A better way to understand cloud computing

Early today, I wrote about the consensus on the need for a cloud taxonomy that was reached by the participants of the Cloud Interoperability meeting prior to Cloud Connect last week. B ut a couple of cloud ontologies have come to light that provide a great starting point for taxonomy discussions.

They are really similar, yet they differ in whatsoever noticeable distance. Nevertheless, both serve their purpose admirably, and are required reading for those considering common understanding in the language of the cloud.

The first was brought to my attention by John Willis via Reuven Cohen and comes to us from Lamia Youseff of the University of California at Santa Barbara; and Maria Butrico and Dilma Da Silva of the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. Youseff, et. al., bring us a relatively simple five-layer grouping:

Commendation: Lamia Youseff, et.al.)

T his ontology starts with code and hardware as its foundation, eventually delivering us to "cloud applications." Along the position the requisite SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS terms are categorized, as well as the more rarely used DaaS (Data Storage as a Service) and CaaS (Communications as a Service), representing storage and networking respectively. As Reuven notes, it was driven by a need to define a common cloud classification model to allow academic research to advance.

The second ontology is the wor k of my good friend Chris Hoff on his Rational Survivability blog:

(Credit: Chris Hoff)

The powerful thing about Chris' ontology--a work in progress --is the completeness of the stack, from facilities to hardware to software infrastructure to applications and services. He then maps it to several example concepts in what amounts to a very early taxonomy that meets this ontology. Yes, it is often much complicated than the UCSB-IBM contribution, but it lays out classifications that many of us mature somewhat intuitive, and certainly very close to complete.

That being said, note the overlap between the figure. SaaS, PaaS and IaaS form the core b asis of the cloud-centric classifications. In fact, the most striking difference in that regard is that Youseff, et. al., classify DaaS and CaaS as separate from IaaS, while Chris defines IaaS as containing every three (compute, storage, and network). I would tend to side with Chris on that point.

Both projects would accept feedback, I'm sure. Chris Hoff is looking for commentary on his post. (I have some minor adjustments to intimate myself.) I am betting that Youseff, et. al., testament be rea ding the commentary to Reuven and John's posts. I would love to get your comments here on the relative merits of the two approaches.

2008 testament be remembered as the coming out year for cloud computing services. I'm beginning to think that 2009 testament be best remembered for cloud computing understanding. I encourage you to get involved.

Cheers~