With market adoption of cloud computing forecast to skyrocket, no one in the tech industry wants to be left on the ground. But, as cloud computing platforms, models and definitions multiply, they’re becoming as numerous and diverse as Mother Nature’s clouds—and just as easy for customers to get lost in.
Last week, Ben Worthen blogged in the WSJ about how the tech industry’s “old guard”—including Cisco, Citrix, EMC, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Novell, Red Hat, VMware and others—are forming a new group, the Open Cloud Standards Incubator, to develop standards for cloud computing. Their objective is to define technical standards to ensure that businesses can easily move information between clouds. But, as Worthen noted, there’s just one hitch–the new guard of Internet behemoths, such as Google, Amazon.com, Salesforce.com have yet to get on board.
Vendor Politics vs. Customer and Partner Interests
Commercially, each vendor is the anchor tenant of its own cloud, with a vested interest in strengthening and extending its cloud footprint to upsell, cross-sell, and tighten their bonds with customers. Internet companies have had their own secret sauce for a while, and have used it to their advantage. For instance, Amazon has its own AMI standard, which allows customers and partners to build their own Amazon-standard clouds; Salesforce.com has Force.com, which speeds application development for the salesforce.com platform.
While vendors’ internal standards make it easier and quicker to develop new solutions, on their platforms, however, there is a catch. Commercial developers have to place careful bets on which clouds platforms will be provide them with the best market potential. Today, Salesforce.com may look like the best bet—but in two years, maybe Microsoft will offer a better opportunity. But, unable to afford development and integration costs for multiple cloud platforms, many smaller players will get stuck on a cloud.
Meanwhile, as more of a customer’s solutions get tied into those of an anchor vendor, it becomes increasingly difficult for the customer to extricate itself from a cloud, or to integrate applications that reside in different clouds.
A Ray of Hope
While history and cynicism make me skeptical about whether its possible for this group—or any other–to gain the critical mass necessary to ensure broad-based cloud interoperability, I do see a ray of hope.
Developers and customers are sick of vendor lock-in, and the risks associated with it. Part of the promise of cloud computing has been freedom—the ability to deploy and run IT solutions quicker, better and more easily and affordably. Developers want the freedom to transport their applications to multiple clouds as new market opportunities present themselves. Customers want the freedom to integrate applications residing in different clouds, public and private. To make this possible, they need the economies of scale, cost and time-to-market benefits that standards can provide.
It’s still early going for cloud computing. Vendors may have to put aside some of their own bickering, and clear the way for cloud computing adoption to live up to its promising forecasts.
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