Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Another argument is cloud interoperability, which is how separate clouds from different
organizations can interact with each other to form larger clouds and a bigger ecosystem
for collaboration. The question here is whether these organizations would really need or at
all want to have this shared ecosystem. We imagine that would be quite bad for business if
the organizations in question are profit-oriented ones. It might work for educational and
research organizations, but these types of entities are historically known to embrace open-
source solutions, so they would already be in the position to share and merge because most
likely they will already be using a form of OpenStack. Profit-oriented organizations will be
hard-pressed to collaborate with each other, and even when they want to collaborate with
educational institutions and research organizations, they can simply create an interface
between the two clouds. So this is another nonissue.
In the end, it all boils down to choice and adoption. Those companies that choose open
source will see a wide adoption in the industry, and those companies that choose proprietary
want none of that openness in the first place. So the final factor in the battle between open
source and proprietary is simply the needs and desires of the organization. All organizations
will think twice and really plan their move to the cloud, and their choice, open source or
proprietary, will be based on their business needs and their stance regarding their future use
of that infrastructure. It is not a battle of which is better; it's simply choice. If what an orga-
nization needs can't be provided by the open-source option, the proprietary infrastructure is
best for them.
Summary
With technology moving quickly for business and consumer applications, it is becoming
more evident that cloud computing is the direction the industry needs to take. But it must
be noted that the cloud is a concept, or rather an application of a concept on distribution
and usage of computing resources, and is not an entirely new and separate technology in
need of its own unique constructs and infrastructure. Simply put, cloud computing is a bet-
ter way of using finite resources. What that means is that it is not running on entirely dif-
ferent hardware compared to traditional on-premises enterprise computing; it's merely an
evolution of it.
As for the data center that runs cloud or traditional IT, it can be interchangeable
depending on the need. But the importance of good design cannot be stressed enough. We
are talking about millions of dollars in cost, so efficiency and reliability should always be
at the core of data center design no matter the purpose, be it cloud or on-premises.
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