Author: David Feathergill, Chief Software Architect, Vizioncore
Virtualization and cloud computing have received a lot of attention recently. As part of the release of vSphere 4, VMware is beginning a marketing campaign centered on cloud computing. What is cloud computing and how does it apply to virtualization?“Cloud” usually refers to the Internet, and people often depict it visually as a cloud. Cloud computing can be thought of as using different types of computing resources over the Internet. A few types of cloud computing are: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). IaaS gives access to remote computing resources. Amazon EC2 is the most prominent example of this. SaaS provides software, either client applications or web services. Those who have used Google Docs have used SaaS. PaaS allows application developers both develop for and execute code on a remote platform. Force.com is an example of PaaS.Depending on your role, the cloud can be either abstract or concrete. The user is always outside of the cloud; they are unable to see the infrastructure behind the resource that they are using whether it is hardware, software, or storage. On the other hand, from the point of view of the engineer the infrastructure is very apparent. He or she is inside of the cloud and is helping to keep it available to the user. Where does virtualization fit in?Virtualization is a cloud enabler, which makes it easier to provision and manage resources. For example, in enabling IaaS with virtualization users can request a machine with their desired hardware profile and usually receive it within moments. With virtualization SaaS is more flexible and reliable. Pre-configured application servers can be created to meet demand and participate in fault tolerant configurations hard to achieve without virtualization. Lastly, distributed processing nodes based on virtualization maximize scalability in PaaS. These are just a few examples of how virtualization enables cloud computing.I’ll enjoy following the news and discussion around VMware’s cloud initiatives. I hope that this has helped to understand cloud computing and see how virtualization is an enabler for it. As our software becomes a client of cloud-based services, or helps the engineer to more easily manage cloud-enabling technology, one thing is clear: cloudy days are ahead.Sincerely,David Feathergill