<div class="portlet-borderless-container" style=""><div><div class="journal-content-article" id="article_53319_1718891_1.0">Here's a reasonably good summary of where things are at with cloud interop.<br><br>Sam<br><br>
<a href="http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/archive/news031"><b>Addressing the Challenge of Cloud-Computing Interoperability</b></a><br><i>by George Lawton</i>
<p>Cloud computing—in which users work online with resources based on
providers' servers, rather than on their own computers—is becoming
increasingly popular. However, cloud computing is still relatively new,
so proponents and vendors have not yet developed interoperability
between platforms. Some industry observers say this could hurt the
technology's growth. For example, companies can't necessarily move
their data and applications if they find another cloud platform they
like better than the one they are using. Also, some enterprises want a
best-of-breed option, employing different cloud platforms for different
applications. In some cases, they want to use data and applications
across the platforms.</p>
<p>"What folks are mostly interested in is that the applications
themselves are not locked into a particular platform," said Sam
Charington, vice-president of product management of cloud-computing
vendor Appistry.</p>
<p>In addition, they want to utilize their security, management,
identity, and other tools across the different cloud platforms they
utilize.</p>
<p>Many businesses want interoperability between their in-house
infrastructure and the cloud, noted Forrester Research market analyst
James Staten. They might want to use an in-house application to process
data in the cloud, they might want to use a cloud-based application to
process in-house data, or they might want to use applications or tools
that will run both in-house and on the cloud.</p>
<p>Other key issues include having a single sign-on for users who
access multiple cloud platforms, deploying and provisioning resources
from the platforms with a single management tool, enabling a service
hosted on one platform to automatically call a service hosted by
another, and having a private cloud application seamlessly obtain
resources from a public cloud when necessary.</p>
<p>In response to this demand, several standards groups and industry
consortia are developing specifications and best practices to enable
cloud interoperability. Likewise, several vendors have released
products that allow some degree of interoperability.</p>
<h2>Key Issues</h2>
<p>Cloud applications work via virtualization. They run in a provider's
server on a virtual machine (VM). A single server contains multiple
VMs, enabling cloud providers to efficiently offer applications to
numerous customers.</p>
<p>In a virtualization system, the hypervisor allocates the host
machine's resources to each virtualized operating system or to each
program running on a virtualized OS.</p>
<p>Many cloud platforms don’t interoperate because they use distinct
hypervisor and VM technologies, and they store and configure operating
systems and applications differently. The platforms also use various
security standards and management interfaces.</p>
<p>Amazon has its Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Citrix works with the
XenServer, Linux supports the Kernel-Based Virtual Machine (KVM),
Microsoft uses the Hyper-V, and VMware utilizes the ESX and ESXi
hypervisors. Each hypervisor supports a different VM format, and the
formats are not natively interoperable.</p>
<p>A problem today is determining exactly where cloud-interoperability
standards are needed. To help address this, the Distributed Management
Task Force (DMTF), an industry consortium that develops and promotes
systems-management-related standards, has formed the Open Cloud
Standards Incubator (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.dmtf.org/about/cloud-incubator">www.dmtf.org/about/cloud-incubator</a>).</p>
<p>The Open Group's Cloud Work Group (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.opengroup.org/cloudcomputing">www.opengroup.org/cloudcomputing</a>)
is conducting meetings among members to create a document describing
business-related requirements and concerns for cloud computing,
including interoperability. In the process, they are looking at best
practices needed to address the concerns.</p>
<h3>Workload Movement</h3>
<p>Workload movement is the ability of an organization to automatically
move data, applications, and server configurations from its own systems
to a public cloud.</p>
<p>To enable workload movement, the DMTF has created the Open
Virtualization Format (OVF) specification. The OVF standard provides an
intermediary format for VM images. It lets an organization create a VM
instance on top of one hypervisor and then export it to the OVF so that
it can be run by another hypervisor. OVF supporters include Citrix
Systems, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and VMware, but not Amazon, which is a
major cloud-computing provider.</p>
<p>Companies such as Appistry and 3Tera are exploring ways of using
middleware to enable enterprise applications that will work on multiple
cloud platforms.</p>
<p>The Open Cloud Consortium (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.opencloudconsortium.org/">www.opencloudconsortium.org</a>)
is working on a standard that, like OVF, would create an intermediary
format that would make it easier to migrate distributed data and
applications—typically used to process large amounts of data—across
cloud platforms.</p>
<p>According to OCC chair Robert Grossman, the consortium will release
its first cloud-interoperability standards in six to 12 months.</p>
<h3>Security and Identity</h3>
<p>Companies want to apply their existing security and
user-identity-management tools to applications running on different
cloud platforms.</p>
<p>Security and identity management are critical to organizations and
are a particular concern when data and applications reside on the
cloud, noted Dave Lounsbury, vice president of collaboration services
at the Open Group, an industry consortium that develops
enterprise-oriented information-interoperability standards.</p>
<p>Cloud-computing adoption will be limited until these issues are addressed, he said.</p>
<p>The Open Group's <a target="_blank" href="http://www.opengroup.org/jericho/cloud_cube_model_v1.0.pdf">Jericho Forum</a>
is studying security- and identity-related cloud-computing issues. In
part, they are looking at ways to use security- and identity-related
applications across cloud platforms.</p>
<p>The Cloud Security Alliance, another industry consortium, is working
on recommendations for best practices regarding cloud-computing
security, including <a target="_blank" href="http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/guidance">interoperability-related issues</a>.</p>
<h3>Interoperability between the Cloud and the Enterprise</h3>
<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Organizations need to automatically provision services, manage VM
instances, and work with both cloud-based and enterprise-based
applications using a single tool set that can function across existing
programs and multiple cloud providers. Efforts are under way to solve
this problem.</p>
<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">For example, the Open Grid Forum (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.ogf.org/">www.ogf.org</a>),
an industry group, is working on the Open Cloud Computing Interface,
which would provide an API for managing different cloud platforms.</p>
<p>In a similar move, ServePath, a hosting-services provider, has
released its GoGrid API. The API should be easy to adopt because it's
based on existing standards, not proprietary technology, said ServePath
technology evangelist Michael Sheehan.</p>
<p>Several vendors—including Appistry, AppZero, and 3Tera—have created
suites of development and deployment platforms that make it easy to
write a program once and deploy it on one of many cloud environments.</p>
<p>In essence, these suites provide a layer of abstraction between the
programmer and the cloud platforms. Developers create applications for
this intermediate layer, which then supports and manages multiple
hypervisors or external cloud platforms.</p>
<p>These products would let applications run either internally or in the cloud.</p>
<h2>Cloudy Future</h2>
<p>The US government recently began looking for proposals to implement
cloud-computing interoperability on its systems. "Usually we think of
the federal government as being 10 years behind," said DMTF president
Winston Bumpus, "but in this case, we are looking at the government as
a leader."</p>
<p>A major wild card in the cloud-interoperability effort is Amazon,
whose strong market position has enabled it to work with its own
technology and not participate in standards efforts. However, Sheehan
predicted that Amazon eventually will have to support interoperability
to attract more corporate business.</p>
<p>At this early stage in cloud computing's evolution, Forrester's
Staten said, premature standardization could stifle innovation and the
technology's development. And in today’s relatively new cloud-computing
marketplace, he added, there’s little incentive for vendors to
cooperate with one another.</p>
<p>Bumpus, on the other hand, said there are good reasons for
interoperability, which is why numerous organizations are beginning to
work on it.</p>
<hr>
<p>George Lawton is a freelance technology writer based in Monte Rio, California. Contact him at <a href="mailto:glawton@glawton.com">glawton@glawton.com</a>..</p><p><br></p>
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