Blogs

The new cloud (or if you prefer hosted computing services, or IAAS) rests on top of virtualization. If we’re going to take the cloud seriously, it will have to be compliant. One of the more stringent compliance frameworks is PCI DSS. Let’s look at requirement one and start building a solution for the cloud.

Of the many exciting things inherent to the opening of access to levels of computing that previously would have required a massive initial investment to the masses, the one I envision having the most "oomf" is the way people will find to consume this new resource.

The big push right now is around interoperability among cloud providers, or the notion of cloud providers offering built-in communications to one another, and also application and data portability between providers. Core to this concept was a buzzword I’ve been hearing the last few months: Intercloud.

At a recent Gartner Symposium on Cloud Computing, HP CEO Mark Hurd was quoted as follows; "Security and reliability is a huge thing. It's unlikely we'd put anything outside the firewall that's material in nature that we couldn't 100 percent secure."

I'd like to start this discussion with a quick overview of the importance of context when speaking about cloud.

Meeting with customers and analysts, it's clear that a lot of the contentiousness around the cloud topic comes from a lack of clarification around who is using what charactersistics of what level of infrastructure and or service. From my point of view cloud is a set of characteristics that, depending on who is doing the observing, are presented or observed in different ways.

Cloud Computing is about Removing Risk and Conserving Capital
So, I’m a computer guy. What the heck is capital? As defined by Wikipedia it’s:

“…any liquid medium or mechanism that represents wealth, or other styles of capital. It is, however, usually purchasing power in the form of money available for the production or purchasing of goods, etcetera. Capital can also be obtained by producing more than what is immediately required and saving the surplus.”

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) began its life in 1981 as a series of IT “best practices.” A project of the United Kingdom's Office of Government Commerce, ITIL 1 grew to about 30 volumes before being whittled down to a more manageable consolidation of 8 logical sets which were dubbed ITIL 2 in 2001.

What’s nice about Chrome OS is the speed with which you can boot, likened to turning on a TV…or perhaps pulling your laptop from standby mood. Also, its ability to load Web applications quickly, and I bet it does an amazing job at using Google applications. Thus, many in the press have dubbed it a “cloud computing OS.” But, should they?

Hello, I’m Dave Linthicum. I’m an internationally recognized industry expert and thought leader, and the author and coauthor of 13 books on computing, including the best selling Enterprise Application Integration (Addison Wesley). My latest book, out in Early October is entitled Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide. I keynote at many leading technology conferences on cloud computing, SOA, and enterprise architecture, and has appeared on a number of TV and radio shows as a computing expert.

It is widely held that Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, posed the following riddle to Stephen Douglas during a debate where both were running for the Illinois legislature;

Lincoln: "How many legs does a lamb have?

Douglas: "Four"

Lincoln: "If I say the tail is a leg, then how many does it have?

Douglas: "Five"

Lincoln: "No. It has still has four. Calling a lamb's tail a leg doesn't make it so."