Cloud service release suggests popularity of hybrid approach
Rackspace today announced Cloud Connect, a service designed to improve scalability by integrating proprietary hosting servers with Rackspace’s cloud servers. The release of a service like Cloud Connect points to a larger trend in cloud computing: enterprise users want the benefits of public infrastructure but want to keep control of their most important applications.
Recent commentary supports that claim. Mike Vizard of ITBusinessEdge suggests that Cloud Connect helps companies integrate mission critical applications running on private infrastructure with other applications running in the public cloud.
Rackspace CTO John Engates told ZDNet that Cloud Connect is a means for handling bandwidth overflow from a private cloud into a public cloud while maintaining compliance and security.
Releases such as Cloud Connect highlight the reality of today’s cloud computing market: the enterprise is not ready to put everything on the public cloud, so cloud computing providers must accommodate hybrid approaches that combine cloud and traditional systems.
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Hybrid cloud management the substance beneath “hybrid cloud” hype
The hype surrounding hybrid cloud may suggest that it’s a paradigm-shifting idea. But combining internet-based services with private cloud resources is not revolution, it’s simply responsible: It rarely makes sense to swap an entire technology stack into the public cloud, but the advantages of hosted SaaS and commoditized infrastructure are not usually worth foregoing entirely. As an ITBusinessEdge article points out, just about all cloud computing will be hybrid cloud computing.
If nearly all cloud scenarios will be hybrid in some way or another, simply identifying the type of cloud is no longer important. More significant than identifying a cloud type is the discussion about hybrid cloud management: What’s the best way to maintain control over data and applications while still making use of cloud technology? For many observers integration is paramount.
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Posted in Cloud app integration news by Mike Ponta on Aug 23 2010
The differences between the private cloud and public cloud are a little difficult to parse, but the author here provides a clear distinction between the two. And creating a hybrid cloud— a combination between public and private— is about integration and architecture. A quote from the piece: “Whether the resources are local or remote, traditional or cloud, they must work together. And working together in technological terms means integration, and integration requires attention to architecture.”
A new report from open source project management provider Black Duck Software says that there is an uptick in open source projects built for cloud computing. Because the code of an open source project can be accessed and edited by most anyone, the integration of open source projects is highly customizable (This can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your time and expertise). An uptick in open source cloud projects means that more options for integration and customization are appearing. The report also says that breadth of open source cloud projects reflects the sophistication of the cloud development ecosystem.
Ecommerce tool provider XM Developments implemented its XM Oxygen B2B integration tool for manufacturer and distributor of solar thermal systems Free Hot Water. The tool was installed to help meet Free Hot Water’s growing demand from solar thermal distributors and installer partners through improved ability to connect to customers via its Web store. One advantage of this SaaS integration, according to the release, is reduced data duplication.
