Some rainy days for cloud computing

By Michal Lev-Ram

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — Tech executives understand the importance of reliability when delivering computing power over the Internet, a technology called “cloud computing.” The problem is, they haven’t yet achieved it.

The ups and downs of renting storage space – as opposed to owning and operating servers and a data center – was the subject of a panel at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference Tuesday.

More technology startups are turning to cloud computing, which uses an on-demand system that allows them to pay for only the computing capacity they need. But as Fortune senior writer and moderator Michael Copeland pointed out, the “cloud” is not always reliable.

Last Sunday, Amazon’s data storage service, called S3, was down for nearly eight hours, causing outages for online companies that depend on the service for storing their data. Adam Selipsky, VP of product management and developer relations at Amazon (AMZN), told audience members the crash was “completely unacceptable.”

“Any amount of downtime doesn’t work,” said Selipsky. “We have a lot of people maniacally focused on issues like this all the time, and our hope is that with that amount of focus we’re going to continue to get more and more reliable.”

Another panelist, Kevin Lynch, Adobe Systems’ (ADBE) chief technology officer, argued that the idea that everything should be in the “cloud” is “swinging the pendulum too far.” Adobe has been trying to push a new platform called AIR, which lets developers create web-based applications for desktops.

But Google’s (GOOG) VP of search products and user experience, Marissa Mayer, said she still thinks cloud computing is the best alternative. “Overall the cloud is a much better place to store your data,” Mayer told conference-goers.

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I follow cloud computing closely in the Federal space and blog about it daily ((kevinljackson.blogspot.com) . Many agencies aren’t making their interest public, but the number of cloud computing pilots is growing and many Federal System Integrators are selling cloud based solutions today. Don’t count it out.

Posted By Kevin Jackson, Manassas, Virginia : October 3, 2008 10:13 pm

Michal,

Cloud computing definitely brings along with it concerns around security. There is no question about that. However, cloud computing is relatively very new and Amazon is on the forefront of this trend and as such, there are going to be some hiccups for the early adopters as this becomes more mature. That is not to say that cloud computing is not worth looking at. On the contrary, on my blog (http://sumanchaudhuri.wordpress.com), I have discussion on the merits and pitfalls of cloud computing, SaaS, etc. The point is that ISVs and enterprise customers can definitely benefit from the advantages that cloud computing brings to the table. That is not to say that cloud computing is some magic bullet that can withstand the punishment of bad architectures. You still need to have a deep understanding for architecting application for the cloud to be able to leverage the true benefits of cloud computing. That being said, to say that just because Amazon had some downtime that cloud computing is questionable is like saying that early SOA projects failed, so SOA is really not the way to go. Or for that matter that your data is that much safer in your own data center and will experience the same kinds of downtime scenarios.

At the end of the day, cloud computing is an emerging technology which brings with it its own set of benefits and challenges, but the fact remains that it is a disruptive technology (much like virtualization) and it will initially allow a lot of small and medium sized business to not have to deal with the mundane tasks that have no contributions to their core competency (which is building their product) without having to worry about procuring and provisioning servers, storage, etc. Does it have areas of concern – absolutely. But in my mind, as cloud computing gains more maturity and more attention, it will certainly solve some of these challenges and allow for it to become widely accepted, at which point, even large enterprises will start paying attention to it.

Posted By Suman Chaudhuri, Detroit, MI : July 24, 2008 3:23 pm

Our company uses Amazon’s competitor, Nirvanix, and we have been very happy so far.

Posted By Joseph Dimiglio, Salt Lake City, Utah : July 23, 2008 5:26 pm

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