[Note: this blog was originally published on cloudecosystem.com]
As described in my previous Cloud Ecosystem blog, one of the great debates in the cloud-computing world over the last couple years has been about the two primary types of public infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) clouds: commodity clouds and enterprise clouds. One camp is convinced that commodity clouds are superior, often citing the economic advantages of low cost, commodity hardware and other related efficiencies. The other camp is equally adamant that enterprise clouds provide greater reliability and perhaps even better performance and security.
So which of these perspectives is correct? Which type of cloud should you use? If you read the previous post, you already understand the case for commodity clouds. Now to the case for the enterprise clouds…
In distinct contrast to commodity clouds, enterprise clouds are constructed with enterprise-class hardware. A major underlying objective is to improve infrastructure compatibility between customer data centers and the public cloud environment. Increased compatibility is achieved by using the same quality of server, storage and network gear – and sometimes the same commercial hypervisors – as those found in customer data centers. While infrastructure and software costs for the enterprise-class cloud service providers are higher, the prices they charge customers are sometimes still competitive with those of commodity clouds. They can also be significantly higher… It depends on the specific enterprise cloud in question.
This notion of “it depends on the specific cloud” hints at another important attribute of enterprise clouds: they tend to offer a far greater diversity of features than commodity clouds. Like their private data center counterparts, enterprise clouds may support:
- Both physical and virtual servers
- Greater potential for customization
- More control over network configurations
- Access to more powerful servers
- Higher speed storage and networks
- Etc.
Enterprise clouds from different providers are likely to have vastly more variability in features and capabilities than commodity clouds from different providers. In fact, some enterprise-class clouds offer high-speed InfiniBand networks, solid-state drives (SSD) or even GPU-based servers tuned to the needs of high-performance computing (HPC). Also found in the domain of enterprise clouds are specialty providers that focus on enterprise requirements such as governance and security. For example, a cloud provider focused on security may offer additional capabilities such as DDoS mitigation, application level vulnerability protection and more.
A key challenge for cloud customers is that the vast majority of existing applications were not written to take advantage of the redundancies offered by cloud environments, whether enterprise or commodity. Simply forklifting this type of application into a commodity cloud may impact or restrict several attributes such as scale, performance and reliability. Enterprise clouds provide some relief by offering hardware that more closely matches that found in the customer’s on-premise data center:
- Scale – More powerful servers (e.g. more cores and RAM) enable databases and applications with scale-up architectures to achieve higher scale than on commodity hardware
- Performance – More powerful servers as well as higher performance storage and network devices help applications achieve the same service level agreements (SLA) as when they run in a private data center
- Reliability – Higher quality, more reliable hardware can deliver much greater reliability compared to commodity hardware
Keep in mind that more reliable hardware does not necessarily translate to an overall more reliable cloud. Both commodity and enterprise clouds can suffer from broad outages that impact many or all tenants. The advantage for enterprise clouds is that individual hardware components are less likely to fail. In the case of higher-quality servers, a single application is less likely to fail because of any underlying server hardware issue. This is important for many existing applications that achieve their target levels of availability largely through the reliability of the underlying infrastructure.
If your applications have specialized infrastructure dependencies, an enterprise cloud is likely your best bet. Similarly, if your application was not originally designed to run in a cloud environment – taking advantage of redundancies, leveraging scale-out architectures, etc. – then, once again, an enterprise cloud might be the right choice for you.
As a final note, the debate on commodity versus enterprise clouds should not be an either/or. It should be an AND. The best cloud for you is the one that best suits your applications.
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