Do Not Confuse Cloud Control with DIY

I did not attend CloudConnect 2011 this year, but I certainly saw the billboards on the 101. I have managed to read a few of the posts by Lorie MacVittie, who is covering the conference over on DevCentral. This one in particular does a nice job of weaving in a Celiac’s Disease comparison: Cloud Control Does Not Always Mean ‘Do it yourself’. I learned a little about the disease and liked the analogy that, “Like Celiac’s, cloud computing is not just about the ingredients, it’s about how they are put together; the process and preparation.”

With so much talk about Private Clouds (which seems to now be a marketing term to jump on for enterprise software companies and simply a new way of describing server virtualization for most companies), I like the advice about still needing to ask the right questions. This says it all:

“The control you exercise in your private cloud implementation is as vital to your long-term success as that of the control exercised over public cloud computing. Just as I examine the ingredient list on every product I might eat – even if it’s labeled “gluten-free” – so must you examine the infrastructure ingredients necessary for each application you want to deploy in a cloud environment. The questions still need to be asked, because it isn’t just a matter of virtualizing an application and sticking a self-service layer over it. There are myriad network and application network components that make up an “application” and it those services that must also considered when posing the question “Is this application right for ‘the cloud’” whether private or public.”

Speaking of “cloud control“, which is also a cool band I just discovered, I posted an interview today on the Informatica Perspectives blog that also provides a few best practices and recommendations for IT managers who embracing cloud-based applications.

Related Articles

• Cloud is the How not the What (devcentral.f5.com)
• Privacy concerns in clouds (ft.com)