Resilience was probably the biggest killer of the original IT model and gave rise to the PC almost by itself. Despite cloud computing being the ideal solution for IT architecture, the repeated and sustained or catastrophic breakdowns of mainframes led users to revolt against the tyranny of the IT director. The phrase that sends shudders though the souls of many middle-aged ex-programmers is “unscheduled outage” as hours of work would be lost to some minor bug on a given server. Evolution eventually kicked in with the concept of transferable workloads -- technology which can take a running application from a problematic server to another server with no interruption.
Bizarrely the network was probably the least of the problems. ARPAnet, the forerunner of the Internet, was up and running in the 80s and although designated for military use quickly proved itself within the academic community. But at an original 50Kbps, compared to today’s multi-Megabit throughputs, there is no doubt that broadband has transformed the landscape for cloud computing.
Probably the most emotive issue in IT is the end-user experience. Grown men have cried at the prospect of rebooting Windows Vista and previous experiences of cloud computing were little different. We expect and have a right to an IT experience that delivers the goods. An ATM machine, a great example of existing cloud computing, should not take three minutes working out whether it will or won’t pour out cash. But so many factors affect that experience that IT directors have previously been powerless to control the experience. The era of virtualisation has radically transformed that equation as the IT professional can now isolate, prioritise and manage applications to deliver a fantastic experience to users.
Finally is the age-old issue of cost. Every new era of IT has promised much, but at extra cost. PC networks, client-server computing, server-based computing – all of them demanded an extravagant outflow for the promises of a return tomorrow. Cloud computing is the very first that actually costs less. By harnessing the scalability and resilience provided through virtualisation, and by using the global networks that now exist, it delivers the massively improved user experience at a lower cost.
And if you need proof, look at any of the combatants in providing Cloud Computing – Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle – and ask them if they use virtualisation at the core of their infrastructure. They all do. If the drip, drip, drip effect of cloud computing works for some of the most popular IT services of today, you can be sure it will seep into mainstream IT soon.
Paul Harapin is VMware's Australia and New Zealand Vice President