one or more cloud for them to use and can be access via different devices.

Apart from the commercial cloud offering, there is the open source cloud and network virtualization. It is not easy to keep up with all the Open* such as OpenStack, OpenFlow, OpenVswitch, OpenDayLight etc.

I am a software engineer for networking equipment. In my 20 years working for a Networking Equipment Manufacturer, I have work on device driver, ATM, SNMP as well as network access control.  

Four years ago I started my journey to the cloud. With my background as a software engineer for networking equipment, it should be natural for me to get into SDN or NVF or OpenVswitch but I have chosen to go after the cloud infrastructure.

By chance I got to attend Interop 2010 for free (hotel, transportation and food is on me). At that time server virtualization is starting to pick up steam and VMware brought server virtualization to maturity.

After I have attended Interop, I feel that virtualization is the industry trend and is starting to pick up. After much effort, with many late night studies and setting up a home lab I struggled for one year and after 2 retires I was able to get my VCP 4 and subsequently VCP 5 certification. Good thing VMworld 2013 is only announcing vSphere 5.5 otherwise I will have to catch up again.

Then I have a chance to look into Citrix’s server and application technology. It was at this time that I found out I am lacking of the knowledge for the Microsoft Infrastructure. Citrix is heavily connected to Microsoft. I tried to learn more about Microsoft’s various technologies and especially the Group Policy when Citrix used that to tune their XenApp deployments. I thought of taking classes or online course but budget is a problem – they are all very expensive.

There came Microsoft Windows Server 2012. As Microsoft is pushing this new server, there are tons of promotions and free education opportunities. Thanks to Microsoft Learning and TrainSignal (recently acquired by PluralSight) I am able to pass 70-410, 70-411 and 70-412 and achieved my MCSA for Windows Server 2012. Hyper-V is really catching up with VMware.

With understanding of VMware and Microsoft infrastructure technologies, I am now ready to really start my journey to the cloud. My next objective is to master Microsoft’s private cloud technology and then move on to OpenStack.

Check back again to watch me journey into the cloud.