For those of us who have lived through the cyclical nature of Enterprise technology innovation, the last month has seen the public and private backlash of an "emerging" compute models, known as Cloud Computing. Industry veterans claiming marketing hype, others claiming leadership in this space and some committed to changing the landscape of computing have begun their public positioning of this new compute paradigm. So what has changed and why all the "backlash": I'll outline my thoughts, remind people of history and outline what I believe the future holds.
Why now?
1. Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law and Buffett's law (I'll explain later).
A. Moore's law and the era of multi-core provides all of us in the industry the capability to grow our compute infrastructures in a more scalable, cost effective fashion then at anytime in the history of our industry. This isn't hype this is reality. We are delivering better than 2x the performance in our recently announced Intel Xeon 7400 series product than our Intel Xeon 7100 series product launched just 2 years ago. I might add that our Intel Xeon 7400 platform is the industry 1st 1 million tpm/c x86 architecture in history. Moore's law is alive and well. Perfectly suited for the Physical layer of Cloud Computing .
B. Ethernet performance and innovation has outstripped Fiber Channel and Infiniband in terms of innovation. This has allowed for a Gigabit revolution from Desktop to Data Center. The Gigabit revolution is driving a transformation of how communication networks are being built around the world. This law will be constant and Intel is committed to being a leader here as well.
(Note: I was the NUMA-Q systems architect for the 1st ever production fiber channel solution deployed for commercial use at the NASD in 1997 with EMC...at the time ethernet was a 10/100mb controller)
C. Buffett's Law: The value of an enterprise is a direct correlation of it's ability to deliver consistent return on invested capital, regardless of market conditions. Enterprises will/are being required to drive consistent returns with an intelligent, expandable and cost effective IT infrastructures. Information Technology leadership is key to all successful businesses in a global economy. Cloud computing has the potential to provide a flexible internal capability with external application growth capabilities. This is not yesterday's outsourcing models. Warren Buffett is driving change through value investing, this rewards the conservative innovator more than the flambouyant visionary of a "boom" cycle. I'm not sure he even understands the significance his investment models have begun to place on our industry...
2. Virtualization for x86 compute technologies. Over 80% of the world's server shipments.
A. Expansion of virtualization technologies to increase the utilization of the compute infrastructures has increased the flexibility of these environments. Introduction of flexible migration technologies for virtual machines provides meaningful cost savings for software licensing, energy efficiencies and scale for viral workloads.
B. Educating tomorrow's Web 2.0 innovators is easier on our platforms, compilers and technologies that are available in every market in the world....within state department allowed countries. :>
C. Broadband Access around the world. Wimax, 3G, Fiber to Home, xDSL and Cable...thanks!
3. Google's Law: Viral IS the market.
A. Our children fortunate enough to afford access, live in a online world where Viral isn't a sickness. Communities expand and contract based upon their ability to meet the needs of their constituency. John Stuart Mill would be proud.
B. Cloud Computing provides the necessary compute infrastructure for tomorrow's software artists to build a community in their own likeness, even the founders of Google are growing increasingly out of touch as they grow older.
What's different from the past?
1. Clusters aren't a requirement. Cluster technologies are difficult to manage, administer and unpredictable. In addition their software licensing costs have been traditionally prohibitive for wide-scale deployment across an enterprise.
2. Intel's compute requirements and capabilities are as never before. See above or visit www.intel.com
3. Client/Server architectures, Open Source and Web 2.0 have unlocked a world of programming models capable of acting different.
4. It has been 10 years since Siebel Net, the 1st Client Server ASP, was architected from a deal between Tom Seibel and Casey Powell....yes it was ground breaking and no it didn't make a lot of money....but it did spark an industry that has given us Salesforce.com, Corio, OracleOnline and others. We designed these infrastructures knowing they had meaningful limitations yet with the industry's best technology available at the time. We have had a first act.
5. Latency improvements has reduced virtual machine migration to minutes and application deployment models from weeks to hours. As we decrease the latencies of the physical layer from minutes to milliseconds across cpu, memory, networking and storage we are providing the basis for breakthrough programming models such as Cloud Computing.
What does the future hold?
My Top 9 predictions....(time for the station announcement....these opinions are not necessarily opinions of Intel, the opinion expressed below are the author.)
1. Cloud Computing infrastructures will provide the basis for a new compute and development infrastructures that will allow the world's smartest technologists to have access to more compute resources than they have ever been able to afford. The cloud will provide breakthrough research in the following areas in the next 5 years: DNA mapping, FDA regulation, Energy Consumption and Exploration modeling, Retail Supply Chain, High Definition Content Creation and Human Rights.
2. Cloud Computing will deliver the most consistent, scalable and available compute infrastructure ever created. Translation...there is failure, there is not downtime. It will also mark the end of Tape backup technologies and proprietary storage interfaces over the next decade. I'm not sure why we need clustering technology in the future either but...that is the subject for another blog.
3. Cloud Computing will make device compute capabilities even more important than they are today. The easier the access to high value content the more important the compute capabilities of the end user device to enjoy the content.
4. Cloud Computing will change the Entertainment Industry over the next 5 years. More access, more distribution, less cost, more profits with less risk.
5. Cloud computing will have the single biggest effect on traditional software licensing models of any environemental change in our industry. More of an impact than Multi-Core, Clustering or Google.
6. Cloud Computing will drive innovation and interoperability. Innovation in programming models for business and consumer applications. Interoperability across the physical, application and user interface layers of a cloud infrastructure.
7. Cloud Computing infrastructures will consume up to 50% of all x86 server CPU cycles by 2016.
8. Whichever entrepeneurs emerge as the leaders of the "Age of Cloud Computing" will be the technically most well-rounded technologists our industry has ever created. Hopefully, they will be equally well-rounded in their business planning processes.
9. Cloud Computing will begin to unearth a global data standards initiative. As an industry we will have to work with the regulatory leadership around the world to define acceptable and secure standards of data integrity across Cloud infrastructures.
For the non-believers...I must apologize. Explanations I can give, understanding I cannot. Cloud Computing is not a fad. it is a desired state of end users who face real business challenges with unpredictable compute requirements, budgets and human resources.
Where there are clouds there is usually rain.....
