The Case for Application Driven Cloud Computing
Adam Davis@itheresy
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davisa/
A little context about my perspective…
Systems Admin
Information Security
Infra Engineering
Application Architecture
Cloud/DevOps
All good things must come to an end
• My job was to care for pets instead of herding cattle
• Lack of standardization across application teams
• Not a cost effective use of resources
• Industry moved to shared services functions
• Gave rise to ITSM and application of frameworks like ISO20000, ITIL, ISO9001, Six Sigma
Where we originally aspired to…
Photo Credit: dsearls@flickr
Instead, we wound up with…
FORD AND HIS MODEL TA little diversion
In 1913, Henry Ford is widely credited for having perfected the modern assembly line
Efficiencies were gained through standardized parts and assembly and limited variation
Moving the work from one worker to another until it became a complete unit, then arranging the flow of these units at the right time and the right place to a moving final assembly line from which came a
finished product
Reducing the production time of an entire Model T from 12.5 hours to 93 minutes with less manpower
What’s next?... Automation!
Automation needs to be fit for purpose and not constrained by the procedure it replaces
But for enterprise cloud computing, that’s exactly what we are building
Photo Credit: dsearls@flickr
Yes… There is efficiency here, but it is not victory.
If we are going to invest in architecting our applications differently for cloud-scale, shouldn’t we re-architect how
we host them?
Machine Templates
IT organizations are chartered with adding value through the delivery
of business applications
There are too many layers of indirection
Application
Platform as a Service
Infrastructure as a Service
Software Defined Compute
Software Defined Networks
Software Defined Storage
We’ve made great strides in autonomic infrastructure
• Software defined everything
• Autonomic infrastructure agents
What if we had autonomic application management?
Application
Application
Application
Application
Aren’t our platforms just applications?
PlatformApplication
Application
Application
What if the applications had a means to communicate directly with the autonomic platforms and infrastructure?
PlatformApplication
Application
Application
Compute
Network
Storage
Proposed alternative model – Autonomic all the way down
Applications
Lightweight Platforms
Software Defined Compute
Software Defined Networks
Software Defined Storage
Thank you.
