NASA has stopped developing code for OpenStack.  This was expected at some point.  NASA nor Rackspace are software development houses.  Neither has expertise in developing what they call in the government space COTS (Common Off the Shelf) software products.  I believe this in part explains the long lead time in OpenStack development. 

Now that IBM is involved, hopefully the project will move closer to being a shrink wrap type product that’s packaged and more of a point and click installation or at least scripted. Currently the installation process is a pretty typical experience for open source software. Environments that utilize Linux machines as mainly appliances with no to little Linux expertise may find the installation a little intimidating.

I’m (and I believe OptenStack) more interested in the entry of Google and Microsoft into IaaS as a challenge to the adoption of OpenStack.  Microsoft has had time to mature its virtualization management platform and I believe it has even more time before OpenStack releases a generally available full featured enterprise platform.  MS wants to position their System Center 2012 Cloud & Datacenter Management product as a cloud management solution and I believe a gateway to their new cloud solution.  I haven’t looked at the features yet but Microsoft does a good job of selling yet to be released products and features.  HP, Rackspace and smaller players offer an OpenStack cloud but if you want to roll your own private cloud by installing the management infrastructure (OpenStack) on your own existing hardware solution you are currently on hold or need to invest in development which fragments your installation from the main project.

That’s where I believe OpenStack is at risk of VMware, Google and Microsoft taking some steam out of the OpenStack train.  In the case of Microsoft, the ability for an organization to take their Hype-V infrastructure and convert them to private clouds is compelling.  Specifically, the ability to burst to public clouds using a tool and interface they are already familiar with sounds a lot like the VMware strategy.  OpenStack makes a compelling argument for vendor agnostic clouds.  But, how much value is in a vendor agnostic cloud vs. the convenience of an integrated stack? How does this effect Rackspace’s approach to marketing Openstack to the enterprise as a hybrid solution?

I’m anxious to kick the tires on OpenStack but the current build’s product features, interface and installation aren’t where I’d like them to be for a production environment.  What’s your take on the cloud management race?

Related Posts

Why Rackspace and OpenStack are too late

Why Rackspace and OpenStack may not be too late (You have no hand)

Introduction to Cloud Computing – The Cloud Manager

My wife asked me the other day how does she log into her iCloud and get some data?  This is the problem with Apple’s cloud strategy – My wife doesn’t understand it.  My wife is a typical user – not a geek or even a power user.  She uses her computing devices as a tool unlike most readers of my blog.  She is the typical person that would walk in the Apple Store and purchase an iPad, iPhone and MacBook Pro (she doesn’t get the appeal of the Air). Just casually she expected to sync her documents, music and pictures to her iCloud and access it from any of her Apple branded devices and access the data via an iCloud website.  She perfectly understood if she couldn’t access the data from her PC.  After all it is the “iCloud”.

When I tried to explain to her that it didn’t work that way, she just had this blank look on her face like “Isn’t this an Apple solution?”  When I showed her the first version Photo Stream and how you can sync pictures across iOS devices she initially was ecstatic until she found out you couldn’t delete any of the pictures.  Her question was “Why doesn’t this work like that Dropbox program you installed for me?  It just works.”

She appreciates iTunes match but doesn’t understand why should doesn’t have that functionality across all of her data.  I couldn’t have captured Apple’s challenges with cloud any better.

I’ve been in enough cloud engagements to realize that the Cloud is not (just) about saving money.  Sure you can reduce start-up costs and pay “On-Demand” for resources.  If you have 1001 e-mail users you can subscribe to 1001 instances of Google Apps or Office 365 and pay for exactly what you use.  Does that mean you’ll save money over deploying Exchange or some other groupware?  Maybe.  The focus shouldn’t be on just savings rather the functionality gained by the cloud.

In this Cisco video Forester talks about some of the drivers for engaging a cloud strategy and the business stakeholders making the case for cloud.  It’s not always cost savings or IT.  In most instances that I’ve been involved in it’s about capability.  Why does Netflix stay with a cloud for distribution?  I’m certain at this point they could build out their own data centers and probably save money over AWS.

For each organization it will be a different driver.  For Netflix, I believe the driver is the scalability of AWS.  And not just AWS, if projects like OpenStack/CloudStack take off then organizations leveraging the cloud will have a much larger pool of IaaS providers to choose from if they aren’t already leveraging other cloud providers.  You can’t easily build that type of redundancy.  Even if Netflix chooses to bring their compute in-house, I’m sure they’d benefit from some type of hybrid public/private cloud model.

We have Netflix on one side of the coin and on the other we have smaller enterprises.  Why engage Google for a Google Apps deployment.  Creating a LAN with servers, remote access, office applications, e-mail and collaboration tools is an old trick at this point.  This has become a commodity solution where any jack of all trades can get your organization up in running.  What they can’t do is give you the seamless integration of services and support that a Google Apps or Microsoft 365 can give you.  You can also easily share data between your organization and your business partners without worrying about firewalls and user accounts.

A great example is that I use WordPress.com not because it’s less expensive than hosting my own WordPress blog on AWS or any number of hosting providers.  I’m obviously capable of hosting a virtual server running WordPress.  I choose running on WordPress.com because I’d rather spend my time doing research and writing vs. patching and maintaining.

Of course there are considerations to be had when it comes to security and features but these issues are slowly but surely being resolved.

For me the battle between Google Drive, Dropbox and Skydrive comes down to whom I trust with my data.  All of the solutions have very strong attributes.  Dropbox has the best and most widely adopted API’s.  Google has extremely strong integration with Google Docs and I’m sure superior search capability and Skydrive is a great value.

However, this is my data you’re talking about and in the end my data is what is important.  I don’t believe any one of the vendors are in any trouble of going out of business and they all give you the ability to have your data available to your offline so, even if there is a service interruption you should still be able to get at some version of your files and data.

The bigger question comes down to what is being done with my data and who has access to it.  All there services allow you to put access controls on your shared data but I’m more concerned at the security practices of each company.  Google is an advertising company and their terms of service has caused somewhat of a stir.  Microsoft is a just a really big target.  Their infrastructure will always be attacked but MS has done a fairly good job of promoting security in their products ever since Windows XP SP2.

The one provider I just don’t trust is Dropbox.  The one escape they had with allowing anyone access to your dropbox data is just unforgivable.  I just can’t see myself entrusting any real important or sensitive data to them.  The nature of their security issue speaks to the culture or at least lends a perception to the culture of their development team.

Who do you trust with your data?

Update 07/31/12:  Dropbox has another major security issue http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/31/dropbox-admits-user-accounts-were-hijacked-adds-new-security-features/

The Megaupload case represents one of the major challenges with the public Cloud.  The obvious issue for legal use cases for their service has been that non-infringing data is trapped in limbo along with the alleged infringing data.  One may say that a legitimate user should have seen this coming.  Megaupload’s primary use case was no secret and hosting critical data on their service was a risk.  However, what if the U.S. government didn’t trust the controls of their provider Carpathia?

I’m sure Megaupload wasn’t Carpathia’s only customer.  I don’t believe Congress really has a handle on how to enact laws that deal with the complicated relationship between cloud provider, their customers and end user.  What if the FBI had interpreted the relationship differently?  What if instead of just going after Megaupload they went after Carpathia as some are suggesting?

I’ve heard horror stories of the Feds coming in and seizing all of the servers in a hosting provider’s infrastructure.  Many hosting providers just fold at any request from law enforcement for data.  What can you do to protect your organization’s applications and data?  What relationship are you looking for your hosting provider to have with law enforcement to prevent this type of activity?  What’s the right balance?