

How cloud vendors can be evil? - mohit
http://www.mohitsoni.com/blog/2009/06/how-cloud-vendors-can-be-evil/

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erikwiffin
"People use banks because banks operates on certain standards and laws, which
enables easier movement of money from one bank to another for bank customers.
Cloud vendors should also frame certain laws and standards, that will enable
moving of data from one cloud vendor to another in future."

I really like this idea, but how does one enforce/regulate those kinds of
standards? I feel like google is putting forth a pretty good effort with their
protocol based wave, but they have an amazing amount of clout to throw around
and are increasingly being accused of being monopolists because of it. A lot
of developers could choose to avoid any standard Google puts forward, because
anything Google does is _obviously_ only done to promote their own self-
interest.

As it gets easier and cheaper to set up cloud servers, I can only foresee a
further splintering of existing protocols. If I were to set up my own cloud
server, chances are I would build some kind of personalized REST based
platform because that's what I know and am comfortable with. It would serve my
purposes, but it may not serve my competetion's cloud server. Who would build
their own API. How does this ever coalesce into one standardized protocol?

~~~
lsc
it is in the best interest of larger, more established players to lock you in
by using proprietary, patent protected, and/or complex APIs. Smaller players,
on the other hand, want to grow, often by undercutting the larger players on
cost (the entire market here is priced massively above the costs I see, so
just about anyone with a few servers can come in and be 1/2 to 1/4th market
price.) In that case, the smaller players desperately want it to be easy to
move from one provider to another.

The current situation is that only complex APIs exist.

The problem is that the smaller players often don't have the resources to deal
with a more complex API.

I think what we need is a 'simplest thing that could possibly work' API that
is easy for good SysAdmins (who may not be good programmers) to integrate into
their own system.

But then, I haven't really played much with Eucalyptus. maybe I am wrong about
it being too complex. I should throw up a server with Eucalyptus and see what
happens.

------
lsc
"Never put data into a program unless you can see exactly how to get it out"

this is key.

------
mohit
I think Cloud vendors should come forward proactively, and frame a set of
standards for interoperability in the cloud. An inspiration could be taken
from the Virtulization industry, that came up with OVF (Open Virtualization
Format).

