My thoughts on Cloud Computing after the Cloud Computing Expo

I spent two days at the Cloud Computing Expo in NYC this past week and want to share my thoughts on the state of the cloud.  Here are my thoughts in no particular order…

• Many of the vendors do not have a clear vision and are rushing to the cloud
• Microsoft’s Azure is so not ready for prime time
• There are not enough practitioners out there to tell us the truth about the cloud
• There is an amazing amount of FUD going around
• People are making blanket statements that are just not true
• David Linthicum is one of the few people on the cloud computing speaking circuit who is making sense

Now allow me to explain…

Vendor Confusion & Azure

Amazon, Google, Salesforce, and a host of early adopter pure players get it.  But the mega vendors joining the party late (IBM, Microsoft, HP) do not.  I remember being at a handful of SOA conferences last year when I mentioned the cloud and the IBM folks in the meeting almost lost their drinks through their nose.  Now they are on board but they really don’t have a well thought out vision and are almost interchanging the terms data centers and clouds.  Their message is all over the place and they are not thought leaders in the space.  Microsoft says a lot of the right things but when you ask questions it is really vapor ware.  It is very proprietary and the only reason why it has so much traction is because of the brand name Microsoft.  Their presentation was laughable, and the Q&A that followed exposed many weaknesses that were hidden behind the pretty power point.  Until they show me something real, it is the “Blue Screen of Death” in the cloud for me.

Each vendor has its own definition of the cloud.  Many are rebranding what they already have as cloud enabled.  It is not all the vendors fault though.  This is typical in the early stages of maturity once a technology starts up the hype cycle.

Where are the practitioners?

There are way too many vendors talking and not enough practitioners.  That is not a good thing.  If all of our education is coming from vendors we will be in a bad place.  This is SOA all over again from 3-4 years ago.  When I do see a practitioner, most of them have not done anything significant yet.  If I have to listen to the NY Times success story one more time I will puke.  I keep hearing the same case studies over and over which tells me that we are talking about the cloud a heck of a lot more than we are doing the cloud.  Most of the good case studies are from startups which is an obvious sweet spot for the cloud.  I haven’t heard many case studies where an established enterprise built something significant in the cloud.

FUD, FUD, and more FUD and “Blanket Statements”

As expected with anything that requires change, there is a ton of fear, uncertainty, and doubt out there.  Here are a few quotes I heard from practitioners (of all people)

Don’t do anything mission critical in the cloud

Don’t put any sensitive data in the cloud

Those are blanket statements that are simply untrue.  There are numerous startups that are 100% cloud (including my company).  There are also numerous financial transactions occurring in the clouds today as well.  What we should be saying is mission critical services and sensitive data require a greater effort to architect the proper level of security, compliance, and reliability than if we put them behind the fire wall.  That is not a negative thing.  That just means we can’t implement crappy stuff and hide behind the firewall like we do today and hope our firewall hides our design flaws. Now we actually have to build services like we were supposed to in the first place.  I say this is a good thing (if you have the talent to do it properly).

David Linthicum

Dave’s advice is the best that I have come across out there.  It is all about architecture and the cloud is just another tool in the toolbox.  You can see Dave’s presentation here>

There are some smart folks out there who understand that doing SOA right makes doing the cloud easier. They also understand that it really all boils down to architecture, patterns, and aligning with business drivers. Doing the cloud for the sake of doing the cloud is poor judgement. For a startup like mine, the cloud is a no-brainer. I have no legacy systems, I have no data center, and I have no money ;-} Perfect use case for the cloud. For well established enterprises, there needs to be real business drivers. As Dave recommends, the cloud is typically not a good place for legacy apps. Do new apps in the cloud.

Summary

To sum it up, there is a lot of hope, a lot of hype, a lot of potential for success, and a lot of potential for failure.  The current state of Cloud Computing reminds me of the early hype cycle for SOA.  If we don’t learn from our previous mistakes, we might have a lot of garbage in the clouds.  The vendors are rushing to the cloud party.  Eventually they will have a consistent message but right now it is very “cloudy”, pun intended!