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A Standardized Cloud Performance Rating System

Is there a simple way to compare the performance, security and quality of various cloud computing providers?

Ever get one of those random phone calls in the midst of your work day that makes you think, huh -- interesting idea? Well earlier today I had one from a guy looking to learn more about cloud computing platforms. Although it ended up he wasn't specifically looking for an elastic computing platform, he did ask a few very thought provoking questions.

What he asked was if there is a simple way to compare the performance, security and quality of various cloud computing providers? He went on to say that when comparing traditional hardware vendors it was easy for him to understand the standardized specifications (GHZ, GB, etc) as well as determine quality based on brand recognition, but in the cloud world there was no easy way for him to compare "apples to apples". In his words, "there is Amazon and then there is everyone else". Although overly simplified, he was kind of right. For a lot of people looking to get into the cloud, it's a bit of a mystery.

This got me thinking. With all the talk lately of cloud standards, is there an opportunity to create a common or standard Cloud Performance Rating System? And if so, how might it work?

Unlike CPU or Storage, Cloud Computing is significantly more complex involving many different moving parts (deployment approaches, architectures and operating models). Defining one common standardized basis of comparison would be practically impossible. But within the various aspects of cloud computing there certainly are distinct areas that we may be able to quantify. The most likely starting point would be infrastructure related offerings such as compute and storage clouds.

The next question is what would you rate? Quality, performance, security? And how might these be actually quantified?

I'm going to leave those answers for another time. But it does make you think. So thank you random guy for brightening up an otherwise rainy day.

Read the original blog entry...

More Stories By Reuven Cohen

Reuven Cohen is Founder & CTO for Toronto based Enomaly Inc. - leading developer of Cloud Computing products and solutions focused on enterprise businesses. Enomaly's products include the Enomaly elastic computing platform, an open source cloud platform that enables a scalable enterprise IT and local cloud infrastructure platform. Cohen is a thought leader in the emerging cloud computing industry and maintains a blog at www.elasticvapor.com.

Reuven is also founder of several technology organizations;
Enomaly.com - Elastic Computing Platform (Cloud Computing),
Cloud Camp - Local Cloud Computing events,
the Unified Cloud Interface Project - Semantic Cloud Abstraction API
Cloud Interoperability Forum - Cloud Standards Group.

(twitter @ruv : Linkedin : RSS Feed)

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