Transcript
Page 1: Cloud Taxonomy: Platform vs Infrastructure

www.appistry.com

The Cloud “Pyramid”

Applications, Platform, Infrastructure

Sam Charrington

Appistry

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Page 2: Cloud Taxonomy: Platform vs Infrastructure

www.appistry.com

Cloud Infrastructure… • Provides access to “Compute” and

“Storage” instances, on-demand

• Based an virtualization technology

• Advantages: Full control of environments and infrastructure

• Disadvantages: Provide little or no abstraction

• Examples: Amazon EC2, GoGrid, Amazon S3, Nirvanix, Linode

Page 3: Cloud Taxonomy: Platform vs Infrastructure

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What About the Applications?

After a few hours, the fog of hype starts to lift and it becomes

apparent that the clouds are pretty much shared servers just

as the Greek gods are filled with the same flaws as

earthbound humans. Yes, these services let you pull more CPU

cycles from thin air whenever demand appears, but they can't

solve the deepest problems that make it hard for applications

to scale gracefully. Many of the real challenges lie at the

architectural level, and simply pouring more server cycles on

the fire won't solve fundamental mistakes in design.

Page 4: Cloud Taxonomy: Platform vs Infrastructure

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The Challenge: Cloud Presents New Application Requirements

• Modular, service-oriented

• Unpredictable load

• Dynamic

• Distributed

• Connected

• Multi-tenant

Traditional Application Infrastructure Wasn’t Built to Meet

the Requirements of Cloud Applications

Page 5: Cloud Taxonomy: Platform vs Infrastructure

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The Solution: Cloud Platforms

• Abstract applications across individual cloud servers (“application virtualization”)

• Ensure application QoS: scalability, reliability, availability

• Provide run-time services for cloud applications via APIs, e.g. state, workload management

• Simplify and automate appdeployment and management

Cloud Platforms Provide the Glue that Allows Cloud

Applications to Fully Leverage Cloud Infrastructure

Page 6: Cloud Taxonomy: Platform vs Infrastructure

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Cloud LayersInfrastructure vs. Platform

Characteristic Infrastructuree.g. Amazon EC2

Platforme.g. Appistry EAF, Google App Engine

Scope Virtual Machine Application

Management Manual; machine-by-machine Automated; single step

Ease-of-use Easy to provision new infrastructure

Easy to build/migrate cloud-enabled applications; cut time-to-market

Scalability Create new servers on demand Applications scale linearly

Risk Reduce infrastructure investment Reduce project/development risk

Reliability Reliable infrastructure Reliable applications

Cost Pay only for what you use; use only what you need

Enable application agility and reduce development costs

Security Provide secure infrastructure Enable secure applications

Page 7: Cloud Taxonomy: Platform vs Infrastructure

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Hosted Cloud Platforms (“PaaS”)

Provides platform benefits, but:

• Focus on single application stack (e.g. Ruby, Python)

• Lock applications to single cloud infrastructure provider

• Restricted to available services, e.g. can’t use SQL compliant DBs

as-a-Service

Page 8: Cloud Taxonomy: Platform vs Infrastructure

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Cloud Application Platforms

• Delivered as software

• Used in-cloud or on-premise

• Support standard enterprise software development stacks (e.g. Java, .NET, C++ via Eclipse, Visual Studio)

• Provide portability across cloud environments

• Provide essential services such as data caching and workload management

Cloud App.


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