How Should We Measure Clouds?

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Alistair Croll.

There isn’t a simple answer to the above question. First of all, cloud computing is hidden behind a fog of abstraction. Whereas IT organizations could once instrument every element of an application, today’s applications are like Descartes’ brain in a jar — we’re never quite sure if they’re real or virtual.

Second, many cloud service providers’ goals aren’t aligned with those of their customers. Service providers want to maximize revenue and profit and want the freedom to do what they will with the underlying infrastructure. That’s how they make the most of what they have and stay in business. Without that freedom, they lose economies of scale and skill. By contrast, customers want special treatment and instrumentation all the way down the stack…

Third, people don’t really understand metrics well. We still use averages even though they hide important fluctuations in service quality that can warn of problems before they become disasters. But there’s an even bigger problem here. For half a century, IT has been about protecting precious resources. The reason you put up with carrying a stack of punched cards to the basement of the computing building at 3 a.m. was because mainframe resources were scarce and the humans abundant…

Read more from the source @ http://www.informationweek.com/cloud-computing/software/how-should-we-measure-clouds/240151231