back to article The Open Cloud Manifesto in full

This is the text of the Open Cloud Manifesto - it came from someone who disagrees with its sentiments. Maybe there are shades of the Aperi process here with companies feeling they are being bulldozed into signing something they haven't had a hand in developing? On the other hand, expecting Microsoft to join in with a bunch of …

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  1. Mitchell Ratner

    The Cloud is not a new concept, but is finally gaining traction

    We've heard about utility computing, autonomic computing, dynamic data centers, and the goals of each. Cloud computing is a convergence of the best concepts of each, and now is the time to actually begin implementation on a private scale, without interoperability standards, within the corporate data center. This will allow customers to begin realizing its value today.

    Vendor of hardware and software, servers, networking, security, storage all have to come to grips with how interoperable clouds will change their product lines. It is a very exciting time to be in the industry, and it will take cooperation from all vendors to enable this vision to come to its complete fruition.

    The design goals need to be simplicity, ease of use, built-in security, manageable service levels and interoperability. The gains to the end-user customer must be very tangible immediately upon deployment.

    One can envision a day where datacenters are scalable enough with sufficient security to allow their own resources to be shared amongst a set of external users, publishing their capacity for sharing in a public manner, and when available, external users can rent the time and capacity needed to handle the "cloud bursts" of activity they cannot handle in their own private environment. Any data center can be available for rent, not simply external cloud providers. The technology will enable any data center to also be an external cloud provider.

    Regards,

    Mitch

  2. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Be Careful what you Wish for ..... for IT makes the Much Bigger Picture Available.

    Now just simply replace the word cloud with government and you will start to understand the Nature of ITs Being ......One of ITs Beings.

    And Run the Best Cloud has One Running Everything in the Open and/but Stealthily, for whoever would Appreciate the Provision of ITs Virtual Control and Cover/Storms/Rains.

  3. Doug
    Linux

    why Microsoft objects ..

    The reason why Microsoft objects is that they invented 'cloud computing' :)

  4. Stephen Channell
    Gates Halo

    www.opencloudmanifesto.com says it all!

    I was amazed at how comprehensive the Microsoft Azure products was (even with the initial odd SQL Services). Not just a platform, but an architecture blueprint..

    The alternative is “under construction”

  5. jake Silver badge

    BINGO!

    First paragraph, even. Rare, that.

    It's hype. Ignore it.

  6. David Kairns

    Cloud Computing

    **Miserable** idea for important data or computing no matter any gains.

    It simply allows other access to your data.

    It also allows someone else to potentially shut you down hard, lock you out.

    In other words, Cloud Computing Sucks.

  7. greatfog
    Joke

    Open Cloud Considered Harmful

    1. Security and integration require competent designers working on realistic schedules. Prudently managed businesses avoid such expenses and such impediments to early market entry. Portability and interoperability provide unacceptable advantages to competitors. Governance/management and metering/monitoring are acceptable business areas, but only if served through proprietary products and well-protected intellectual property.

    2. Businesses offering insecure and unscalable products must lock customers into a particular platform, or they will lose sales to well-design, effective, and interconnectable alternatives.

    3. The IT industry investment in existing standards and standards organizations is income lost to businesses entering the Cloud market. An entering organization will assure a healthy revenue stream by rendering existing IT investments obsolete.

    5. Community effort driven by customer needs will reveal shortcomings in providers' offerings, leading to loss of income and prestige. Before satisfying customer requirements, a business must first minimize costs, maximize profitability, and increase market share.

    6. Standards organizations eliminate product differentiation and thereby destroy a firm's advantage of marketing a unique product. Advocacy groups and communities interfere with cost reduction efforts by publicizing ineffective products and unethical practices. A business best reinforces its equity and credit positions with re-engineering-prevention licenses, non-disclosure agreements, and agressive patent and intellectual property litigation.

    (Disclaimer: I am not now, not have I ever been, an employee, shareholder, or creditor of Microsoft.)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How many aliases does Grahamanfromarse have here?

    "One can envision a day where datacenters are scalable enough with sufficient security to allow their own resources to be shared amongst a set of external users, publishing their capacity for sharing in a public manner, and when available, external users can rent the time and capacity needed to handle the "cloud bursts" of activity they cannot handle in their own private environment. Any data center can be available for rent, not simply external cloud providers."

    You mean, like, back to the days of MVS on mainframes and VMS on minis and (super)micros? Hey, it's fine by me, no worries with conficker there, not even much of a worry with respect to standards and interoperability (why would there be, there'd be no MS in the picture) but all those MCPs/MCSEs/etc are going to have to redefine what their M is for.

  9. jake Silver badge

    @Mitch, @amfM, David & greatfog, @Doug, @Stephen

    Mitch: You know, we already have all that. Trouble is, how many corporations are going to trust the IT of another corporation with their data? The answer is "none".

    amfM, David & greatfog: Exactly.

    Doug: Nope. Microsoft never invented anything, they just commercialized it. Look into IBM's early mainframes, which lead into SNA in the early '70s. Same basic idea of "cloud computing", given the limited hardware & networking infrastructure that was available back then.

    Stephen: Enjoy your Cool-Aid[tm].

  10. F Seiler

    A title is required.

    (TL;DR)

    >>A call to action for the worldwide cloud community

    Does this refer to more than two people who are not authors of the text? :)

  11. Lars Silver badge
    Happy

    Nothing new and still something new

    "some" time ago punch cards where sent to the "basement" to be processed bye the experts with the equipment.

    In the "cloud" the data is digital and no truck is needed.

    Nothing wrong about that.

    The new thing is words like standards, open, non-proprietary, no-lock-in like behind these sentences.

    "and the potential pitfalls of proprietary technologies that can lead to lock-in and limited choice."

    "to come together around the notion of an open cloud."

    No wonder Microsoft is pissed off as it is against their very "soul".

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Yeah, sure

    i think i am just going to keep my data right here - under my left hand, so its mine, and anyone who wants it has to get through my computer first, not a crappily protected server somewhere.

    hah hah hah!

    *cradles laptop, and scuttles away*

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Site is online

    Well , the list is dang impressive .. the only player missing is Microsoft

    You didnt seriously beleive they would actually be on the consumer side now did you ?

    Now that this is cleared , we have to wait and see it the good intentions lead anywhere.

    Guess we're slated for an update to this story in 2 years see where it got us.

    Ric

  14. Lager And Crisps
    Jobs Horns

    ...these are my toys, MINE ,MINE, MINE!!!

    Microsoft and the word "open" in the same sentence, I doubt that very much. The Redmond outfit don't want to play nice with anyone. They want to be the only choice, and are willing to spend billions to achieve this goal.

    "I was amazed at how comprehensive the Microsoft Azure products was (even with the initial odd SQL Services). Not just a platform, but an architecture blueprint..

    The alternative is “under construction”."

    Wow, just wow. How much of that Kool-Aid have you consumed? It seems to have the same hallucigenetic qualities many class "A" drugs are renowned for.

  15. Daniele Futtorovic
    Stop

    Get a grip, y'all

    *Of course* when Microsoft speaks of "openness" it means "the way we can rake the most profit in".

    But so do bloody Google and bloody IBM and bloody whatnot.

    Wake the fuck up, folks! It took you a few decades, and you've learned to distrust every latest hype from M$. Very good. But then there comes another bunch of rascals with a new shiny green image and you woot and cheer and clap and dance all anew. But it's the same old thing, dammit. Get a grip. I don't wanna have to wait even one decade.

    While it's sooo simple. Big bucks says "good" => good for them. Big bucks says "bad" => bad for them.

    [Good for big bucks] => [you got big bucks] ? [Good for you] : [Bad for you]

    (and we're talking biiiiig bucks here, not your puny savings account)

    df.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a joke...

    Cloud computing has been around under different names for decades. It's nothing more than hype; this sales cycle's shiney new marketing term and attendant collection of buzz words to dupe CIOs into buying something that they probably already have or never really needed.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Lager And Crisps

    Thanks mate, you saved me from writing much the same thing myself.

    Really this whole uproar that MS is making over this cloud manifesto is much ado about nothing. The ONLY reason they give a damn is because they aren't going to be able to totally and utterly control every aspect of cloud computing.

    BTW I'll pay big money to make this whole shitty notion of "cloud computing" being the savior of IT go away. It was a crap idea twenty odd years ago, it's a crap idea now.

  18. Snert Lee

    Allergic reactions?

    Did they pass out some antihistamine with their manifesto? 'Cause I'm sure there were allergic reactions to things such as:

    "2. Cloud providers must not use their market position to lock customers into their particular platforms and limiting their choice of providers."

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tiger his pinstripe suit

    i.e. same pattern, different cover... still an angry cat with big claws inside....

    Some observations:

    The cloud concept is not new, but the multi-vendor 'happy shiny cloud club' approach is. The question is however, which vendors are going to win in this new slice+dice end-state?

    As for 'can I trust this cloud thingy with my data etc', well that question is already out in the wild, re: outsource your IT... data: will they lose it, screw it, share it or sell it off? A matter of trust, which has more than a few seeds of suspicion anyway.

    For example, say you have outsourced some of your UK or USA-based infrastructure with explicit local-only support access to it. If there is a possibility of outage and breaching SLA's you don't think for an instant outsourcer doesn't have foreign workers looking after your infrastructure remotely from their home country so they don't breach SLA? And of course you'd know a-l-l about ... uh-huh... (an FD 4 years ago went from tanned face to ashen white in seconds after I'd told him "if they can see your UK data in India, they can copy it - data export anyone?") ROFLMAO...

    An amusing outcome: cloud computing ideals come of age, everyone hauls it back inhouse and get a better/faster/more agile infrastructure because its cheaper than farming it out, which now includes a reeling back in of offshore contracts - oh yeah, its safer too. External cloud organisations perhaps leveraged for peak/overload scenarios.

    Maybe going back to the old days of some software development is outsourced but the 'stuff' stays in your basement?

  20. jake Silver badge

    @Murray Hynd

    "The cloud concept is not new, but the multi-vendor 'happy shiny cloud club' approach is."

    No, it fucking is NOT new! Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, people ... Have you "pro-cloud" fucktards (cloudtards? Hmmm ... I kinda like that ...) even bothered to look at how the Internet itself works, much less the history of the very medium that you are using? In the early days, I could use processing power & storage pretty much anywhere ... and it could still be that way, in todays world. Trouble is that anyone could see what I was doing back then. There was no privacy. The same is true today.

    "As for 'can I trust this cloud thingy with my data etc', well that question is already out in the wild, re: outsource your IT... data: will they lose it, screw it, share it or sell it off? A matter of trust, which has more than a few seeds of suspicion anyway."

    ::rolls eyes::

    We went thru' all this in the late '70s as what we now call "The Internet" was being developed ... Basically, the bottom line is that sharing the cost of the links (I pay my end, you pay yours [and it was dial-up @200bps {or sometimes Switched56} back then]), but data and processing is best kept protected and local, for all kinds of reasons.

    Connectivity is good. Allowing all and sundry access to sensitive data is bad.

    Yes, encryption is stronger today. I'd rather use the CPU cycles to keep the data local.

    People who forget history are doomed to repeat it ...

  21. jake Silver badge

    Appropos of mine, 3rd April 06:26

    See this post to alt.folklore.computers, dated today (Sunday the 5th):

    m3ws9zb091.fsf@garlic.com

    If you don't grok usenet, ask for help. Or just google the above Message-ID. No, that's not my post. I do know and trust the poster in RealLife[tm], especially when it comes to knowledge of the early days of computing ... At the moment, I don't know if there are any replies to mine ... it would appear the mods are taking the weekend off (hell, *I* would! :-)

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