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The Cloud is Neither All Bad Nor All Good

Noted blogger and novelist Cory Doctorow has posted a diatribe against cloud computing, in which he says "the main attraction of the cloud to investors and entrepreneurs is the idea of making money from you, on a recurring, perpetual basis, for something you currently get for a flat rate or for free." In a post called "Young man yells at cloud," ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn flatly disagrees with him, pointing out that the many headaches and screw-ups that go along with using computers are abstracted in the cloud, managed by others.

Meanwhile, The VAR Guy notes that Red Hat Executive VP Paul Cormier has warned the attendees of Red Hat Summit that Microsoft has its eyes on lock-in--not openness--with its Azure cloud platform. Is the cloud evil?

What the cloud is is a work in progress, and hosted applications, platforms and services definitely have both advantages and disadvantages. This week, there was a Gmail outage for several hours, illustrating that even a big cloud proponent like Google can't keep data that is precious to business and consumer users alike constantly available.

However, Dana Blankenhorn's pro-cloud post proclaims this: "I no longer even trust my PC for really important stuff. That goes on a USB stick. You can get a 32 Gigabyte stick these days for about $70. Wear it around your neck, plug it into the cloud anywhere and, if everything works right, there you are." You can't completely trust a PC, but then again you can't completely trust a hosted service like Gmail either.

For really important business data, I expect that many businesses will have redundant ways of managing and storing data--doing so both locally and on hosted services and storage platforms. It's also true that businesses will have redundant "faces" that they present in the cloud, with both private and public cloud services that they use and offer.

In fact, that last hybrid approach is behind the whole business model of Eucalyptus Systems, a well-funded startup focused on open source cloud computing solutions. The company's CTO Rich Wolski, a founder of the Eucalyptus cloud platform, had this to say when I asked him about his company's business model:

"[Companies] are doing a variety of things, but a lot of them are basically interested in Eucalyptus for doing the same kinds of things they're doing in Amazon AWS, such as business logic applications, where part of the attraction of Eucalyptus is that they can use it as a platform for seamlessly running their public cloud applications and their on-premise cloud apps."

I expect we'll see more hybrid, public/private cloud efforts from many companies, and Eucalyptus Systems is partnered with proprietary players such as VMware even as it pursues open cloud strategies. As Red Hat's Paul Cormier noted at Red Hat Summit this week, there are signs that players such as Microsoft and VMware remain quite focused on proprietary lock-in strategies. He pointed out that the lock-in is going on at the hardware, middleware, and application levels, and assured the audience that Red Hat would proceed with an open cloud strategy.

Cormier, and Doctorow, have a point about the cloud representing new opportunities--especially for companies already skilled at it--to pursue lock-in strategies that boost bottom lines. That's why it's essential for Red Hat, Eucalyptus Systems, and other open source cloud players to preserve openness. Ultimately, I expect that businesses and consumers alike will do in the cloud what most of them have done outside the cloud: combine proprietary and open platforms and applications, seeking advantages from both, with hybrid approaches.

• Microsoft
• Red Hat
• cloud computing
• Eucalyptus Systems
• Azure

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