昨今登場しているさまざまなCloud Computingサービス事業は一見オープンな環境を提供しているように見えながら、顧客の囲い込みをするための戦略が打ち出されているケースが多い。 さまざまなCloud Computing環境での共通仕様を設定し、Cloud間でのシステムの移行などを可能にするための作業を3Teraという会社が行っている。 Amazonがどのように関与していくか、が大きなポイント、と指摘している。
Bridging The Clouds
Andy Greenberg, 06.30.08, 6:00 AM ET
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The "cloud," despite its name, isn't quite the open, limitless place it seems.
"Cloud computing" or "utility computing" offerings like Google's (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) App Engine or Amazon's (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people ) Web Services, which pipe applications, processing and storage over the Internet, may eventually let companies escape the confines of their data centers and pay for cheap, scalable processing and storage as easily as they pay for water or electricity.
But for now, if a company hands its information technology infrastructure to a vendor like Amazon, it's largely locked in Amazon's proprietary cloud, with no easy way to move its virtual IT infrastructure to another company's service or back into its data center.
"The problem is that there's no standard to move things around. I think it's the biggest hurdle that cloud computing has to face today," says Padmasree Warrior, chief technology officer at Cisco (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ). "How do we create an open environment between clouds, so that I can have some things reside in my cloud and some things in other people's data center? A lot of work needs to be done."
The company working to make that open environment possible is neither Cisco nor cloud computing leader Amazon, but rather the tiny, Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based start-up 3Tera. The 22-person firm, which sells software for integrating and divvying up the servers of computers used by cloud computing services, is pushing an initiative it calls "Open Cloud," a cloud computing standard that would allow a company's IT systems to be shared between different cloud computing services and moved freely between them.
"We want this to be the way people compute," says 3Tera's co-founder Bert Armijo. "That means people need to be able to move their applications and their data, to build applications that span multiple data centers and services. All of that requires a standard."
3Tera has been working to assemble a coalition of cloud computing companies to form a "birds of a feather" proposal it intends to bring before an official standards body such as the IEEE or the World Wide Web Consortium in the fall of next year. Armijo says that several small cloud-computing firms including Elastra and Rightscale are already on board with 3Tera's standards group. Other players, like Layered Technologies and Enki, which use 3Tera's Applogic software to serve up their computing and storage to customers, will also become part of the standard by default. But bigger companies in the nascent cloud computing market including Amazon, Terramark and Google have yet to weigh in.
"We're trying to get smaller firms lined up before we go after the bigger fish," says Armijo.
Google product manager Peter Koomen says the company wants "to make it easy for developers to migrate both on to and off of Google App Engine, and we're excited about the possibility of open standards in cloud computing."
Amazon, so far, has seemed less than committed. In a statement, company spokesman Andrew Herdener wrote that Amazon is "open to the idea [of creating a cloud computing standard] if we can do so in such a way that enables us to continue innovating quickly and delivering on [our] focus for our customers."
In fact, leading cloud services like Amazon may resist a standard for fear of losing their proprietary lock on early customers. A more standardized cloud-computing market could also hurt cloud computing leaders by removing competitive advantages and leveling the playing field, says Nick Carr, blogger and author of the cloud computing-focused book, The Big Switch. "Right now, Amazon and Google can compete based on their reliability or other factors," says Carr. "But the long-run danger for standard utility computing service is that it becomes a commodity and your only way to compete is on price."
If Amazon does participate, says Forrester research analyst James Staten, the company will likely use its heft in the cloud computing industry to assert control over the standard and shape it to Amazon's current services. "If this standard doesn't acknowledge Amazon's leadership, expect them to walk away," says Staten. "3Tera knows they have to have Amazon to have any credibility."
If the larger company holds back, however, 3Tera may try integrating Amazon's services against the company's will. 3Tera's Bert Armijo says 3Tera is working on software that would connect Amazon's EC2 computing offering with 3Tera's Applogic services, allowing customers to use both Applogic applications hosted on 3Tera's clients' servers as well as Amazon's processing power.
3Tera's Armijo is optimistic that bigger players won't have to be dragged to the table. He argues that given the small size of the cloud computing market, Amazon and other giants will be more interested in growing the demand for cloud services than hoarding their shares of the market.
"Creating a standard is never easy," he says. "You have a room full of competitors, so things can get fractious. But eventually everyone realizes that a rising tide lifts all boats."
"Cloud computing" or "utility computing" offerings like Google's (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) App Engine or Amazon's (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people ) Web Services, which pipe applications, processing and storage over the Internet, may eventually let companies escape the confines of their data centers and pay for cheap, scalable processing and storage as easily as they pay for water or electricity.
But for now, if a company hands its information technology infrastructure to a vendor like Amazon, it's largely locked in Amazon's proprietary cloud, with no easy way to move its virtual IT infrastructure to another company's service or back into its data center.
"The problem is that there's no standard to move things around. I think it's the biggest hurdle that cloud computing has to face today," says Padmasree Warrior, chief technology officer at Cisco (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ). "How do we create an open environment between clouds, so that I can have some things reside in my cloud and some things in other people's data center? A lot of work needs to be done."
The company working to make that open environment possible is neither Cisco nor cloud computing leader Amazon, but rather the tiny, Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based start-up 3Tera. The 22-person firm, which sells software for integrating and divvying up the servers of computers used by cloud computing services, is pushing an initiative it calls "Open Cloud," a cloud computing standard that would allow a company's IT systems to be shared between different cloud computing services and moved freely between them.
"We want this to be the way people compute," says 3Tera's co-founder Bert Armijo. "That means people need to be able to move their applications and their data, to build applications that span multiple data centers and services. All of that requires a standard."
3Tera has been working to assemble a coalition of cloud computing companies to form a "birds of a feather" proposal it intends to bring before an official standards body such as the IEEE or the World Wide Web Consortium in the fall of next year. Armijo says that several small cloud-computing firms including Elastra and Rightscale are already on board with 3Tera's standards group. Other players, like Layered Technologies and Enki, which use 3Tera's Applogic software to serve up their computing and storage to customers, will also become part of the standard by default. But bigger companies in the nascent cloud computing market including Amazon, Terramark and Google have yet to weigh in.
"We're trying to get smaller firms lined up before we go after the bigger fish," says Armijo.
Google product manager Peter Koomen says the company wants "to make it easy for developers to migrate both on to and off of Google App Engine, and we're excited about the possibility of open standards in cloud computing."
Amazon, so far, has seemed less than committed. In a statement, company spokesman Andrew Herdener wrote that Amazon is "open to the idea [of creating a cloud computing standard] if we can do so in such a way that enables us to continue innovating quickly and delivering on [our] focus for our customers."
In fact, leading cloud services like Amazon may resist a standard for fear of losing their proprietary lock on early customers. A more standardized cloud-computing market could also hurt cloud computing leaders by removing competitive advantages and leveling the playing field, says Nick Carr, blogger and author of the cloud computing-focused book, The Big Switch. "Right now, Amazon and Google can compete based on their reliability or other factors," says Carr. "But the long-run danger for standard utility computing service is that it becomes a commodity and your only way to compete is on price."
If Amazon does participate, says Forrester research analyst James Staten, the company will likely use its heft in the cloud computing industry to assert control over the standard and shape it to Amazon's current services. "If this standard doesn't acknowledge Amazon's leadership, expect them to walk away," says Staten. "3Tera knows they have to have Amazon to have any credibility."
If the larger company holds back, however, 3Tera may try integrating Amazon's services against the company's will. 3Tera's Bert Armijo says 3Tera is working on software that would connect Amazon's EC2 computing offering with 3Tera's Applogic services, allowing customers to use both Applogic applications hosted on 3Tera's clients' servers as well as Amazon's processing power.
3Tera's Armijo is optimistic that bigger players won't have to be dragged to the table. He argues that given the small size of the cloud computing market, Amazon and other giants will be more interested in growing the demand for cloud services than hoarding their shares of the market.
"Creating a standard is never easy," he says. "You have a room full of competitors, so things can get fractious. But eventually everyone realizes that a rising tide lifts all boats."
