VMWorld 2009 is set to kick off next week and GoGrid will be there in the New Innovators Pavilion. Conference information can be found here. We hope that you will come and visit us at our booth there. The Expo itself is open on the following days and times (and we will be at the booth during these times):

• Monday, August 31st – 5:30pm-8:30pm
• Tuesday, September 1st – 10:00am-6:00pm
• Wednesday, September 2nd – 10:00am-6:00pm
• Thursday, September 3rd – 10:00am-2:00pm

While VMWare in the IT organization may be a good fit for many, there are obviously other alternatives for hosting a full IT infrastructure in the Cloud. GoGrid is one of the pioneers from that perspective. We not only provide Windows and Linux servers within the GoGrid Cloud, we also provide many industry standard components like hardware-based load balancing, private and public networking, dynamic mountable Cloud Storage solutions, an industry hardened and robust SLA and the ability to connect a cloud front-end with a dedicated or colocated backend server infrastructure. We like to call GoGrid a “cloudcenter” which is essentially a datacenter in the cloud. You can read up on the cloudcenter idea here and here.

At the show, we will be giving out high-value promotional codes good for trying out GoGrid’s Cloud Infrastructure for free. Of course, we will also have lots of SWAG (Stuff We All Get) to give away!

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Over the past year, I have written about the various primal layers of Cloud Computing. Typically, my role is to “over simplify” in order to make the Cloud a bit more palpable by “the masses.” My colleague, Randy Bias, is the resident über-tech, so I usually leave the more complicated developer and sys-admin posts to him. As we all know, the Cloud is hot and becoming increasingly complicated as new products, services and vendors throw their hats into the ring. But is this over-complication confusing and saturating the market? I think not, in terms of the latter, but it is truly becoming more confusing.

First, we at GoGrid, broadly define Cloud Computing as such (latest definition):

On-demand self-service Internet infrastructure where you pay-as-you-go and use-only what you need, all managed by a browser, application or API.

Even that definition I feel is a bit skewed toward Infrastructure. Probably more aptly defined, it would be:

On-demand, self-service Applications, Platforms, Services or Infrastructure dynamically consumed on a pay-as-you-go basis using a browser, application or API.

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By now, many in the Cloud Computing space have heard about (or even read) the University of California Electrical Engineering & Computer Science’s (EECS) study on Cloud Computing titled: “Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing.” Published on February 10th, 2009, the EECS’s paper provides a seemingly academic study of the Cloud Computing movement, attempts to explain what Cloud Computing is all about, and identifies potential opportunities as well as challenges present within the market.

The 20+ page study is authored by Michael Armbrust, Armando Fox, Rean Griffith, Anthony D. Joseph, Randy H. Katz, Andrew Konwinski, Gunho Lee, David A. Patterson, Ariel Rabkin, Ion Stoica and Matei Zaharia who all work in RAD Lab. (Interestingly, several of the companies mentioned within the study are also Founding Sponsors and/or affiliate members: Sun, Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, etc.).

There has already been plenty of discussion and analysis of this study (by James Urquhart, Krishna Sankar and has even appeared on Slashdot.org). Needless to say, I felt compelled to get my two cents in, especially from the perspective of a Cloud Computing Infrastructure vendor.

From an academic standpoint, this document definitely has some legs. It is complete with carefully thought out scenarios, examples and even formulae, as well as graphs and tables. Some of the points that are brought up even got me scratching my head (e.g., using flash memory to help by “adding another relatively fast layer to the classic memory hierarchy”). Even the case analysis of a DDoS attack from a cost perspective of those initiating an attack to those warding off an attack on a Cloud was interesting to ponder. I commend these group of authors on undertaking such a grand task of not only writing by committee but also overlaying a very business school vs. mathematics and computer sciences approach to the writing and analysis.

Unfortunately, however, as I read through the document, I started scrawling madly in the margins with commentary that is somewhat contrary to what was written within the study.

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Last week, Randy Bias, VP of Technology Strategy and I participated in a podcast on Cloud Computing called “Overcast: Conversations on Cloud Computing“, hosted by James Urquhart and Geva Perry. The Overcast podcast series discusses various aspects of the Cloud Computing Industry and related technologies. Previous guests included Lew Tucker (Sun Microsystems), Greg Ness (Infoblox) and John Willis (a leading cloud computing blogger), among others. The podcast, “Overcast Show#6: Feb 5, 2009 – with Randy Bias and Michael Sheehan, GoGrid” is a little less than an hour in length and covers many of the following topics:

• Distinction and clarifications around the terms “Cloudcenter” and “Infrastructure Web Services” as they existing within the Cloud Infrastructure layer. (More reading on cloudcenters can be found here and here.)
• Understanding GoGrid’s approach to standards and interoperability, especially as they relate to datacenter and infrastructure standards
• Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) providers such as Google App Engine and how Cloud Infrastructure (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) and GoGrid fits in
• Discussion around how we recently put our GoGrid API under a Creative Commons license as well as our efforts to involve other cloud providers and vendors, such as Flexiscale, RightScale and Eucalyptus, in building open standards from the ground up (more info here)
• How GoGrid is working with Puppet and Chef technologies to automate system administration and configuration management
• Using GoGrid’s Cloud Connect offering to “cloudburst” and create hybrid infrastructure topologies using the dynamic scalability of Cloud Web Servers and the robust, high I/O throughput of dedicated backend servers
• …and much more…

We encourage you to listen to this podcast to gain some insight on our thought leadership, concepts and ideas around Cloud Computing, GoGrid and the hosting industry in general. This (and all) podcasts are available in a variety of formats:

• Download Overcast Podcast #6 as an MP3 File
• Subscribe to Overcast in iTunes (Note: this link will attempt to launch iTunes.)
• Play from this site (click on the graphic below)

  Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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Today GoGrid did something big, significantly smaller than the 2009 Obama Inauguration of course, but significant enough within the Cloud Computing community to warrant some attention. Today we released our GoGrid cloudcenter Application Programming Interface (API) specification under a Creative Commons license. This is particularly important to developers, system integrators, IT professionals and other companies as it allows them to openly copy, modify, distribute and republish our Cloud Computing API.

The Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license, under which the GoGrid cloudcenter API now falls, allows for the ability to:

• Share, distribute, display and perform the work
• Make derivative works

The GoGrid cloudcenter API re-use must, however, fall under the following Share Alike licensing conditions:

• There must be full attribution to GoGrid, author and licensor
• There is no implied endorsement by GoGrid of any works derived from the API usage or rework
• After any transformation, alteration or building upon this work, any distribution must be under the same, a similar or a compatible license
• You must make it clear to others about the terms of this license. The best way to do this is by linking to the GoGrid Wiki API page (link below)
• Any of the conditions mentioned previously can be waived with permission from GoGrid

Details on the GoGrid cloudcenter OpenSpec API license can be found within the GoGrid site and is specific to the API only. All content provided on the Wiki in the API “namespace” is covered by this Share Alike license, specifically under this URL: http://wiki.gogrid.com/wiki/index.php/API. Note however, this license applies only to content provided within the namespace plus any pages constrained by the URL plus a colon (“:”). For example:

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Last week, my colleague Randy Bias, introduced the concept of the “cloudcenter” and it has gotten some good commentary, traction and feedback. Most basically put, a cloudcenter (e.g., GoGrid) is a “datacenter in the Cloud” with features, systems, processes and functionality that sysadmins and IT Operations folks are accustomed to. But I feel that the concept needs to be explored a bit more as well as from some different angles.

I attended a technology meetup on Tuesday night in San Francisco where GoGrid is a sponsor. People were packed elbow-to-elbow in the space and I had lots of time to talk about GoGrid and our vision of Cloud Computing to many. A few times, I was asked the common questions “How do you compare to Amazon EC2?” as well as “Are you a competitor to Amazon Web Services (AWS)?” To those people who asked, I gave the following answer (probably not as well articulated though):

Both Amazon and GoGrid are Cloud Infrastructure or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers. We both reside within the bottom layer of the Cloud Pyramid, a term I coined last year to help explain Cloud Computing in an “over simplified” way. Both of our companies do essentially the same thing: providing elastic and dynamically scalable computing resources and infrastructure that is consumed on a self-service basis billed by usage. But how this infrastructure is provided is nuanced differently.

This broad definition warrants further explanation. First, my answer to the “competition” question. Personally, I don’t view AWS exactly as a competitor. They have provided incredible space validation as well as attracted new users to the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model. In fact, I would almost go as far as to categorize them as a “soft partner.” Here are a few reasons why I think this:

• we share the same generalized space of Cloud Computing,
• we offer similar feature-sets and functionality within the Cloud, and,
• we are driving towards a common goal of moving IT infrastructure into a “greener,” more cost-effective and much more efficient environment.

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Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) is not the only way to build scalable Cloud Infrastructures.  There are two emerging methodologies for constructing Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) AKA “Cloud Infrastructure Services”.  The first is what we call “cloudcenters”, which are essentially datacenters in the sky.  The second is what we call an “Infrastructure Web Service”.  GoGrid was one of the pioneers for cloudcenters, while AWS largely created the second model.

Understanding IaaS means looking closely at these two approaches.  Clearly the notion of cloudcenters embodied by AWS competitors such as ourselves, FlexiScale, ElasticHosts, AppNexus, and others is important.  My colleague, Michael Sheehan, will go into more depth on how we think this distinction modifies his earlier Cloud Pyramid (right) in a follow-on blog posting to this one.

Infrastructure Cloud Models

Understanding these two approaches is important because it directly affects your selection of a Cloud Infrastructure provider.  These two models highlight a difference in core infrastructure and in target markets. Cloudcenters provide a direct equivalent to traditional datacenters and hence are usually more desirable for IT staff, systems operators, and other datacenter savvy folks.  Infrastructure Web Services on the other hand are more analogous to Service-Oriented-Architectures (SOA), require significant programming skills, and are much more comfortable for software developers.

Infrastructure Web Services

I’m going to assume for this article that you are somewhat familiar with Amazon Web Services (AWS), but I’ll briefly re-cap.  AWS provides a number of different ‘Web Services’ that can be consumed individually or put together to support different kinds of applications, usually a batch processing or web application of some kind.  These services include: (more…)