Sam
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net>
Date: Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: One Cloud Standard to Rule them All
To: cloudforum@googlegroups.com
From: Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net>
Date: Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: One Cloud Standard to Rule them All
To: cloudforum@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 12:21 AM, Greg Pfister <greg.pfister@gmail.com> wrote:
+1 on
That certainly aligns with my prior experience in several industry
"at the end of the day, cloud standards seem to
have little to do with customer requirements but instead more to do
with marketeering and positioning for market dominance."
standards groups. A key goal of participants is always to steer new
standards as close as possible to their own company's product roadmap.
The normal order of the day is Intense politicking, behind-the-scenes
maneuvering for votes, and whatever dirty tricks are needed to
accomplish that alignment.
If you don't get the desired result, you return home from standards
meetings with a lot to answer for.
Dilbert captures this as only Dilbert can, and it's hard to believe it was a coincidence for this to have come the day after the vCloud API annoucenment last week:
FWIW I'm fervent about openness and transparency and am 100% committed to Open Cloud and the Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI). I'm also not aligned with any of the vendors, nor do I have my own "horse in the race" so to speak, rather I'm funded by strategic consultancy with large enterprises who share my passion for openness (or should I say, distain for vendor lock-in). For some background there was an article in Silicon (Germany) last week which is translated to English below and there should be more like it real soon now (note I wasn't involved in the writing of this article so there's one or two gotchas - in particular "Open Cloud" in no way requires open source).
My point is that all is not lost. OCCI's been a while in coming following a change in strategy early on (I had planned to follow Google's example by using AtomPub but it turns out people prefer a choice of formats) but it will be here very soon and I can assure you it will be a best-of-breed API as close as possible to the "universal interface" of HTTP. Not only have we conducted a formal use case and requirements gathering process (the results of which will be available for public comment soon) but we have had a number of APIs submitted (hopefully soon to include vCloud) and are taking the best parts from each rather than basing our development on any one API. The process is backed by an established standards development organisation (OGF) but is completely open - anyone can participate to the discussions and contribute to or comment on the documents (which are now in a Google Code repository). You can also contribute extensions and new formats (we've done some work on Atom, XHTML5, JSON & text renderings already) within the official spec or independently - if you need protocol buffers for performance reasons for example then you're welcome to write it up (assuming we don't get round to it).
There are now 200 people in the working group, of which a number are representing various vendors and academic projects on a formal/funded basis. In the coming days we'll have a coherent specification and will need all the help we can get in refining it so if you haven't already then please join the list and get involved. The OGF 27 event is next month and here's hoping we can get it to a publicly presentable state by then.
Sam
Open Cloud Initiative falls on fertile ground in Germany
by Ludger Schmitz*
Most concerns about cloud Computing are about security and governance. But will a customer of a cloud stay free? Some "openness" is not enough. A solution could be open source cloud computing. In Germany this seems to be on the way.
If a corporation consolidates his globally widespread IT capacities in a so-called „private cloud“, first of all there is talk about virtualization – and VMware not far away. A „public cloud“ is called, where any company can use an external IT infrastructure. Known vendors in this area are Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, to name a few. In addition, several smaller vendors are trying to attach to the trend Sooner or later a wave of consolidation will sweep through this yet forming market. In a foreseeable future there will be less freedom of choice for the customers.
There's even less freedom when it comes to applications. Within a cloud there are almost no competing offerings. Today's clouds are exclusive circles, open only to those who are willing to accept the respective rules and – even more important – the limits. Cloud computing rises the dependence of the customers to a level that reminds of the eighties. Last year Dell put it to the extremes by trying to get the trademark for cloud computing.
Many potential customers fear that cloud computing, though marketing tries to associate it with freedom, might push them back into former dependencies. Sun Microsystems seems to have realized this danger – and consequently called it's own offering Open Cloud. Actually in this offering open source software had a key role. As it has at Google, but here the APIs of the Google Application Engine form the cage.
Early this year there were extensive discussions among some vendors, how much freedom would be necessary to keep the cloud offerings attractive. The discussions resulted in an “Open Cloud Manifesto”, published on April 1st, 2009. Among it's principles is the sentence: “Cloud providers must not use their market position to lock customers into their particular platforms and limit their choice of providers.” Therefore standards should be used and if needed be developed in a common effort. Every work should be under the imperative of customers needs.
Many vendors signed the manifesto, among them several from the open source community with Red Hat and Novell on top. Of the potentially most important players at this time IBM, SAP, Sun and VMware stood behind the manifest. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle are missing. Microsoft criticized it had not been involved in preparing the document and was only asked to sign it. In an open source community this procedure would not be unusual as always someone starts something, other get involved and later influence a project by their activity. But the manifesto was not only made for the open source world.
At just about the same time Sam Johnston, an Australian, analysed the various forms of clouds and came to four different ones: The first, the “Closed Cloud” is not open accessible and usually referred to as private cloud. The second is the “Open Cloud” with open APIs and open standards. Somewhere between these two categories today's cloud offerings can be located. As a third form there could be talk of an “Open Source Cloud” where open source software is used beyond open standards and APIs. Where additionally even data is open this would form the “Free Cloud”. Wikipedia gives an idea.
By using precise definitions Johnston goes more into details than the Open Cloud Manifesto. According to him open APIs mean that all relevant functions must be implemented on the basis of open standards for open interfaces. Userdata and even metadata must be available in open standard formats. In an Open Source Cloud only software may be used that is under a licence approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). And in the free cloud form the data must be under an open knowledge licence.
When it comes to the central question, what open standards are, Johnston goes once more deeper into details than the vague manifest. He demands that an open standard is in all details public and can be used at no cost. Therefore copyright fees are not acceptable. Similar with patents that must be irrevocable available free of charge. Trademarks may not be used in a discriminating way. Last not least all implementations of an open standards must have a OSI-accepted licence, so be open source – or public domain.
With this last point Johnston sets fire to what he has described before as Open Cloud. He seems to do so willingly, because an Open Cloud is obviously not enough, neither for him nor for others in the open source community. This became apparent on April 6th, 2009 when Johnston published an “Open letter to the Community” to introduce the “Open Cloud Initiative”. It's abbreviation is only OC to prevent confusion with the Open Source Initiative (OSI).
The OC has several aims: It wants to ensure that the expression open cloud is not diluted and the customers under this label get basics freedom rights like the one to access their data in open formats via open interfaces at any time. As guard of the open cloud the initiative also wants to keep the cloud market open to all vendors and the entry barriers low. Finally the OC wants to make sure that in an open source cloud the principles and definitions of the OSI are respected.
According to some insiders the ideas of an Open Cloud Initiative fell on fertile ground in the German open source community. There seems to be massive work at a reference stack of open source solutions, that are needed, integrated and reliable connected for an open source cloud. The work is not done yet, quite a lot technical problems still need to be overcome. But using open source software the companies committed to open source cloud computing have some advantages: They work with readable source code, with open interfaces and standards. It looks as if they are about to present a cloud offering, that would be far more extended, flexible and free than anything a proprietary vendor can offer as cloud. This would change the game in the cloud market.
An open source cloud at this time would be a milestone in the open source history. Because up to now open source itself was a trend but lagging years behind proprietary products for other IT trends. This time it could turn into a neck-and-neck race.
*Ludger Schmitz is a freelancer in Munich, Germany, specialized on open source developments.
Contacts: l.schmitz [at] open-source-presse.de
Translation German to English assisted by Michael Kromer, Millenux GmbH, Munich.
by Ludger Schmitz*
Most concerns about cloud Computing are about security and governance. But will a customer of a cloud stay free? Some "openness" is not enough. A solution could be open source cloud computing. In Germany this seems to be on the way.
If a corporation consolidates his globally widespread IT capacities in a so-called „private cloud“, first of all there is talk about virtualization – and VMware not far away. A „public cloud“ is called, where any company can use an external IT infrastructure. Known vendors in this area are Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, to name a few. In addition, several smaller vendors are trying to attach to the trend Sooner or later a wave of consolidation will sweep through this yet forming market. In a foreseeable future there will be less freedom of choice for the customers.
There's even less freedom when it comes to applications. Within a cloud there are almost no competing offerings. Today's clouds are exclusive circles, open only to those who are willing to accept the respective rules and – even more important – the limits. Cloud computing rises the dependence of the customers to a level that reminds of the eighties. Last year Dell put it to the extremes by trying to get the trademark for cloud computing.
Many potential customers fear that cloud computing, though marketing tries to associate it with freedom, might push them back into former dependencies. Sun Microsystems seems to have realized this danger – and consequently called it's own offering Open Cloud. Actually in this offering open source software had a key role. As it has at Google, but here the APIs of the Google Application Engine form the cage.
Early this year there were extensive discussions among some vendors, how much freedom would be necessary to keep the cloud offerings attractive. The discussions resulted in an “Open Cloud Manifesto”, published on April 1st, 2009. Among it's principles is the sentence: “Cloud providers must not use their market position to lock customers into their particular platforms and limit their choice of providers.” Therefore standards should be used and if needed be developed in a common effort. Every work should be under the imperative of customers needs.
Many vendors signed the manifesto, among them several from the open source community with Red Hat and Novell on top. Of the potentially most important players at this time IBM, SAP, Sun and VMware stood behind the manifest. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle are missing. Microsoft criticized it had not been involved in preparing the document and was only asked to sign it. In an open source community this procedure would not be unusual as always someone starts something, other get involved and later influence a project by their activity. But the manifesto was not only made for the open source world.
At just about the same time Sam Johnston, an Australian, analysed the various forms of clouds and came to four different ones: The first, the “Closed Cloud” is not open accessible and usually referred to as private cloud. The second is the “Open Cloud” with open APIs and open standards. Somewhere between these two categories today's cloud offerings can be located. As a third form there could be talk of an “Open Source Cloud” where open source software is used beyond open standards and APIs. Where additionally even data is open this would form the “Free Cloud”. Wikipedia gives an idea.
By using precise definitions Johnston goes more into details than the Open Cloud Manifesto. According to him open APIs mean that all relevant functions must be implemented on the basis of open standards for open interfaces. Userdata and even metadata must be available in open standard formats. In an Open Source Cloud only software may be used that is under a licence approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). And in the free cloud form the data must be under an open knowledge licence.
When it comes to the central question, what open standards are, Johnston goes once more deeper into details than the vague manifest. He demands that an open standard is in all details public and can be used at no cost. Therefore copyright fees are not acceptable. Similar with patents that must be irrevocable available free of charge. Trademarks may not be used in a discriminating way. Last not least all implementations of an open standards must have a OSI-accepted licence, so be open source – or public domain.
With this last point Johnston sets fire to what he has described before as Open Cloud. He seems to do so willingly, because an Open Cloud is obviously not enough, neither for him nor for others in the open source community. This became apparent on April 6th, 2009 when Johnston published an “Open letter to the Community” to introduce the “Open Cloud Initiative”. It's abbreviation is only OC to prevent confusion with the Open Source Initiative (OSI).
The OC has several aims: It wants to ensure that the expression open cloud is not diluted and the customers under this label get basics freedom rights like the one to access their data in open formats via open interfaces at any time. As guard of the open cloud the initiative also wants to keep the cloud market open to all vendors and the entry barriers low. Finally the OC wants to make sure that in an open source cloud the principles and definitions of the OSI are respected.
According to some insiders the ideas of an Open Cloud Initiative fell on fertile ground in the German open source community. There seems to be massive work at a reference stack of open source solutions, that are needed, integrated and reliable connected for an open source cloud. The work is not done yet, quite a lot technical problems still need to be overcome. But using open source software the companies committed to open source cloud computing have some advantages: They work with readable source code, with open interfaces and standards. It looks as if they are about to present a cloud offering, that would be far more extended, flexible and free than anything a proprietary vendor can offer as cloud. This would change the game in the cloud market.
An open source cloud at this time would be a milestone in the open source history. Because up to now open source itself was a trend but lagging years behind proprietary products for other IT trends. This time it could turn into a neck-and-neck race.
*Ludger Schmitz is a freelancer in Munich, Germany, specialized on open source developments.
Contacts: l.schmitz [at] open-source-presse.de
Translation German to English assisted by Michael Kromer, Millenux GmbH, Munich.
Greg "experience breeds cynicism" Pfister
http://perilsofparallel.blogspot.com/
> Computing?<http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=561&doc_id=181129>.
On Sep 5, 1:14 pm, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
> Lots of discussion recently on the the topic of Cloud standards and a
> potential Cloud standards war emerging. Thought I'd give you a quick run
> down.
>
> In an article written by Tom Nolle for Internet Evolution he asks if Multiple
> Standards Could Spoil Cloud
> In the post he says " too many standards are worse than no standards at all,> concept<http://www.elasticvapor.com/2009/02/semantic-cloud-abstraction.html>saying
> because these efforts can stifle innovation and even implementation. In the
> case of cloud computing, there’s also the big question of whether standards
> being pushed for private clouds will end up contaminating the successful
> Internet model of cloud computing."
>
> Tom also gives some love to my Unified Cloud Interface
> "The> <http://code.google.com/p/unifiedcloud/>tackles standards by making
> best hope for a unification is the Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum.
> Its Unified Cloud Architecture
> public cloud computing interoperable. Their map> (UCI)<http://code.google.com/p/unifiedcloud/>,
> of cloud computing shows the leading public cloud providers and a proposed
> Unified Cloud Interface that the body defines, with a joking reference to
> Tolkien’s *Lord of the Rings*, as “One API to Rule them All". So then, why
> not have that “One API” rule private clouds, too? A single top-down vision
> of cloud computing for public and private clouds has to be a better
> approach." -- amen brotha.
>
> (As a side note, I'm still committed to the concept of Semantic Cloud
> Abstraction and the Unified Cloud Interface Project
> but lack the time to do much with it given all my various commitments. So if> specification <http://www.occi-wg.org/>. In case you're not familar with
> you're interested in helping do something more around the concept of
> semantic cloud API's, please feel free to get in touch. Currently I would
> describe the UCI as a science experiment at best.)
>
> Elsewhere on the standards front, on Friday the OpenNebula project announced
> that they had made available a prototype implementation of the OCCI draft
> OCCI, it's a simple open API specification for remote management of cloud> swing<http://blog.gardeviance.org/2009/09/cloud-computing-standards-war.html>.
> computing infrastructures focused on multicloud interoperability. In the
> note to the OCCI mailing list they stated that they believe that it is
> important to have an implementation in order to demo the standard, which
> they think will provide value by being able to show people how the standard
> will function in a real world environment. The prototype includes a server
> implementation, client command for using the service and enabling access to
> the full functionality of the OCCI interface.
>
> Some other interesting recent cloud standards commentary includes a
> post by Simon
> Wardley with an assertion that a standards war is now in full
> In the post Wardley outlines several considerations for cloud standards> saying<http://www.rationalsurvivability.com/blog/?p=1316>"A Cloud
> including;
>
> - A specification can be controlled, influenced and directed more easily
> than an open source project.
> - A specification can easily be exceeded providing mechanisms of lock-in
> whilst still retaining compliance to a *'standard'*.
> - A specification needs to be implemented and depending upon the size and
> complexity of the *'standard'* this can create significant adoption
> barriers to having multiple implementations.
> - Open source reference models provide a rapid means of implementing a *
> 'standard'* and hence encourage adoption.
> - Open source reference models provide a mechanism for testing the
> compliance of any proprietary re-implementation.
> - Adoption and becoming de facto are key to winning this war.
>
> Christopher Hoff also chimes in
> standards war? War is such an ugly term. It’s just the normal
> activity associated with disruptive innovation and the markets sorting
> themselves out. The standards arena is simply where the dirty laundry gets
> exposed. Get used to it, there’s enough mud/FUD flinging that you can expect
> several loads"
>
> Personally I would say that at the end of the day, cloud standards seem to
> have little to do with customer requirements but instead more to do
> with marketeering
> and positioning for market dominance. If there truly is a cloud standards
> war emerging then the way it will be won will be based solely on the
> standard / platform with the broad adoption. The technology (API, Platform,
> etc) with the broadest market penetration will ultimately win -- this is a
> certainty. Although personally I would prefer to see the "most open" and
> interoperable approach win, lets be realistic, the winner will most likely
> be the one with the largest share of cloud computing revenue.
>
> --
> Reuven
> CCIF Instigator
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