Cloud Computing:
The New Reality or Just Vapor?
CMG2010 December 9, 2010
Paper 5137 Session 504
Dr. Tim R. Norton
Simalytic Solutions, LLC
719-635-5825
email: tim.norton@simalytic.com
http://www.simalytic.com
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Agenda
 Introduction

Brief look at Cloud Computing
 From

Theory to Practice
Applying recent research to the real world
 Practical

Applications
Real-world considerations
 Conclusion
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
2
Introduction
 What

is Cloud Computing?
Services over the Internet



Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Software as a Service (SaaS)
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Classes of Computing
 Classes

Appearance of physical hardware


Much like IaaS
Application development specific environments


of Utility Computing
Much like PaaS
Application delivery

Much like SaaS or AaaS
 Distinguished
by
Level of cloud system software abstraction
 Level of management

© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Economics
 Cloud
Computing Economics:
CapEx to OpEx
When demand for a service varies with time
 When provisioning for the peak load
 When demand is unknown in advance
 When applications that scale horizontally


Many cloud systems can be used to complete the
computation faster than would be possible using a
single physical system.
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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From Theory to Practice

Recent Research

A View of Cloud Computing


UC Berkeley Reliable Adaptive Distributed Systems Laboratory

Michael Armbrust, Armando Fox, Rean Griffith, Anthony D. Joseph, Randy Katz, Andy Konwinski,
Gunho Lee, David Patterson, Ariel Rabkin, Ion Stoica, and Matei Zaharia

Communications of the ACM, April 2010, v53 n4 p50
To Lease or Not to Lease From Storage Clouds


University of Texas at Austin, Edward Walker
National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Walter Brisken and Jonathan Romney


IEEE Computer, April 2010, v43 n4 p44
Cloud Computing for Mobile Users: Can Offloading
Computation Save Energy?

Purdue University, Karthik Kumar and Yung-Hsiang Lu

IEEE Computer, April 2010, v43 n4 p51
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Top 10
 Top
10 Obstacles and Opportunities for
Cloud Computing

A View of Cloud Computing

UC Berkeley Reliable Adaptive Distributed Systems
Laboratory (RAD Lab)
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Number 1
 Business
Continuity and Service
Availability
How reliable is the Could provider?
 Have outages been because of technical or
other reasons?
 Is the Cloud provider a single point of failure?
 Lack of business continuity internally
 Lack of data exchange standards between
providers

© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Number 2
 Data
Lock-in
Provider unique APIs
 No standardization for data extraction
 Attractive to providers



Price increases
Reduces user’s ability to change if unhappy
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Number 3
 Data
Confidentiality/Auditability
How does the provider guarantee security?
 How are SOX and HIPAA audits done?
 External threats
 Internal threats

© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Number 4
 Data
Transfer Bottlenecks
Increasing application use of data
 High costs of Internet transfers


Can erode savings from offloading computing
Data placement within the application as, or
more, critical as outside placement
 Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 full
of tape!

© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Number 5
 Performance

Poor network and I/O sharing


Good processor and memory sharing but
Performance may vary in seemingly unrelated ways


Unpredictability
Solutions:
 Better O/S and hardware I/O handling
 Flash memory instead of disks
Unpredictable scheduling of virtual machines

All the threads of a program need to run at the same
time but are on different VMs
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Number 6
 Scalable

How do cloud properties apply to persistent
storage?

Short-term usage




Storage
Scaling down as well as up as needed
No upfront cost
Infinite capacity on demand
Still an open research problem
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Number 7
 Bugs

in Large-Scale Distributed Systems
Opportunity:

Use virtual machines to


Provide isolation
Capture information not available stand-alone
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Number 8
 Scaling

Pay-as-you-go

Allows scaling



Up and down
Dynamic with statistical learning predictive tools
The opportunity:

Rapid scaling


Quickly
Saves resources, money and energy
Overlaying Business Models

Cloud Users vs. Cloud Providers
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Number 9
 Reputation
Fate Sharing
The entire cloud may be associated with the
behavior of some cloud users.
 Legal liability



Cloud user or cloud provider
Cloud provider liable for an offending cloud user’s
actions that affect “innocent bystander” cloud users?
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Number 10
 Software
Licensing
Effect of virtualization?
 Economy of scale



Cloud providers spread expensive licenses over
many cloud users
Software vendors raise license costs to recover loss
of revenue
Heavy reliance on open source software
 Opportunity: commercial pay-as-you-go
software licensing

© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Reality or Vapor?
 Opportunities

Successfully solve a real business problem


Reduce costs
Gain functionality
 Obstacles

 Reality
 Vapor
Create more problems than solved



Add complexity
Increase business risk
Hidden costs
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
18
Unique Use of the Cloud
 Saving
Energy for Mobile Systems
Battery life is the critical factor
 Mobile devices have limited computation power
 Off-loading computations can reduce energy
use



Balance computations and transmissions
Function of work done and transmission bandwidth
Issues: privacy, security, reliability and latency
 Could apply to non-mobile devices

© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Buy or Lease
 Technical
and Financial Trade-offs
Companies use different approaches
 What’s included in the analysis?





Capital costs
Operational costs
Interest rates
Salvage values
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
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Decision Model
 Unique

NPV (Net Present Value) calculated for:



Model Based on NPV Analysis
Purchase using capital and operational costs
Lease using life-of-lease and operational costs
Decision based on delta NPV


ΔNPV  0 the buy
ΔNPV < 0 the lease
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
21
Law of One Price
 “In
an efficient market, identical goods
will have only one price.”

Assumes storage becoming commodity

Physical and Cloud
 Latency
Not included in the model
 Affects validity of commodity assumption

© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
22
Conclusion
 The

A View of Cloud Computing: UC Berkeley


BOTH – depending of business objectives and the
ability to leverage the cloud while mitigating the
obstacles
To Lease or Not to Lease From Storage
Clouds: UT / NRAO


New Reality or Just Vapor?
REALITY – but a business decision
Cloud Computing for Mobile Users: Purdue

REALITY – for a very specific application with well
defined goals
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
23
Conclusion
 The

New Reality or Just Vapor?
No single answer


Too many company specific variables
Too many relationships

Cloud provider, cloud user, software vendor, hardware
vendor, network provider and all of the other external
entities
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
24
Conclusion
 Research

Identifying many of the issues



institutions
The Top 10 Obstacles and Opportunities are a good
start
Each organization needs to develop their own list
Producing tools and techniques


Using old tools in new ways
Creating new tools specifically designed for cloud
environments
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
25
Reality or Vapor?
A blend of business and
technology.
Presentation will be available at:
http://www.simalytic.com/Papers.html
© 2010 Simalytic Solutions, LLC
Cloud Computing: The New Reality or Just Vapor? - CMG2010 Paper 5137, December 9, 2010
26