Cloud computing License Mode user friendliness need to be vigilant

Cloud computing License Management, the cloud computing license model, should focus on the ability to migrate applications and data in virtual environments (data centers, private clouds, and public clouds). It includes license mobility or mobile application and operating system licenses between different virtual environments, for example:

• Between different virtual hosts in the Virtual data center

• Between different hosts in the public cloud

• Between different hosts in a private cloud

• Between virtual data centers and public clouds

• Private cloud and public cloud

• Public cloud and another public cloud

In the traditional sense, there are three basic types of hardware and software licenses:

1. By User: The user is granted a license to use the application or connect to the operating system.

2. By device: An application or operating system is granted a license by device or by processor model.

3. Enterprise: This license mode covers all users and devices.

Even if these license structures still exist and are applied to hardware and software, some of them may also produce some non user-friendly cloud-computing license patterns. In virtual data centers, VMware has introduced vmotion to achieve dynamic migration of virtual machines (VMS) between virtual hosts. However, technology implementations are not simply migrating applications and their data from one cloud computing environment to another, and vice versa, mainly because there are often significant differences between implementations of cloud computing.

In cloud computing, the number of servers that meet demand-managed applications is dynamically increased based on uptime, reliability, stability, and performance. This dynamic automatic increment and decrease function can help the enterprise to alleviate the problem that the software license cost is too high.

Three options for cloud computing software licenses

Whatever your source and target environment for migrating applications and data, you may encounter a variety of software license issues. In the cloud computing license model, companies typically have three basic choices: proprietary software licensing, commercial open source software licensing, and community open source software licensing, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, open source software licensing has fewer restrictions on customers, and proprietary software licensing usually includes support from vendors.

"If cloud-computing providers are licensed by software vendors, the debate over software and open source software in cloud computing may become more beneficial to proprietary software," William Vambenepe said in his blog. The controversy is mainly due to the fact that cloud computing providers and manufacturers have removed the most common problems of cloud license management in the user experience.

Removing license management may not be a big problem for big customers with Enterprise license agreements, Vambenepe added. With better, friendlier cloud license management options, businesses will not have to track license usage and rebuilding. In addition, when moving to a production environment, users do not have to worry about changes from development licenses to production licenses.

Proprietary software licenses have historically been static and binding to specific locations and hardware. While this approach opens up a more dynamic platform for the enterprise, it does not have to be required to run in a virtual data center or cloud computing environment. The proprietary software licensing model has not followed this shift.

But you can't entirely hope for proprietary cloud computing software, and commercial Open-source software has its own limitations and challenges. Open source software vendors such as Eucalyptussystems and cloud.com have a license model similar to the proprietary software vendor's license structure.

Commercial open source application vendors usually implement the functionality of the closed code, which does not apply to the underlying Open-source project code. These features are not shared with the communities concerned until they are considered to be no longer competitive. Some people think that commercial Open-source software is "open to all software, but paid users can get better service." ”

Eucalyptus BAE is a typical representative of commercial open source software or Open-source nuclear cloud computing vendors. It provides two versions of Eucalyptus cloud computing software: Eucalyptus Community Edition and Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition 2.0 (commercial edition). The Community edition available for free download from the Eucalyptus Software project website does not include support. Eucalyptus Bae is a major contributor to the Eucalyptus project.

Eucalyptus Enterprise version 2.0 is the closed source version of Eucalyptus Open source project. It grants licenses based on the number of processor cores on the physical host server. Eucalyptus system is based on Eucalyptus Open source project code, adds new features, provides support, and collects license fees. Any additional functionality is closed-source; but one industry insider said in its blog that the features reserved for the Eucalyptus Enterprise version are now open source.

On the other hand, the community open source cloud computing software is almost unlimited, you can unlimited number of users, unlimited number of running servers, unlimited number of processors to issue licenses. As long as your staff has enough qualifications, community open source cloud computing software even allows access to code and make changes. If the community open source cloud computing software is limited enough to meet the specific needs of your business, you can develop it yourself without waiting for the next release. You can implement the relevant functions yourself, send them to the Community open source software project team, and persuade them to incorporate these new features into their mainstream release. There is no license fee involved, but the costs involved include the amount of work that your software team has spent coding to implement the new functionality. At the same time, you need to provide your own support, or hire a third party to deal with the relevant support issues.

OpenStack is a typical representative of community open source cloud computing software. The Open-source software has been supported by a number of large vendors, including Dell, HP, Intel, Citrix, and Rackspace, and is expected to be a powerful candidate for open standards for cloud computing. If the product becomes an open standard for cloud computing, it will largely address the lingering interoperability and application mobility problems that linger over the cloud, and can greatly simplify license issues in mixed clouds.

Cloud.com, acquired by Citrix in July 2011, also provides a closed source version of its Cloudstack software. Cloud.com's Cloudstack 2.0 Community Edition is an open source infrastructure, a service software platform, that can be run under the GNU General Public License. The Cloudstack 2.0 Community Edition allows users to build, manage, and deploy cloud computing environments, free of charge and supported by the cloud.com community.

The Cloudstack 2.0 Enterprise Edition is open source and includes closed source code. It comes with an Enterprise subscription feature setup and business support. Cloud.com's Cloudstack 2.0 service provider version is also open source and includes closed source code. It also provides a service provider with a management software and infrastructure technology to manage their own public cloud.

Commercially licensed Open-source software comes from a single vendor-controlled Open-source project, and vendors sometimes limit contributions from third parties. The problem of attribution of copyright and the inability to track code contribution are the two main reasons why suppliers limit external contributions.

Red Hat has established Red Hat cloud access programs to enable customers to migrate Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions between their own hosted infrastructure and Amazon resilient Cloud Computing (EC2). Customers can accept Red Hat support by using standard license-supported contracts and methods, but not all licenses are eligible to use Red Hat cloud access.

Customers need to have at least 25 active additional subscriptions and maintain a direct support relationship with Red Hat. Customers who indirectly accept Red Hat support through third-party or hardware OEM vendors, such as HP and IBM, are not eligible. This extra subscription will cost US $1,299 per year for each server with up to two processors, or $2,499 per year for each server with three or more processors. In addition, one virtual machine can only use a single subscription at a time.

Introduction to the license model of Microsoft and Oracle

Large vendors of proprietary software, such as Microsoft and Oracle, have a more complex cloud-licensing model. But the two companies are trying to make cloud computing license management more user-friendly and cheaper, and this is a benign requirement to maintain a certain profit margin.

In July 2011, Microsoft proposed the concept of cloud computing mobility, which allows users to use current license agreements to facilitate the relocation of server applications from the data center to the cloud. Customers can enjoy the benefits of license mobility for SQL Server, Exchange server, SharePoint server, Lync server, System Center, and dynamic CRM. One limitation of Microsoft's license mobility is that customers with volume licenses can migrate licenses only within 90 days of different environments. For example, if you move Exchange Server to Amazon EC2, you can't move it back to the internal server until the initial 90-day limit expires. If you are determined to move back, you will need to purchase another license for your internal server.

But there is a problem. Microsoft's License mobility applies only to customers who have purchased additional software guarantees (SAS), which cost almost another license; Typically, the server SA is only 25% of the license fee and is valid for up to three years. Customers who want to deploy Windows Server instances in the cloud cannot continue to use their existing licenses. They must buy a new license.

Although Windows Server data center licenses do not limit the number of virtual machines installed on physical hosts, they are much more expensive. It is clear that Microsoft has consciously limited the scope of its licenses and has maintained higher margins while giving greater cloud mobility.

Generally, an enterprise agreement with SA applies to customers with more than 250 users and devices. If smaller customers without a volume license agreement decide to move applications from the internal data center to cloud computing services, they will have to pay again.

Amazon offers a simpler strategy for Amazon EC2 customers who want to use Windows Server instances. Customers simply pay Amazon for the time they use (hours); they don't have to buy a license from Microsoft. However, using a Windows Server instance on Amazon EC2 is no more expensive than using a Linux instance.

Oracle is another large proprietary software vendor with a complex, expensive cloud computing license model. When customers have cloud-computing licenses for Oracle applications, even if multiple virtual cores share a physical kernel, they must treat each virtual kernel as a physical kernel. Software licenses for Oracle companies depend on the Oracle database version, the software environment, and whether you obtain licenses based on the specified user or on the number of processors. Neeraj Bhatia on its blog for more detailed information on the complexity and cost of Oracle Database Edition licenses in the cloud computing environment.

Cloud Computing License confusion for the time being no solution

All cloud computing software license models, other than community open source software, have yet to catch up with the flexibility and mobility of cloud computing. This means that when you use an Open-source product, such as Red Hat, and sell subscriptions to vendors, proprietary software vendors, and commercial open source software vendors, you may have to endure a nightmare-like complex cloud license model. While community open source cloud computing software is not that bad at this point, you still have to find a way to support it.

Currently, there are two best ways to develop, run, and authorize with minimal license complexity: One is to use open source software tools such as lamp, and the other is to run a single vendor environment, such as a Microsoft-wide environment with Windows Azure.

If companies such as Red Hat simply attract customers to install their cloud products without offering a special pricing and licensing solution for cloud computing customers, they may lose both their cloud computing and OS markets. But the real winners have not yet begun to reveal themselves. Given the inherent cloud-licensing limitations of most cloud computing providers, vendors in most areas need to make changes to adapt to changing computing environments.