2010 Prediction: Klavs Landberg, AutoVirt

By Klavs Landberg
published: Monday, December 07 2009

Everyone Gets a Piece of the Cloud

On the irrational debate between an internal and external cloud infrastructure – and why integration between the two is what really matters

The cloud conversation is shifting.  In the beginning it concerned the physical location of IT resources, and went something like this: a third-party provider hosts applications and storage offsite.  You, the cloud customer, get a contractually-defined SLA.  Your costs are lower and more predictable.  You can add or decommission resources quickly, without capital expenditure.  And your end-users have more consistent access to IT resources.

While the benefits of cloud computing have become clear, less certain is the best method for obtaining them.  The main question is whether the cloud must be an offsite resource, or could be contained in-house.

Like an external cloud, an in-house cloud gives IT the ability to respond quickly and fluidly to changing storage needs.  It allows IT to move data freely and end-users the ability to access it consistently.  The best way to achieve an internal cloud is by using file virtualization to divorce end-user access paths from the physical location of networked storage.  By doing this, IT is free to move data between devices or to add new devices to the network.  Data that has been moved or placed on a new device can be presented to users independently of its location, as part of the existing hierarchical folder structure.

If you keep your cloud-like resources onsite, you eliminate the network latency that comes with a WAN.  You are responsible for your own data security.  And you can create an environment that matches your business needs.  There are terrific reasons to host your data externally, too – the foremost being that if you choose your provider carefully, you shouldn’t have to worry about managing it, and the cost per terabyte is likely to be less.

External cloud providers insist that the internal cloud is an oxymoron, while internal cloud proponents position the external version as the industry’s pie-in-the-sky.  So who will come out on top of the great cloud debate?

If we can collectively lose the “cloudier than thou” attitude, everyone wins – external cloud providers, internal cloud enablers, IT shops, and end-users.  The fact of the matter is that some resources are best kept internal and some should be delegated to an external cloud provider.

The more substantive and interesting issue is how we will integrate internal and external resources to create IT infrastructures that are highly available, predictably priced, fluid, customizable, and secure.  In such environments, tiering strategies will extend seamlessly from internal resources to storage managed externally, by a third-party provider.  In-house IT staff will move data between internal and external layers as they see fit, without constraint.  All data will be presented to end-users independently of its location.

To achieve an environment with this degree of integration, internal and external resources must share a single access paradigm: external cloud service providers will present data joined to each customer’s domain.  Both internal and external file servers will be managed using file virtualization, so that data can be moved between physical devices and cloud layers without impact to its availability.

When you join an internal virtualized storage environment to an external resource, you do not need to worry about the particulars of the external management structure – but you can easily move data back and forth between it and your internal environment.  Data that is current, frequently accessed, or more sensitive can be stored in-house, while archives, backups, and replicas can be stored in an external cloud.  If your goal is to lower or significantly reduce capital expenditures, you can place a limit on the data stored in-house, and implement an aggressive archiving program that moves older data to the external cloud.  You can designate that this data should be available in read-only form, or you can mandate that it be moved internally if access patterns to it change.

By integrating internal and external storage resources, you can benefit from the strengths of each storage paradigm.  With file virtualization facilitating the fluid exchange of data between resources, you can easily optimize your storage environment and respond to changing demands on your company’s data.  As compliance guidelines change, energy costs grow, and data continues to build, we must achieve this level of flexibility.  Seamless integration between internal and external infrastructures will be critical.