Why it’s so hard to talk about cloud
Words can be tricky.
My first post for GigaOM, where I introduce the foundation of everything I believe about cloud, elicited some excellent responses from the community. I made the case that cloud boils down to a very simple statement, at least for the enterprise: Cloud computing is an application-centric operations model.
Most of the comments I received affirmed this statement, but there were a few that took issue with it. Andi Mann, vice president of strategic solutions at CA Technologies, wrote:
I like that there is a growing move away from low-level infrastructure thinking, but I think an app-centric view is still too IT-centric.
For the business, the application is no more relevant than the infrastructure. I think the ability of cloud to deliver better (cheaper, faster, more efficient, etc.) business services is much more fundamental.
This is reflected in why CxOs are choosing cloud. Leading drivers tend to be cost reduction, increased agility, and greater business-IT alignment. Nothing about apps there. You could argue that a focus on the app helps achieve these, but I think that misses the bigger picture.
Indeed, one app may well be just a component in a larger business service. Take Salesforce.com – is it a CRM app? A SFA app? An enterprise social app? A customer datastore? Or is it a combination of apps that together reduce the distance and friction in the sales value chain to deliver a better throughput from lead to pipe to revenue?
We went back and forth on Twitter about this for a while, and what we discovered is that what he considered a business service was indeed one form of application in my eyes. We didn’t disagree completely in terms of what cloud computing is about, but we had a complete disconnect about what I meant by “application.”
New words for new delivery models?
This is only one of many examples I can cite where the use of “legacy” terms to describe concepts altered by newer models (including service orientation and cloud computing) creates unintended confusion within the market. In the case of “application,” we all probably remember when that term represented a single executable packaged with supporting libraries and delivered on floppy disks or a CD in a shrink wrapped box.
In the service-oriented, Internet-deployed world of cloud computing, we need a term to describe “the unit of stuff to be managed by the customer consuming one or more cloud services.” Since the final output of such software/data/config metadata/policy is typically software being applied to some problem (business or otherwise), I call these elements “applications.”
However, in the cloud, applications are not singular, independently acquired and operated software executables anymore. Cloud applications can and will rely on other applications to meet their objectives. Some applications may, in fact, be made up of collections of other applications, strung together to create a process flow, or a consumer service, or even a new platform. In many ways, I’m talking about applications of distributed computing to computable problems.
For the record, this is why I use the word “application” in this context — because it represents something managed by operations that is applied to some definable problem to be solved by computing.
Unfortunately, many, many applications are also services. For a business, the term “service” applies to processes that often bridge software and human work. So using the term “services” as the ultimate goal of the business isn’t wrong.
“System” is another word that gets lost in translation when applied to cloud computing in different contexts. When a business talks about “systems,” it is talking about something that may incorporate IT only partially, or not at all. Most IT people think of “systems” in terms of hardware or turnkey systems.
The world of words gets in the way of conversations between IT and the business all the time. Cloud computing is no exception — in fact, it may exacerbate the problem, at least temporarily.
In the end, I’m not particularly concerned about whether you accept the term “application” as the unit of management that enterprises care about in the cloud. What I care most about is that you recognize that cloud computing is not some new infrastructure, but rather a new way of delivering software and data — a new model that makes it easier to apply computing to a variety of needs.
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Comments
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FeedbackVery good write-up, the terminology confusion is real, and does create communication barriers and mishaps. I believe some of the confusion is the result of mixing different domains, and using the same terminology and “words” in all of them.
Andy Mann talks about “cost reduction, increased agility, and greater business-IT alignment” these describe business value, not the way it is achieved. “Applications” and “services” on the other hand, describe a product category, what both business and IT are choosing to realize desired business value. These product categories are broad, and somewhat vague, as described above. Products and services have a technology and operational models underlying them – client server, distributed, grid, cloud – all these describe a collection of technologies, delivery methods, and operational models used to create applications and services.
Ultimately what customer cares about is the business value – running the business better to increase top line revenue and reduce cost. Cloud computing is definitely more than infrastructures. Infrastructures enables realizing some of the cost and agility benefits, but applications typically encapsulate more value, and are much closer to the line of business terminology and way of thinking. Cloud based applications delivers more of that desired business value.
And last – I absolutely agree with the following statement above “Some applications may, in fact, be made up of collections of other applications, strung together to create a process flow, or a consumer service, or even a new platform.” I expect most cloud services, applications, and platforms to be highly interoperable composition of many other services, consumed over the cloud.
Public Cloud is a new delivery model but Private Cloud is a new Architecture. It would be helpful if people specified Private or Public when referring to a specific model @parkercloud
I agree Public Cloud is a new delivery model but Private Cloud is new Architecture. It would be helpful to specify Public or Private when referring to a specific model
Perfect site with interesting content and design!
That’s because the cloud is just another dumb buzzword for other people’s servers and other people’s managing said servers. Aka: the Internet. It’s not new. It’s just useless jargon that doesn’t mean anything.
+1 – The only thing that’s really changed is that technologies used to manage & provision hardware have matured. Its a natural evolution of I’m sure where we all have been. Our hardware/network/OS is managed by one IT organization while that apps are managed by another. Now, the hardware/network/OS is “outsourced” to others for management. But *someone* is still doing it.
Well – al clouds are not created equal and indeed have a different focus – some are infrastructure oriented (IaaS), and some are platform oriented (PaaS). The answer to your question about Salesforce is yes, to all of those listed – there’s the legacy CRM, SFA SaaS, to which have been added Service applications (ServiceCloud – again, SaaS), but then there’s a much broader platform focus – application platform – so all the benefits of the cloud in general are just magnified in a PaaS setting. You don’t have to worry about the hardware, OS, network, etc., just building your application in most whatever language you choose – legacy APEX and VisualForce, Ruby, Java, Clojure, Node.js, etc. You can push straight out of GIT and deploy your app – doesn’t get much easier. In this case, applications are not merely services, although they could be, but in most cases are full-stack applications. Great article, BTW!
Sorry, meant *all* clouds are not created equal – it is a Sunday afternoon and I’m trolling for cloud articles… Sad in some ways… :)
Could means one thing: “Somebody Else’s Problem.” Companies want to take their IT needs, problems, and click the ‘SEP’ checkbox and make all those problems go away, all at the price of a monthly payment. Forget outsourced IT, this is outsourced infrastructure.
*Cloud
One man’s application is another man’s service eh? Four years on from the beginnings of “Cloud” and we’re still trying to define it. That’s how big the impact of Cloud is becoming.
Overloading of terms is common in technology as it reinvents itself faster than the lexicon can adjust, but Cloud is so broadly impacting that it’s almost impossible to find new terms to describe all the aspects. So we struggle on each of us “knowing” what Cloud is but having challenges describing that to others.
Folks, “clouds” have been in place since pre e-commerce and exclusively used to describe the Carriers w/ ICX’s. e.g.. transport SVC, PVC and or VCC’s in a TDM or packet switched network and or converting electrons to photons, through their “Cloud”. In to the cloud and out the other side for moving our sought after private electrons. It’s now been through the miracle of marketing that we see the residential populous move to the “cloud” based computing as a means to understand the future of communications.