RE: [SEMI-OT] Oracle to cloud or not to cloud?
- From: "Goulet, Richard" <Richard.Goulet@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Jeremiah Wilton" <jwilton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:50:05 -0500
Jeremiah,
Kindly explain what the difference is between buying a certain amount of
compute power (I'll group that as CPU's, memory, and it's associated
interfacing), an amount of disk space, and other resources, as you put it, in a
"cloud" vs. actually purchasing hardware that I'm having put into someone's
data center and hosted there?
The actual difference, that I've had to deal with, is that response time of
our cloud is dependent on that of everyone else's clouds in the farm that we
were sharing. I'm having a pile of trouble with these "virtual" environments
because of the fact that we are now asking our app to compete with other
applications and software layers upon layers to get the work done, and you as a
customer are completely blind to what's going up outside of the cloud
Now I will admit that some vendor's virtualization software is better than
others as well as some vendors software does run better on certain hardware
than others, but the end result is the same, we're trying to make use of every
cpu cycle that we can in getting actual work done instead of wasting them.
The premise of this is that the laptop sitting in front of you is only
consuming 5 to 10 percent of it's cycles working for you and the rest either
handling background tasks or in the system idle task. And if your going to do
so on the micro scale of a corporation then why not on the macro scale of the
internet. That scales up rather well into the world of servers and was what
virtualization was suppose to fix, scale that up to a "cloud" system and there
are real economies of scale to be made, assuming that it all hangs together
properly. And hence the "beauty" of cloud computing, you buy what you need and
someone else has to purchase the 12 ton monster that hosts it, but makes a pile
of cash because you can split the power as needed. Remember Oracle's
statements about RAC, "run out of power, simply add another server into the
cluster". In the cloud would you get the advantage that you can exceed your
purchased CPU to maintain a service level. Wonderful, I get the big monster
when I need it and only have to pay for the lesser amount.
Sounds absolutely great on paper and marketing glossies. The reality I'm
afraid does not match the promise. The same could also have been said about
client-server computing that was so totally popular a couple of decades ago.
Again the promise did not match reality do to the complexity of keeping every
client's software in sync. The good part is that people keep thinking up these
things and the underlying software, and sooner or later someone will unlock
that holy grail that has been sought after for all of these years. Who and
when I surely don't know and I don't expect it in my lifetime. Till then, not
withstanding the statements and pronunciations of the Oak Table panel, I will
remain a skeptic.
Dick Goulet
Senior Oracle DBA/NA Team Lead
PAREXEL International
________________________________
From: Jeremiah Wilton [mailto:jwilton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 1:48 PM
To: Goulet, Richard
Cc: Oracle L
Subject: Re: [SEMI-OT] Oracle to cloud or not to cloud?
I really have to take exception with the multiple assertions on this list that
"cloud computing" is just a marketing rebrand of something we already have.
Some companies have co-opted the term and are using it to refer to any and all
manner of technology and even imaginary technology. But Google and Amazon, the
leaders in cloud computing, are building something that greatly exceeds the
previous technologies. Yes, you could host applications on the internet in the
past, but Amazon's model allows instant provisioning of virtual servers, and
virtual resources, like disk, memory and compute power, using a standardized
web API. And this is all very cheap.
This is very different from calling your hosting provider and asking them to
add a virtual for you or using Gmail online. It is not just hosted apps, and
it is not the same thing Oracle has provided for a decade. I understand how
the whole thing reeks of marketing nonsense, but suggest those feel it is
comprised of no actual new technology take some time to educate themselves.
(Plug for Oak Table book...) I wrote a chapter that quotes Larry Ellison in the
video liked below for the forthcoming Oak Table book:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1430226684
Regards,
Jeremiah Wilton
Blue Gecko, Inc.
http://www.bluegecko.net
On Dec 15, 2009, at 8:57 AM, Goulet, Richard wrote:
"Cloud Computing" is just another marketing pile of POO so that simple
minded people, like your CIO/CEO, will think that their behind the times and
need to spend more money on yet another pile of technology vaporware so they
can add the buzz word to their résumé's and company advertising. Cloud
computing = hosted apps, period. Been around for a long time making money for
the likes of Capgemini and others who have hosting centers that are getting
empty due to smaller hardware, lack of usage, etc..., namely the economic
downturn. One of these days we'll probably learn how to distinguish that old
Ford in the new paint job from the really new model. Though if marketers have
their way, we won't.
If you can't impress them with brilliance, smother then in .
-----Original Message-----
From: Rich Jesse
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 10:40 AM
Dateline September 21, 2009, Larry Ellison rants against cloud
computing:
http://tinyurl.com/ybf2vbb
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