When I was a kid in the early 1970s, I heard a lot about Interferon. This was some magical substance that was supposed to cure cancer, kill viruses and perform other incredibly important things, such as power a rocket to Mars. Interferon this and interferon that. A lot of hype, with not a lot of action, since interferon was scarce and expensive. This changed in 1980, when the interferon gene was able to be mass produced, allowing it to become one of the most successful pharmaceuticals ever to come from genetic engineering. But, back in the 1970s, Interferon seemed to be all hype and no real action.

Some people are asking me if this is the case for Cloud Computing. Recently, within past year or so, you have seen everybody jump into the game with their version of how cloud computing is going to change the future of.....(you fill in the blank). From supply chain management of the local pizza joint to delivery of music videos. They all were getting some angle on cloud computing. So, in order to temper this overwhelming overuse of the phrase cloud computing, we need to come up with a universal standard of what is and what is not cloud computing.
The timing could not be better for The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This US Government entity is working with teh GSA Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) and the OMB to come up with some basic standards to allow for cloud interoperability and portability. (Hopefully, I am not confusing the rest of the world, by referencing the CIO of the GSA, OMB, and NIST. The .gov folks sure love to use letters to describe themselves). Since the US Government is the single largest buyer of IT infrastructure in the world (US$70 billion annual budget), they are a great place to start for standardizing how vendors structure and deliver cloud computing to government entities. NIST is working with commercial vendors to come up with a baseline of what is and what should be included in the basic ideas of cloud computing. This includes the definition of delivery models for cloud, including: Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS); Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

The government has asked for input from commercial cloud providers, so that the US Government can assess what is the prevailing private sector lowest common denominator for cloud computing. Companies have been asked to fill out a Request For Information (RFI), not to exceed 25 pages and submit to the GSA by email no later than May 26, 2009. I like that the request was not for typed forms to be filled out in triplicate and sent via USPS with sufficient postage. This last reference goes back to my cynical fear of long and drawn out governmental bids of years past.

So, Uncle Sam (or in this case, his newly appointed lieutenants, Vivek Kundra FED CIO and Patrick Stingley, first federal cloud CTO, aka the Federal Cloud Czar), asks the commercial sector to come up with a few basic key characteristics and their various delivery and deployment models.

So far, NIST has come up with this basic overview:

Key Characteristics:
On-demand self-service. A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed, without requiring human interaction with each service's provider.

Ubiquitous network access. Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs).

Location independent resource pooling. The provider's computing resources are pooled to serve all consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. The customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources. Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, network bandwidth, and virtual machines.

Rapid elasticity. Capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provisioned to quickly scale up and rapidly released to quickly scale down. To the consumer, the capabilities available for rent often appear to be infinite and can be purchased in any quantity at any time.

Pay per use. Capabilities are charged using a metered, fee-for-service, or advertising based billing model to promote optimization of resource use. Examples are measuring the storage, bandwidth, and computing resources consumed and charging for the number of active user accounts per month. Clouds within an organization accrue cost between business units and may or may not use actual currency.

Note: Cloud software takes full advantage of the cloud paradigm by being service oriented with a focus on statelessness, low coupling, modularity, and semantic interoperability.

Delivery Models:
Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS). The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider's applications running on a cloud infrastructure and accessible from various client devices through a thin client interface such as a Web browser (e.g., web-based email). The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure, network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.

Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS). The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created applications using programming languages and tools supported by the provider (e.g., java, python, .Net). The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure, network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but the consumer has control over the deployed applications and possibly application hosting environment configurations.

Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The capability provided to the consumer is to rent processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, deployed applications, and possibly select networking components (e.g., firewalls, load balancers).

Deployment Models:
Private cloud. The cloud infrastructure is owned or leased by a single organization and is operated solely for that organization.

Community cloud. The cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations).

Public cloud. The cloud infrastructure is owned by an organization selling cloud services to the general public or to a large industry group.

Hybrid cloud. The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (internal, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting).

Each deployment model instance has one of two types: internal or external. Internal clouds reside within an organizations network security perimeter and external clouds reside outside the same perimeter.

Note 1: Cloud computing is still an evolving paradigm. Its definitions, use cases, underlying technologies, issues, risks, and benefits will be refined in a spirited debate by the public and private sectors. These definitions, attributes, and characteristics will evolve and change over time.

Note 2: The cloud computing industry represents a large ecosystem of many models, vendors, and market niches. This definition attempts to encompass all of the various cloud approaches.


I like what I have read so far. It is my hope that by bringing together the leading suppliers of cloud computing, along with some of the largest existing users of cloud computing, that the US Federal Government can understand what it has the potential to buy and use. If the US Gov't jumps onboard, the naysayers and Luddites will eventually follow. Mark my words, Cloud Computing is going to be big.