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Posts Tagged ‘Cloud Security’

Cloud Computing Taxonomy & Ontology :: Please Review

January 28th, 2009 36 comments

NOTE: Please see the continued discussion in the post titled “Update on the Cloud (Ontology/Taxonomy) Model…“

Updated: 3/28/09 v1.5

There have been some excellent discussions of late regarding how to classify and explain the relationships between the many Cloud Computing models floating about.

I was inspired by John Willis’ blog post this morning titled “Unified Ontology of Cloud Computing” in which he scraped together many ideas on the subject.
I’m building a number of presentations for discussing Cloud Security and I’ve also been working on how to show both the the taxonomy and ontology of various Cloud components and models.  I think it’s really a blind mash-up of many of the things John points to, but the others I’ve seen don’t serve my needs completely.  My goal is to gain consensus on the model and the explore each layer and its security requirements and impacts on the model as a whole.
Here’s my first second third draft based on the awesome feedback I’ve received so far.
I’m not going to explain the layers/levels or groupings because I want people’s reactions and feedback to what they get from the diagram without color from me first.  There will likely be things that aren’t clear enough or even inaccuracies and missing elements.
If you could kindly give me your feedback on your first (unabashed) impressions, I’d really appreciate it.
Thanks!

NOTE: TypePad’s comment subsystem is having problems.  I’m going to close the comments until it’s resolved as the excellent (16 or so) comments are not showing up and I don’t want people adding comments using the old system… Please send me comments via email (choff @ packetfilter.com or via Twitter @beaker) in the meantime.  Thanks SO much.

The comments are working again.  I’ve had 30-40 comments via email/twitter, so if something you wanted to communicate isn’t addressed, fire away below in the comments!

Version 1.5 Diagram (click to expand):

In v1.5 I highlighted the Integration/Middleware layer in a separate color, removed Coghead from the PaaS offering example and made a few other cosmetic alignment changes.

In v1.4 I added the API layer above ‘Applications’ in the SaaS grouping. I split out “data, metadata and content” as three separate elements and added structured/unstructured to the right.  I also separated the presentation layer into “modality and platform.”  Added some examples of layers to the very right.

The v1.4 diagram is here.
The v1.3 diagram is here.
The v1.2 diagram is here.
The v1.1 diagram is here.
The original v1.0 diagram is here.
Categories: Cloud Computing, Cloud Security Tags: , , ,

The Cloud is to Managed Infrastructure as Guitar Hero is to Karaoke…

January 18th, 2009 2 comments

Guitarhero
How many of your friends do you know that would never be caught dead at a karaoke bar belting out 80's hair band tunes and looking like complete tools? 

How
many of them are completely unafraid, however, to make complete idiots of themselves and rock out to the
same musical arrangements in front of total strangers because instead of "karaoke" it's
called "Guitar Hero" and runs on an XBox in the living room rather
than the "Tiki Room" on Wednesday nights?

With all the definitions of the Cloud and the vagaries associated with differentiated value propositions of each, folks have begun to use the phrases "jumping the shark" and "Cloud Computing" in the same breath.

For the sake of argument, if we boil down what Cloud Computing means in simpler and more familiar terms and agree to use rPath's definition (from Cloud Computing in Plain English) as an oversimplified example we get:

Rpath-cloud_english

Where Cloud Computing is the convergence of 3 major trends:

Virtualization: Where applications are separated from infrastructure
Utility Computing: Server Capacity is accessed across a a grid as a variably priced shared service
SaaS: Applications are available on-demand on a subscription basis

Again, overly-simplified example notwithstanding, what's interesting to me — and the reason for the goofy title and metaphor associated with this post — is that with the popularity of "Cloud" becoming the umbrella terminology for the application of proven concepts (above) which harness technology and approaches we already have, we're basically re-branding a framework of existing capabilities and looking to integrate them better.

…oh, and make a buck, too.

That's not to diminsh the impact and even value of the macro-trends associated with Cloud such as re-perimeterization, outsourcing, taking cost of the business, economies of scale, etc., it's just a much more marketable way of describing them.

The cloud: a cooler version of Internet karaoke…

/Hoff

*Image of Triston McIntyre from ITKnowledgeExchange

Categories: Cloud Computing, Cloud Security Tags: , , , , , , ,