Cloud Model Value Propositions

Good Morning !  And hope whereever you are, you are safe from the weather gods this season.  We have drought in Texas and the mighty Mississippi and Missouri are flooding.  Mandatory water restrictions in Austin, but we learn to manage, some boat rental and dock businesses are not doing that well though.


Now if there was a "Water Grid" similar to a Power Grid connecting the entire nation.  Wait a minute !.  The Power Grids also do not always work with each other.  The physical constraints of transporting power with transmission losses are subject to distances as well as protocols that make it easy or hard to exchange power, depending on the configuration and set-up and interoperability and of course, some politics.

Figure 1. Cloud Computing Deployment Models

I've come to believe this is life...and such things happen in the Cloud Computing space as well, while there are initiatives like the OpenStack movement, helping to create common standards, yet for Clouds to truly inter-operate with each other, we have some work ahead of us.  (Hint Define: Interoperability)

Which makes me get all passionate about Hypervisor fragmentation and how that is one of the many challenges the Cloud Computing Industry faces today.  That is often one of the key items for Cloud Interoperability in Hybrid Clouds. That will be the subject of another post.



Recently presenting at conferences and meeting customers, I wanted to share my summary thoughts on the value propositions of Public, Private and Hybrid Cloud models.  Disclaimer: These are summary level items,  and for a full evaluation of all your dimensions, you will likely need to delve a big deeper.



Let us first get a high-level summary of what Private, Public and Hybrid Cloud deployments models may look like.  Figure 1 outlines these - a simple way to visualize things are "inside the firewall" or "outside the firewall".  Virtual Private Cloud is a special case inside a Public Cloud although the definition can vary.

Figure 2. Public Cloud Value Proposition

As you can see, a Public Cloud is a great way to totally move your expenses to opex vs. capex.  And buy capacity as you grow your business.

Figure 2. Private Cloud Value Propositio

Private Cloud is all about control. You are in charge of your roadmap and Cloud Journey and destiny.  Of course, some cost center would be capitalizing and then others may rely on an internal subscriber-basis.

Figure 3. Hybid Cloud Value Proposition

The only similarity between a Toyota Prius or a Chevy Volt or other hybrids and a Hybrid Cloud is that they use two or more Deployment models (Gas and Electric Engine).  Analogies apart, it means having some computing assets in a non-cloud, some in a Public Cloud, some in a Private Cloud, or some combination in-between.


With that, over and out, until my next posting.