24 March 2014 Posted by Paul Burns
Cisco made an interesting announcement today regarding its cloud computing strategy. In a nutshell, the company announced plans to build – with partners – a global network of clouds dubbed an “intercloud.”
intercloud vs Intercloud
The term “intercloud” borrows from the term “internet” – a collection of interconnected networks. However, note that the term “Internet” (capitalized!) is a single specific example of an internet. The Internet is the single primary network of interconnected networks in our world. Networks on the Internet primarily use the TCP/IP family of communications protocols.
Since there is no widely adopted set of standards akin to TCP/IP on which to base all clouds (no, OpenStack does not fulfill that need), the Cisco vision of an intercloud will be limited to whatever the company and its partners ultimately build. That much is clear. The Cisco version of an intercloud is not and will not become analogous to the Internet.
Microsoft is another company that has announced a similar intent: to build an interconnected set of interoperable clouds. The Microsoft version of an intercloud has the same constraint: it is not and will not become analogous to the Internet.
OpenStack, in its early days, also talked a lot about the development of a set of interoperable clouds run by a variety of cloud service providers. This has not taken hold at all yet, in part because of the slow adoption of OpenStack by cloud service providers. Those providers that have adopted OpenStack have also produced services and architectures that are not interoperable.
A lot more work is needed to produce standards that would enable a single Intercloud. In fact, I do not believe it is even clear yet whether any set of standards can or will emerge to fulfill that need – at least any time soon. Interoperable cloud don’t simply depend on a common API. They also depend on compatible hardware architectures (no, hardware is not fully abstracted in most clouds), common behaviors, and much more.
Is a Cisco “intercloud” a Good Idea?
With all that said, I still count myself a fan of the intercloud concept – even if for now it remains limited to separate, competing interclouds. At least from a competitive perspective. Cisco and Microsoft both stand to become even larger players in the public cloud world (& likely hybrid too), if they can leverage investments, data centers, operations and reach from partners. For example, if Cisco can get more cloud users hooked on its services, it stands to achieve greater profitability and influence in the industry.
From the customer or cloud adopter perspective, it is perhaps a bit more of a mixed bag. Competition in general is good for customers because it drives greater innovation and lower prices. In some ways there is already plenty of competition in this space now. But much of that competition is fragmented, with many smaller players and not many large players. If a Cisco or Microsoft could succeed in building a powerful cartel, they could potentially add some much needed competition to Amazon. That is currently a pretty big “if.”
Mounting a realistic threat to Amazon would also require a much broader set of services (mirroring those from Amazon) as well as unique and powerful differentiators that would attract more customers, particularly developers. I’m not holding my breath yet. Still, an organized cartel could provide increased competition for the likes of IBM.
In any case, even without a real Amazon threat, a cloud alternative that provides extensive global reach with compatible services from many different providers (e.g. Cisco partners) seems to be a good thing for customers. Again, the current state of many smaller infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers means customers do not have sufficient choice when it comes to finding providers with extensive global presence. A partner-powered intercloud could help this.
The real questions about whether this is a good idea will not be fully answered until Cisco actually delivers. For now, this news from Cisco is more of an announcement of strategic direction. We still need to know:
- How many partners will actually commit and deliver
- How compatible these services from separate providers will be
- What breadth and depth of services will be available
- What differentiators the services will offer
- How expensive the services will be and how they will perform
- Whether sufficient customer demand will emerge for these services
- Whether Cisco partners will be required to use Cisco hardware
- and many, many more questions…
I like the Cisco announcement in general, just as I liked the Microsoft announcement. Now we need to see some material results that will answer the most important questions.
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