lost in the fog: is cloud computing the future for digital information

24 May 2010

Lost in the Fog:Is Cloud Computing the Future

for Digital Information?

Clifton Chan

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What is cloud computing?

Undefinition

“The network is the computer”

-- John Gage, Sun Microsystems, 1982

“... computing may someday be organized as a public utility ...”

-- John McCarthy, 1961

Definition

“a computing capability that provides an abstraction between the computing resource and its underlying technical architecture (e.g., servers, storage, networks), enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” -- NIST

Characteristics

On-demand self-service

Broad network access

Resource pooling

Rapid elasticity

Measured service

-- NIST

Services

Software as a Service

Platform as a Service

Infrastructure as a Service

“Stack” of services

Types

Public clouds

Community clouds

Private clouds

Hybrid clouds

Fad or Trend ?

Peak of the Gartner Hype Cycle

i.e. immature

And yet ...

flicker twitter TradeMe GoogleApp Eng

Amazon EC2

On-demand self-service

Broad network access

Resource pooling

Rapid elasticity ?

Measured service Free

Trend

Becoming part of the landscape

Landscape

Mainframes

Mid-range computers

PC‟s

Internet

Cloud

Implications

Implications for government

On-demand self-service

Easy to buy

• T&Cs and costs upfront

• rapid deployment

Easy to sign up and sign off

• Low (un)deployment costs

Anyone can sign up

• Proliferation - new access database

Broad network access

Internet / IP network for access

• Geographic agility

• Wider range of access devices

Internet / Network usage increases

• 24 x 7 access

• Network security

• Network costs will increase

Resource pooling

Multi-tenant: 102s, 103s, 106s

• Potentially more attackers - security

Economies of scale - buying power

• Sustainable professional expertise

• Value for money

Standardised offerings

• Drive standardisation and lower cost

• Less uniqueness

• Who‟s standards?

Rapid elasticity

Provider manages capacity

• Focus on adding value to business

Acquire and use what you need

• No underutilised resources

Measured service

Pay for what you use

• No capital expenditure

• No money sitting around

• Low cost of entry

Cost visibility

• Clear link between use and costs

Paradigm

It is a form of outsourcing.

Why the fuss?

We outsource all sorts of things, e.g.:

• Mainframe: timeshare bureaus

• Payroll bureaus

• Watering plants

• Office cleaning

• Helpdesks

Large body of knowledge on how to make outsourcing work

Fuss:

Biggest providers multi-nationals

• Compatible records and archiving practises

• Records and data in the „cloud‟

Data is likely to be overseas

• Outside NZ jurisdiction

• Data persistence

Summary

Utility computing on the network

Becoming part of the landscape

Form of outsourcing

Futures

Cloud computing strategic issues

clifton.chan@ssc.govt.nz

Questions

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