The economics of business are radically changing due to the way in which software and services are being delivered thanks to cloud computing. In his session at 12th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo New York [10-13 June, 2013], Mike Kavis will cover six reasons for the disruption.| By Reuven Cohen | Article Rating: |
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| September 3, 2009 04:30 PM EDT | Reads: |
12,321 |
Recently there has been a lot of talk about private clouds, public clouds and inter clouds and the problem in attempting to define their key attributes. The problem facing all the various cloud terms is the apparent lack of quantifiable characteristics. In contrast most other areas of technology include standard characteristics such as units of measurement that allows us to define specific quantifiable aspects.
These aspects allow for the creation of complex models and formulas that enable a continued improvement and enhancement to the underlying platforms. I thought I'd briefly take a closer look at core concepts of elasticity and how it can be applied to cloud computing.
For a lot of companies looking at entering the cloud computing marketplace the lack of quantifiable capacity metrics has become a particular problem point. Currently trying to plan future resource & capacity requirements is an extremely difficult endeavor. Recent high profile cloud outages have made the need for quantifiable proactive capacity measurement painfully clear. When it comes to scaling infrastructure it seems that a lot of cloud computing has come down to a best guess mentality. (Although companies like SOASTA have done a great job at attempting to solve this problem) At the end of the day these outages are generally because of the unforeseen aspects, namely the inability to adequately determine and measure an application or infrastructure's breaking point. For this reason I believe that going forward the concept of elasticity will quickly become one of the most important aspects when designing most modern cloud centric system architectures.
To give you some background, I've been pitch my vision for elastic computing for almost 6 years. (I'm told others have also used the term before me as well) Generally my theory for Elastic Computing is in the ability to apply a quantifiable methodology that allows for the basis of an adaptive introspection with in a real time hybrid cloud centric infrastructure. But this doesn't actually address the question of "What is Elastic Computing" for that we need to dig deeper.
First we must look at what "elasticity" is and how it can be applied. According wikipedia, "in physics, elasticity is the physical property of a material when it deforms under stress (e.g. external forces), but returns to its original shape when the stress is removed. The relative amount of deformation is called the strain." Similarly elasticity applied to computing can be thought as the amount of strain an application or infrastructure can withstand while either expanding or contracting to meet the demands place on it.
One of the best examples of elasticity can be found in economics where elasticity is described as "the ratio of the percent change in one variable to the percent change in another variable. It is a tool for measuring the responsiveness of a function to changes in parameters in a relative way. A typical example is analysis of the elasticity of substitution, price and wealth. Popular in economics, elasticity is an approach used among empiricists because it is independent of units and thus simplifies data analysis."
For me, the economic-centric definition is the best way to apply elasticity to cloud computing. In this approach the main benefit is the ability to measure quantifiable capacity metrics using standard mathematical formulas such as "arc elasticity" -- a formula where the elasticity of one variable is measured with respect to another between two given points. The arc elasticity method of introspection is used when there is no general function for the relationship of two variables. (Think of an unknown or sudden increase in demand placed on an application or infrastructure) Therefore this formula provides the ability of to act as a predictive estimator for required system elasticity.
Wikipedia provides this economic example.
The y arc elasticity of x is defined as:
where the percentage change is calculated relative to the midpoint
What is Elastic Computing?
The quantifiable ability to manage, measure, predict and adapt responsiveness of an application based on real time demands placed on an infrastructure using a combination of local and remote computing resources.
Published September 3, 2009 Reads 12,321
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More Stories By Reuven Cohen
An instigator, part time provocateur, bootstrapper, amateur cloud lexicographer, and purveyor of random thoughts, 140 characters at a time.
Reuven is an early innovator in the cloud computing space as the founder of Enomaly in 2004 (Acquired by Virtustream in February 2012). Enomaly was among the first to develop a self service infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform (ECP) circa 2005. As well as SpotCloud (2011) the first commodity style cloud computing Spot Market.
Reuven is also the co-creator of CloudCamp (100+ Cities around the Globe) CloudCamp is an unconference where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas and is the largest of the ‘barcamp’ style of events.
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Our more interconnected planet is accelerating the adoption and convergence of next-generation architectures, in the form of cloud, mobile and instrumented physical assets. Organizations that can effectively balance optimization and innovation, will be in a position to leverage new systems of engagement, out maneuver their peers and achieve desired outcomes. In the Opening Keynote at 12th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo New York, IBM GM & Next Generation Platform CTO Dr Danny Sabbah will detail the crit...
The massive computing and storage resources that are needed to support big data applications make cloud environments an ideal fit. In Nati Shalom's upcoming session at 12th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo New York [June 10-13, 2013], you'll learn how to build your big data "database on-demand" using MongoDB, Cassandra, Solr, MySQL, or any other big data solution, as well as manage your big data application using a new open source framework called “Cloudify.” All this, on top of the OpenStack cloud.
SYS-CON Events announced today that MetraTech Corp., the leading provider of agreements-based billing™, commerce and compensation solutions, has been named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
MetraTech Corp. is the leading provider of commerce, billing and compensation solutions enabling customers to monetize relationships with customers, partners, and suppliers. Its unique Agree...
“Trust is an ongoing journey and sits at the foundation of any vendor relationship – the companies that don’t consistently earn trust won’t be around long,” noted Henrik Rosendahl, Senior VP of Cloud Solutions at Quantum, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “As they do more with cloud, trust will organically grow – maybe it’s just about meeting SLAs or seeing firsthand that data is there when you need it,” Rosendahl continued.
Cloud Computing Journal: The move ...
Cloud computing is more than a buzz-phrase it’s a transformative IT paradigm shift. The emphasis in the cloud is on elasticity, scalability, agility and open. Not just open standards but open APIs and open source. The delivery of software is also going through a paradigm shift. Open source software was often a commoditization of a market leader; Unix to Linux or Oracle to MySQL what’s changing is that the iterative nature, user context and the motto of releasing early and often are driving real ...
In an ideal developer/systems administrator’s world, most applications would deploy seamlessly to multiple platforms and scale elastically with minimal effort bringing the unprecedented agility of the cloud within immediate reach of developer teams and IT organizations.
OpenStack, a RackSpace and NASA initiative, is now managed by an independent foundation and is supported by multiple vendors. It defines APIs for compute, storage, networking, services, monitoring, and additional infrastructure...
Storage and Archive offerings are now exploding on the market. From end-user mobile devices to company tactical level, the cloud has become a black hole for every kind of data. But what are the risks, and what are the real needs?
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Alexandre Morel, Cloud Product Manager & Evangelist at OVH.com, will answer questions such as:
How to develop a strategy to use those offers as a base to develop mid and long-term value?
Should companies trust th...
Organizations across the world are increasingly starting to see the benefits of moving more and more services to the cloud. The focus on the cost-saving potential of cloud is rapidly shifting to completely transforming the business with cloud. As organizations are investing enormous sums on technology they are starting to realize that in order to maximize the return on investment and accelerate the business transformation process the first area of focus should be people. By ensuring the organiza...
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