A Definition of Cloud Computing

Part of the confusion with everyone understanding cloud computing, is every vendor has a different definition of cloud solutions based on the products they sell.  So if you talk to Amazon, Oracle, Hosting companies, etc. they each have their interpretation of cloud computing. So instead of giving another definition of cloud computing, I want to refer you to a standards definition of cloud computing from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).  This standards draft includes definitions for Iaas, SaaS, PaaS, Private Cloud, Public Cloud, etc. Remember that cloud computing definitions and underlying technologies are constantly evolving.  So it's best to look at standards bodies for looking at fundamental definitions related to cloud computing.

A highlight of the NIST definition is:

• The working definition of cloud computing described by NIST is “a pay-per-use model for enabling available, convenient and on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” The draft working definition also describes five key characteristics, three delivery models and four deployment models.

Collaborate 11 Wednesday - Big Bash Event

Wednesday evening is the night of the big bash event.  The Collaborate conference had Universal Studios reserved for conference attendees.  It was a fantastic evening with long time friends and new friends.

Collaborate 11 Wednesday - Applications becoming Cloud Appliances

All week I've heard customers say they are virtualizing their applications as fast as they can.  From Oracle EBS, Siebel, JD Edwards and Oracle Fusion Applications.  I asked a customer who said, "we have deployed 95% of our applications on VMware.  Virtualization just makes sense."  The full range of an organization's applications are being deployed in the cloud using VMware.

• Exchange servers
• Domain Controllers
• Application Servers
• Collaboration Tools
• Business applications
• Custom applications

Collaborate 11 Tuesday - VMware the common platform

I was walking around the different vendor booths at the Collaborate conference and seen there is one common platform across the databases, middle-tier technology, business applications, hardware solutions and application development.  That common platform is VMware.  It seemed no matter what type of vendor booth I went to, they are leveraging VMware's virtualization.

VMware's virtualization solution abstracts out the hardware layer.   The operating system runs in in a machine that happens to be a virtual machine not a physical machine.  So the VM platform is consistent running on supported hardware such as Dell, HP, and IBM.  This consistent foundation provides numerous advantages:

• A complete platform for public and private clouds.
• Ability to run legacy applications and software as well as the latest cloud applications in a common environment.
• Full support for an open environment where different solutions such as Microsoft, Oracle MySQL, SAP, Veritas, EMC, Netapps and NAS can run in the infrastructure provided by VMware.
• Less administration on the hardware and plumbing surrounding the hardware.
• Reduced errors and downtime.
• Easier to maintain.
• Less time required to troubleshoot.

Collaborate 11 Monday - Hot Topics of the Day

There were a lot of interesting topics of the day.  Some of the highlights include:

• Lots of Oracle Fusion activity.  Lots of customers talking about the high ROI of Oracle Fusion.
• Lots of great success stories of VMware.
• Oracle's licensing of VMware stinks.  Lots of Oracle customers complaining loudly and often of Oracle's approach to licensing on VMware.  If only I could have recorded customers comments and put them on Youtube.  
• Internet at the Peabody lobby is really good. Lots of positive comments on the new additions and changes to the Peabody.  Definitely the hotel to stay at for the conference.
• Some people said this was one of the best keynote ever.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy the keynote this morning.

More to say, but being pulled away from keyboard. Literally. :)

Collaborate 11 - Three Types of Oracle DBAs

I always love hearing all the great quotes and perspectives at the Collaborate conference.  Best quote of the first day (Sunday) is from a good friend and one of the most recognized DBA experts:
There are three types of DBAs:

• Google DBAs.
• GUI DBAs.
• The DBAs who do all the work.

Collaborate 11 - A DBA Discussion on VMware

To start the conference, I brought together some of the top DBA  and user group leaders in the IOUG to have a dinner discussion on running Oracle production environments on VMware.  I thought I was going to have to present the benefits of VMware and why it's safe to run Oracle on VMware.  I was surprised when they all stopped me and said:  "We know Oracle runs well on VMware you don't need to convince us".  It was a great discussion all evening on VMware, best practices for running Oracle on VMware and where it makes sense.  A summary of key points include:

• Most companies will deploy their middle-tier applications and EBusiness Suite Applications on VMware first.  As they said, "middle-tier applications on VMware just makes sense".
• Applications in the cloud will be running on VMware as the platform of choice.
• The benefits of moving a Virtual Machine running Oracle from one host to another (vMotion), moving Oracle storage to a different storage array online (Storage vMotion) and having a VM running Oracle be able to automatically start up on another host if there is host failure (High Availability) are all great benefits of running Oracle on VMware.
• The great provisioning of being able to clone a VM running Oracle, using templates to deploy new Oracle platforms or using vCenter Converter to create a new cloned VM are all important features for Oracle environments.
• We all agreed there is going to be tremendous acceleration of the percentage of new platforms running on virtual machines and not physical machines.
• VMware deployments is going to continue to explode in good part to the deployment of middle-tier and databases being deployed in the cloud. 

The VMware environment has really evolved when now top DBAs in the user community understand the important role of virtualization and they see the business drivers and the cloud accelerating the move to virualization.