Like \u201cWeb 2.0\u201d, the term \u201cCloud computing\u201d is one that nobody much likes, but is hard to avoid. Argue all you like; but there are real and significant changes, and we need to call it something.<\/p>\n
I wrote a piece in today\u2019s Guardian<\/a> which looks at some of the issues. Tony Lucas at Flexiscale<\/a>, a cloud computing provider, makes the point that \u201coccasional large outages are actually more likely than small ones\u201d. His words were prophetic; I spoke to him shortly before Flexiscale itself went offline for two days. That\u2019s unacceptable for anything business-critical; there has to be a plan B. SLAs by the way are not the answer; they promise some level of compensation in the event of failure, but this is typically miniscule in comparison to the business consequences. <\/p>\n Virtualization could be the answer. If your virtual servers at one provider go offline, just bring them up with another provider. That implies interoperability; and if this interests you, note that Amazon\u2019s Jeff Barr is speaking on this subject<\/a> with Lucas at the Future of Web Apps conference<\/a> in London next month. Another development is VMware\u2019s vCloud<\/a>, which promises to \u201cfederate between on-premise and off-premise clouds\u201d with its vServices. VMware is also a big supporter of the Open Virtual Machine Format<\/a> (OVF), a format for portable virtual machines. If the reliability problem is solved, it will remove a key barrier to adoption of this kind of on-demand computing.<\/p>\n Like \u201cWeb 2.0\u201d, the term \u201cCloud computing\u201d is one that nobody much likes, but is hard to avoid. Argue all you like; but there are real and significant changes, and we need to call it something. I wrote a piece in today\u2019s Guardian which looks at some of the issues. Tony Lucas at Flexiscale, a … Continue reading Making the cloud reliable<\/span>