Here Comes the Intercloud

I don’t know who coined the “intercloud” term, but it is a big step forward in defining the enterprise cloud endgame.  See this Cisco blog and recent intercloud preso.

 

As sexy and compelling an idea as it is, the Intercloud would probably today be a bane according to Mark Masterson, who created a brilliant presentation on enterprise cloud security.  In essence he talks about the unintended consequences of larger computing systems with more complexity.

 

I think the gap between the intercloud promise and reality is the network.  That’s why it makes great sense for companies like Cisco to begin educating the market about where it needs to go, and ultimately the automation and management required.  The vision will help to champion the technology required.

 

That means it is time to talk about the challenges of intercloud, before we get too carried away with the promise.  Everyone probably agrees that it will be the most powerful, cost effective and compelling form of cloud computing for the enterprise.  Yet according to Cerf, today’s Internet isn’t ready for the simpler stuff.

 

“One of the most critical needs is authentication, Cerf said, and he told the crowd at a TechAmerica gathering Wednesday that anyone who performs transactions over the Internet — which is everyone — “should be deeply concerned about that technology.”

The lack of authentication is pervasive and is even a problem in simple cases, such as authenticating entries in the domain name system, he said.”

Patrick Thibodeau, Computerworld June 11, 2009

 

There are still issues with management and virtualization, as Denise Dubie suggested in Network World recently:

 

“A majority of IT departments are deploying virtualization, but still most don’t feel comfortable with the tools and technologies they have in place to manage application performance or troubleshoot problems in the virtual environment, according to recent survey results.”

– Denise Dubie, Network World, May 2009

 

More specifically, the gap between today’s network and the intercloud will need to be addressed by more automation and integration around some of the more mundane stuff at the core of the network, like DNS and IP address management, which perform a key role in making sure that network traffic reaches the right place.

 

You can catch some of the buzz about infrastructure 2.0 from the recent Future in Review Conference.