Top challenges in cloud computing

Editor's Notes

• #2: Introduction Hello, my name is Vassil Popovski and I’m quality engineering director at VMware. Today I will talk about the top challenges in Cloud computing and how VMware address them
• #3: But before I focus on the challenges I’ll give an answer to a simple question – “What is cloud computing”
• #4: With this short video
• #5: Formal definition 3 layers IaaS PaaS SaaS After you watched the movie you are all experts in cloud computing, so let’s go with a formal definition. Cloud computing is simple computing resource provided on demand, as a service, remotely (through Internet or Intranet). Usually the consumers of these computing resources pay per use and this is a way for businesses to convert CapEx into OpEx. There are three different layers in cloud computing: IaaS – infrastructure as a service delivers computing infrastructure. Instead of purchasing equipment like hardware, computers, networks and storage devices, the clients buy those resources as an outsourced service. This allows IT administrators to outsource part or the whole infrastructure to a Cloud Service Provider and to pay per use. PaaS – platform as a services. Layer that facilitate deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software. Instead the layer delivers platform that allow easy deployment of applications. The IT infrastructure is completely hidden from the clients. All the clients care about is applications that consume computing resouces. SaaS – Software as a Service. Consuming software application remotely. Clients of the application don’t care about deployment and managing of the application. All they care about is to consume the application.
• #6: We will quickly take a look on the challenges for the three different layers in Cloud Computing
• #7: Let’s take a look on IaaS challenges – they are lack of standards, lack of interoperability and provider lock-in. In is not easy to take workloads from one cloud service provider and transfer it to another. Every service provider has its own interfaces and packaging format. It’s like hotel California song – you can check-in, but never check-out.
• #8: So what we do to address these challenges. First we define standards. OVF stands for Open Virtual Format and it is a format for describing workloads and describing part of a datacenter. It is DMTF and ANSI/ISO standard. This standard was created by major industry leaders – VMware, Citrix, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, IBM, Symantec, Dell, With OVF you can take part of the infrastructure in data center and package in portable format.
• #9: Then imagine that we have part of our internal datacenter packaged as OVF. We may want to move this package around. From our internal datacenter to public Cloud Service Provider. Terremark for example. Or move it between different cloud provider. Or move it back to our internal datacenter. In order to do this we are working on a standard API that we call vCloud API. The main benefits of the vCloud API are: It allows federation, or ability to move workload between different cloud provider and to extend the internal datacenter to cloud provider It allows choice – the client are free to choose the Cloud Provider and they can switch between different provider at any time. Clients even can use multiple cloud providers at any time for DR It is based on open standards and the API itself is open – anyone can implement the API and become part of the Service Providers that support the vCloud API. The API allow IT administrators to have common tools to manage both workloads in internal and external clouds
• #10: Similar to IaaS there are no standards and portability between different clouds. In addition, in current solutions it is hard to create scallable, reliable and secure applications.
• #11: To solve this problem we are working toward creating a common stack for PaaS. In order to do that we define two important layers: Framework and Tools – that can increase developers productivity and allow portability of applications between PaaS providers Platform that is optimized for Runtime and Deployment of applications. In addition the platform facilitate the creation of scallable and reliable application providing services that can be used by the applications
• #12: If we go into deeper details – the Spring Framework and tools allow creation of applications that have rich web interfaces, integrate easily with other applications, have easy support for batch processing, can access data easily and have access to social media interfaces. And all of this is portable Then vFabric provides standardized services – application server, data management service, messaging, load balancers, Performance management and automation. In addition we provide solutions for all of these services – Tomcat server, GemFire, RabbitMQ, ERS (Enterprise Ready Server), Hyperic and Napa
• #13: What are the problems with SaaS – First there is no easy way to consume SaaS by enterprise. There are a lot of open questions and problems like – License tracking, access management (who has access to the application and with what permissions), no integration with internal systems like Active Directory. Then the second problem is that there are a lot of devices that people use to access SaaS. Ipad/Iphone, Android, Symbian – there are too many devices. And current SaaS does not provide interface that is device friendly. In addition, users want to have offline access to the applications and sync the date when they are online.
• #14: In order to solve all these problems we have a project called “Horizon”. If we take a look on the application – which can be Web-based, or virtual desktops, thin applications that does not require any installation or collaborative suites – all of these are examples for SaaS. So Project horizon provider enterprises integration with AD for these applications, license tracking and access management. It provides the management solution that enterprises need. In addition Project Horizon is focused on End-user workspaces. It allows SaaS application to be usable by any device in device friendly interface. In addition it allow mobility and offline access to the applications.