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Cloud Computing FAQ

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is a new way of deploying and managing IT environments that brings greater flexibility and utilisation of resources. Cloud computing enables activities to be assigned to a combination of software and services over a network. This network of servers is the cloud. Computing requirements are dropped into the cloud ensuring that all the servers are utilised as much as possible.

What are the benefits of the cloud?

The key benefits of cloud computing include:

  • Economies of scale - volume operations
  • Pay-Per-Use - utility charging
  • Faster speed to market - componentisation
  • Focus on core activities - outsourcing non-core activities

 

Are there any risks with the cloud?

There are several types of risks involved with cloud computing that need to be carefully balanced.

For early adopters, there are:

  • The transitional risks related to the disruptive change in our industry. These include governance, trust in vendors, transparency and security of supply.
  • The general risks involved in the outsourcing of any activity. This includes whether the activity is suitable for outsourcing, pricing competition, second-sourcing options and vendor lock-in.

For late adopters, the risk of doing nothing includes the potential loss of competitive cost efficiency.

 

What is Canonical doing about the cloud?

When looking at cloud computing, we decided to start with the infrastructure layer of the computing stack and instance-based environments. We believe that an open source cloud environment will drive innovation and benefits for users that take advantage of it.

We believe that there is a need for standardisation around an API and that enterprise users should be able to create private clouds that match that API. This is a stepping stone towards creating virtual infrastructure portability between your own infrastructure and multiple cloud providers. Portability should overcome some of the major adoption concerns around cloud computing such as second-sourcing options, lack of pricing competition and vendor lock-in.

It is key for the future of cloud computing that users have the choice and freedom to run cloud services on their own infrastructure, the freedom to choose which management tools they wish to use, and also the freedom to choose between different service providers.

 

Is portability and interoperability possible for the cloud?

One possibility with cloud computing is that many applications and their data will move to a small number of infrastructure providers such as VMWare or the Microsoft Azure platform. It would be better for users if there is a vibrant market of cloud providers who compete to deliver the best service. In order for this to happen:

  • Providers must offer the same output or follow a standard.
  • There must be multiple providers.
  • There must be a simple mechanism to transfer between providers.

Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) provides an open cloud environment that organisations and infrastructure providers can build upon. An open source cloud option is the best way to develop a future for the cloud that benefits users the most.

 

Are all IT activities suitable for the cloud?

Cloud computing environments can run any application or service that is deployed on standard physical or virtualized infrastructure. Workloads from infrastucture such as e-mail through to line of business applications like CRM can all be deployed in a cloud infrastructure. Workloads that need high volume resources for a short periods of time benefit from the dynamic nature of a cloud environment.

 

Do you see any deployment patterns emerging for the cloud?

Many organisations are interested in the potential benefits of cloud computing and the self-service aspects of IT provision. However, many are equally concerned about the transitional risks that may affect governance, trust and security of supply. Some are also concerned about the general outsourcing risks such as whether they will be locked into a relationship or receive value for money.

In this early stage, many companies are looking to deploy, test and experiment with cloud computing concepts within their own data centre. As a result, private clouds are likely to grow in popularity.

However, with an internal cloud, there exists the need for capacity planning and, in many cases, the need to access significant infrastructure for short periods of time. Rather than over-provisioning infrastructure, it is likely that we will see a growth in hybrid clouds, where private clouds do the bulk of the work for the organisation. This internal capacity is topped up with external capacity - public clouds - for short periods of time or specific workloads.

 

Is there an IRC channel to talk about the Ubuntu Cloud?

Yes, you can join us on the #ubuntu-cloud channel on Freenode.

 

 

Find out more

For Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (powered by Eucalyptus), please see the guide to Getting Started with Eucalyptus

For Ubuntu Server Edition on Amazon EC2, please see the guide to Getting Started with EC2

To keep up to date on Ubuntu cloud activities, watch:

For more information, please contact us.