Re: Virtualization

Mladen Gogala wrote:
> On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 13:10:39 +0200, Jack wrote:
>
>
> > VMWARE = cloud
>
> VMWare is a virtualization software which allows you to create, maintain
> and administer virtual machines, just like KVM, VirtualBox or Hyper-V.

Sort of. There's a bunch of additional products on top of or beside the hypervisor. All of that together is a bit more than KVM or VirtualBox. (I don't know anything about Hyper-V).

> Cloud also includes a third party provider which creates and maintains
> virtual machines for you. In other words, the notion of the cloud
> combines virtualization and outsourcing. There are things that companies
> readily entrust to cloud providers, the largest of which is Amazon.com,

There is a contradiction here. If I'm reading you correctly, if I host something at Amazon's EC2, then I'm using the cloud because there is a third party provider which maintains VMs for me.

But, if Amazon itself hosts something for its own purposes in that same EC2 infrastructure, then it's not in the cloud because there just isn't a third party provider that would maintain VMs for Amazon the company.

I'm sure that Amazon can do some really fabulous things, but I'm not sure they can outsource to themselves. Or mabe they can, with enough creative accounting?

Anyway, it seems to me that "a third party provider" isn't particularly useful feature if we want to determine whether something is or is not a cloud.

> there are licensing considerations. Cloud providers want to do things
> properly, so everything must be licensed.

Cloud providers ask you to sign that they are not responsible for the software or anything else on your virtual machines.

> There are no hide and seek
> games with the databases, as in the case when the server(s) running VMWare
> are in your own server room.

And cloud providers also sign that they are not going to peek at my virtual machines and data unless there is a court order compelling them to do so.

> Please note that the idea of the virtual machines is much, much older
> than the cloud itself and that the authorship goes to IBM. IBM virtual
> machines were all the rage around 1985.

Wasn't that in 1965 or 1966? See pages 8 & 9 of:

http://www.pgcon.org/2012/schedule/attachments/256_pg-aws.pdf

> The sky was clear then, there
> were no clouds. Cloud is a modern marketing catchphrase, just like
> "workgroup" was in the mid-90's. Everything was "workgroup" or, at least,
> "collaboration edition". IT industry is prone to fads, just like fashion.
> Not only does the devil wear Prada, it also runs everything in the cloud.

Used to be hype and a fashion and all that, but these days the features that make something a "cloud" are more or less agreed upon by those who care. And it's more than just virtualization.

These days a lot of people are using NIST definition of cloud computing:

http://www.profsandhu.com/cs6393_s13/nist-SP800-145.pdf

The main difference between virtualization and the cloud (for me, at least) is that the cloud is a self-service infrastructure. Meaning that I don't have to call my cloud provider to create virtual machines for me (contrary to what you wrote above), because there has to be a way for me to do it on my own. Via an API or a web interface, for example (preferably both). Ditto for storage and networking.

If there is no self-service, then it's not a cloud, but it probably is a virtualization environment.

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