This post is the second in an on-going series of some of the benefits we’ve identified in our experience in using Cloud Computing technologies, most notably Amazon Web Services (AWS) & different VMware products. The first post focused on some of the financial benefits and cash flow impacts of technologies we use on all client projects. This post will introduce some differences between “cloud computing” technologies in order to set the statge to discuss how the products in those categories can be used and some of the benefits of them.
Cloud Computing Definitions & Categories
Because “the cloud” is a very vague and overused term these days – we need first define some things before diving into the impact and benefits of them. In the interest of time, we’ll use a summary of Wikipedia’s definitions rather than creating our own.
Virtualization – “In computing, virtualization (or virtualisation) is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as a hardware platform, operating system, storage device, or network resources.” The most notable example of this software is made by VMware (ESX, Workstation, etc.).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization
Cloud Computing & Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS) - “Cloud computing refers to the delivery of computing and storage capacity[citation needed] as a service to a heterogeneous community of end-recipients. The name comes from the use of clouds as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it contains in system diagrams[citation needed]. Cloud computing entrusts services with a user’s data, software and computation over a network.” Amazon Web Services (AWS), Rackspace, etc. would fall under this category.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing &
Platform As A Service (PaaS) – “Platform as a service (PaaS) is a category of cloud computing services that provide a computing platform and a solution stack as a service. Along with SaaS and IaaS, it is a service model of cloud computing. In this model, the consumer creates the software using tools and libraries from the provider. The consumer also controls software deployment and configuration settings. The provider provides the networks, servers and storage.” Heroku, PHPFog, AppFog, etc would fit into this category.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_as_a_service
Cloud Computing Technology Stages
These categories have been introduced over the past nine or so years and have matured considerably in recent years. Many of the products that we looked at a year ago and felt were not ready for prime time are now ready Our use of cloud computing technology has matured considerably and we’ve followed the path shown in the diagram below.
Our preference at this point is to use a Platform-As-A-Service where appropriate. When that is not possible, we’ll use a customized configuration running on Amazon Web Services or another cloud provider. In the next post we’ll discuss some of the benefits of this approach and the impact these decisions have had on our development process.
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