tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post4528949926062657651..comments2024-01-16T05:48:33.523-05:00Comments on Errata Security: Cloud Computing is a Commodity, not a UtilityDavid Maynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09921229607193067441noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post-82343391125555438062013-06-29T02:01:26.921-04:002013-06-29T02:01:26.921-04:00I agree with Robert Graham.I agree with Robert Graham.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02411555986166535532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post-58970300864665101912011-10-25T22:15:16.522-04:002011-10-25T22:15:16.522-04:00Although to be fair, Starbucks "coffee" ...Although to be fair, Starbucks "coffee" is more than just the underlying coffee, but the entire morning cafe experience, at which point, I would grant you, it's a "product".Robert Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09879238874208877740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post-12372029304175680602011-10-25T22:07:46.281-04:002011-10-25T22:07:46.281-04:00SamJ: Coffee is a product.
Coffee is a commodity,...SamJ: <b>Coffee is a product.</b><br /><br />Coffee is a commodity, listed on the Wikipedia page defining "commodity". It's a fungible item: if you don't buy it at Starbucks, you can buy some at a different store.Robert Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09879238874208877740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post-8105067409578738012011-10-25T19:33:10.509-04:002011-10-25T19:33:10.509-04:00Coffee is a product.Coffee is a product.Sam Johnstonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08098320462574971299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post-18965142462189252272011-10-25T15:42:48.662-04:002011-10-25T15:42:48.662-04:00In any case the definition of "public utility...<b>In any case the definition of "public utility" (according to Google's dictionary) is "an organization supplying a community with electricity, gas, water, or sewerage". Nothing there about governments *or* regulation.</b><br /><br />If that is your definition of "utility", then everything is a utility, including Starbucks, which supplies coffee to the community.<br /><br />When you limit your definition of "utility" so that it doesn't include "Starbucks", then it no longer includes "cloud" either. That's because cloud is a commodity.<br /><br />You could try "metered". But cloud services aren't really "metered" any more than coffee is "metered" by cup size, or tanning salon time is "metered", or gasoline is "metered".<br /><br />You might try "reliability". But then you get back to government regulation again. Government enforces a one-size-fits-all policy of high-price/high-reliability on utility providers, whereas cloud providers provide a ranging reliability. The $7/month virtual private servers don't provide much reliability, but at insanely low prices.Robert Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09879238874208877740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post-55188351970147073102011-10-25T11:29:06.158-04:002011-10-25T11:29:06.158-04:00I always though the utility comparison was a very ...I always though the utility comparison was a very handy but ultimately flawed analogy; the only way it ever made a lot of sense to me was as a way to help folks understand the concept of always-there, ready to consume, metered compute infrastructure.<br /><br />Helps to bridge the gap between "What do mean, that is MY server, mine, mine, mine" and "It's kind of like salesforce.com but a hell of a lot more useful". But utility falls apart once you get past the rough comparison. There's way too much individuation in how it's consumed, which Rob has very neatly illustrated. Timesharing was utility computing; running bazillions of VMs on a very fancy grid is a different animal. I don't have to punch in a password to the electric co. to turn on the lights in my house.<br /><br /><br />Commiditization of compute via cloud services is definitely well under way, and we're seeing that from the actually racks on up to complex IT services. But that, I'll also quibble with, since server makers, data centers and hosting providers had essentially already done that for many intents and purposes. Dell was selling a hell of a lot of cookie-cutter servers way before AWS came along.<br /><br />What's changing now is the way infrastructure gets provisioned by services like Amazon, things the user never, ever sees but are seismic to the data center world. That's a new and vitally important part of IT commoditization that is 100% driven by cloud. <br /><br />And all that said, it's not a stretch at all to credit both of your points of view; cloud computing has enabled the delivery(and the provisioning) or IT as a commodity- but that delivery is on a utility basis.<br /><br />I don't turn a tap to get pork belly on demand or provision corn futures to run my business, e.g. but I do use (hypothetically) AWS in exactly that fashion. If I'm a software startup , AWS is probably more important to my business than electricity or running water, at this point. A new breed altogether, I'd say.:)EscaperPaperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13363491132598171073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post-41633221290432352972011-10-25T10:53:54.768-04:002011-10-25T10:53:54.768-04:00Did he say he meant "government regulated mon...Did he say he meant "government regulated monopoly" or did you assume that's what he meant? The term "public utility" can refer to a service provided *by* a public body (e.g. government), either directly or indirectly, or to services provided *to* the public — with a shift towards the latter in recent years due to deregulation and privatisation.<br /><br />In any case the definition of "public utility" (according to Google's dictionary) is "an organization supplying a community with electricity, gas, water, or sewerage". Nothing there about governments *or* regulation.Sam Johnstonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08098320462574971299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post-76360918878368348812011-10-25T09:57:50.121-04:002011-10-25T09:57:50.121-04:00The term "public" utility means regulati...The term "public" utility means regulation, or you would use just "utility" alone. McCarthy uses "public", and he meant "government regulated monopoly" even every sense of the term.Robert Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09879238874208877740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post-68249909067791677762011-10-25T07:09:20.994-04:002011-10-25T07:09:20.994-04:00Thanks for your interest in my article — I'll ...Thanks for your interest in <a href="http://samj.net/2011/10/father-of-cloud-computing-dies.html" rel="nofollow">my article</a> — I'll concede that he may be considered [one of] the father[s] of cloud computing, but the only other contendor I'd be considering is Douglas Parkhill who expanded the idea and released "The Challenge of the Computer Utility" some 5 years later. This was truly revolutionary thinking, a full half century before its time.<br /><br />As for your claim that "Cloud Computing is a Commodity, not a Utility", you're mixing issues. Cloud is the delivery of IT, which was traditionally delivered as a product, as a [utility] service — albeit not necessarily a *public* utility. It so happens that the consumerisation and commoditisation of computing has facilitated its delivery at scale using commodity components, but nothing stops me doing it today (albeit uncompetitively) using mainframe technology.<br /><br />There are a number of other questionable claims (such as the suggestion that utility requires regulation) but given the underlying premise is flawed I'm not going to get into them.Sam Johnstonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08098320462574971299noreply@blogger.com