DoubleCloud.org

Cloud computing is an evolutionary technology because it doesn’t change the computing stack at all. It simply distributes the stacks between the service providers and the users. In some sense, it is not as impactful as virtualization technology which introduced a new hypervisor layer in the computing stack and fundamentally changed people’s perception about computing with virtual machines.

But if you look closely at the latest IaaS clouds, they do leverage virtualization as a way to effectively and efficiently deploy systems. Inside one virtual machine, the computing stacks remain the same as before: from OS to middleware to application.

Keep in mind that the application is the end while the OS and middleware are the means. Customers care about applications more than the underlying infrastructure. As long as the infrastructure can support the applications, whatever the infrastructure might be is fine technically. Then the question would shift to the economic side: whatever is the most cost effective wins in infrastructure. That’s why Linux gains more shares in the cloud than in traditional IT shops.

To get to the end, you have to take a mean. In the IaaS cloud, you have to install the underlying OS and middleware before you can run your application. For the PaaS cloud, you can get away from that by focusing on application provisioning.

OS Provisioning

Remember, the software stack inside a virtual machine doesn’t change. It needs OS, middleware and application installed and configured before the application can work.  Read more... (1238 words, estimated 4:57 mins reading time)