Cloud: Technology or Operations Model?

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

On Wed, 20 Jan 2010, Jeremy Katz wrote:

>> By bounding the handful of problems that we *know* we need to solve that
>> pertain to "cloud".
>
> Which is *exactly* why I think that trying to propose some general
> purpose "cloud" group is an effort that's just going to be filled with
> hot air.  Which is exactly what happens on *every single cloud group
> that exists today on the internet*.  And it happens because of a lack
> of consensus around what the term means.  I have one meaning, you have
> another, dhuff has a third, and so on.

Except, of course, that we've actually got an initial set of tasks 
defined.  Whodathunkit?

>> There can be no doubt that "getting Fedora images to work on EC2" falls
>> under "cloud".
>
> If we're saying this is the purpose of the group, then let's say it.

Actually, that's not what I'm saying at all, Jeremy.  I'm saying that this 
is a great initial goal that we can all agree on, while we also have a 
place to discuss other efforts that may (or may not) have commonalities to 
this effort.

> Don't tip toe around it or try to make it out to be some general 
> overarching, incredible effort.  Doing this and *just this alone* is 
> more than enough reason for existence.  And by constraining the scope, 
> yes, it means some people feel like "their need" isn't being covered. 
> But that's okay.  They can coordinate the people interested in their 
> need.  The nice thing is that then there's some way that we can say that 
> a group is successful.
>
>> There can be little doubt that "getting Fedora images to work on other
>> public clouds" also falls under cloud, and one hopes that the processes
>> bear some resemblance to one another.
>
> bwahaha.  bwahahaha.  bwahahahahahahahha.  :-)
>
> One cloud != another cloud.  There are pretty fundamental differences
> in their operating models that aren't something you just abstract
> away.  And those differences are actually kind of important and part
> of why people will choose one cloud provider over another.  The
> differences end up having a distinct impact on everything from systems
> management to how you want to build out apps on top of them.  Those
> differences become even more pronounced at the level of "running the
> OS under the constraints imposed by the provider's environment".

You may be right.  But guess what?  You may also *not* be right!  And I'd 
rather actually *explore* this idea, instead of making an a priori 
assumption that IT WON'T WORK!!!

> I'd actually change this statement a little bit.  I want to see people
> I know using EC2 to solve actual problems able to in good conscience
> use Fedora without having to worry about it being several year old
> versions of Fedora.  The sort of second level on top of that would
> then to being able to use Fedora in Fedora-y ways rather than the
> bastardized ways that you end up having to do some stuff with EC2
> today.  Which the encompasses a huge amount of stuff including have
> kernels/ramdisks that can be used, Fedora images actually being
> available, it being possible to build one's own Fedora-based image for
> your own problems, etc.
>
> Stating it like this means that we have a _real_ concrete thing to
> target.  Not some ephemeral, undefined "cloud" to argue about what is
> constituted by it.

See, this is why this conversation is moving along IN TWO DIFFERENT 
THREADS.  It's possible to focus on one set of tasks, while having other 
conversations that are not directly related.

--g

--

Computer Science professors should be teaching open source.
Help make it happen.   Visit http://teachingopensource.org.