Thursday, August 7, 2008

A Cloud Methodology

Although this was published in June, I just saw it and felt it was to good not to repeat:

A Methodology for Cloud Computing Architecture

  • Peel off the applications individually, to detangle the appliance mess (use case analysis).
    Categorize applications as batch, online, heavy transactional, or reporting – where the former two indicate likely cloud apps.
  • Think of cloud computing as a way to load balance your application demands across different grids of available resources.
  • Slide the clouds across different grids depending on costs, scheduling needs, or failover capacity.
  • Take the hit to replicate critical data across different grids, to have it ready for a cutover within minutes; that's less expensive than buying insurance.
  • Run your own multiple data centers as internal grids, but have additional grid resources ready for handling elastic demands (which you already have, in quantity).
  • Reassure your DBAs and sysadmins that their roles are not diminished due to cloud computing, and instead become more interesting – with hopefully a few major headaches resolved.

1 comment:

Nick Y said...

A couple nice points made, like load balancing / HA across clouds, and assuring employees they will keep jobs. This seems more like notes or brainstorm jotted down. 6 points do not make a systems methodology.