Cloud Standard: To interconnect across the cloud

In the IT world, each wave of new rising technology is accompanied by the process of enrichment and perfection of relevant standards. Cloud computing is no exception, the interoperability of the cloud, portability and the establishment of Cloud Alliance Trust, all need to be supported by open standards, it is expected to achieve the deep release of cloud value.

In recent years, cloud computing is undoubtedly an area of rapid development and change, its definition, denotation and classification are in the process of continuous evolution. In the rapid growth of the market, of course, some blind pursuit of new players, as well as those who are good at emerging markets to catch a vote of the speculators, which has become cloud computing industry chaos is the main reason.

Among them, the lack of standards has been an important problem puzzling the cloud computing market and users. The lack of such standards in China's cloud computing market caused by the negative effect is more obvious, because of the definition of cloud computing, connotation and extension of discrimination, plus the parties are driven by interests, domestic cloud computing market local appearance of a mixed, academics situation, The Yunshan of the parrot and the mysterious.

The standard of cloud is undoubtedly a grand topic. In fact, the definition of cloud computing is a standard, or "standard". To establish a perfect cloud computing standard system, we must first define its own definition. At this stage, the definition of cloud computing given by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) has been widely accepted by industry and industries, although this definition is not perfect and needs to be further complemented.

The NIST definition of cloud computing is this: "Cloud computing is a way to get computing resources (including networks, servers, storage, applications, services, and so on) and improve their availability over the web for convenient, pay-as-you-go ways." These resources come from a shared, configurable pool of resources that can be captured and freed in the most effort and unattended manner. This pattern has 5 basic features, namely on-demand self-service, extensive network access, resource sharing, fast scalability, and measurable services. At the same time, cloud computing also includes three service modes, SaaS (software as a service), PaaS (Platform-Service) and IaaS (infrastructure as services), and four deployment methods, private cloud, community cloud, public cloud, and mixed cloud.

In the recent period, there are many strange images of the various institutional entities and enterprises that have borrowed money and enclosure in the name of cloud computing, and the corresponding misunderstanding and slavish behavior also show an increasing trend. Many of the "cloud"-naming projects do not have the basic characteristics of typical cloud computing or lavish infrastructure, but the way cloud services operate and deliver is unclear. A flourishing, cloud computing market in the rational development and normative aspects of the relatively chaotic and confused, this situation in the domestic cloud computing market is more typical.

To let market development return to the rational Road, perfect standardization system is an indispensable leading means. and cloud standardization to the overall cloud computing market to promote the role is not limited to this, based on open standards across cloud interconnection and integration, to different levels of cloud computing consumers to bring interoperability, utility services, value-added services and many other benefits.

The path of growth is familiar

In the decades of enterprise IT information construction process, we have experienced a wide range of application islands or business silos, it integration, enterprise application integration has been an important issue of it technology evolution, people have been working through the industry standards and common technology to build a merged enterprise information platform. These appeals from isolation to interconnection and integration exist in the world of cloud computing.

With all kinds of cloud applications springing up and being introduced into use, the cloud computing world will also form a row of shafts in the future. We will see the public cloud, private cloud, mixed cloud, community cloud, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, NaaS (network as Service), CaaS (communication, service), and other types of cloud or cloud service patterns coexist, while the IT environment still retains the traditional physical environment and preconfigured applications. From the dispersed information islands to the integrated application system, the stories that once staged are expected to reappear. From the microscopic point of view, in the process of importing different clouds, facing many kinds of cloud applications, the biggest challenge that enterprises face is the mixed delivery problem of enterprise IT application.

The integration and interconnection requirements for it applications are often the most important drivers for driving the standardization process in related areas. In the field of cloud computing, the deep business value brought by cloud interconnection is being paid more and more attention to by more and more people. Analysts predict that the interconnected cloud (Intercloud) will become a reality in the future. Its trajectory may be similar to the Internet, with the promotion of industry standards, rapid rise and popularity.

This means that the standardization process of the cloud may be familiar, and the story of establishing and perfecting standards in the integration will unfold again. Driven by strong connectivity requirements, isolated clouds will be integrated with the help of relevant standards. In fact, this process has been opened, gathered into the field at this stage is wonderful now. To eliminate the remote islands in the cloud, in order to meet the real challenges of "mixed it" (Hybrid it), we need to open our arms to the advent of the interconnected cloud. In order to solve the problem of cloud interoperability, migration and mutual Alliance Trust, we need to build a standard system of cloud computing. Indeed, this process has begun. And in the lead of these needs, gathered into the emerging technology is becoming a rapid rise in the field.

Cloud Standards Blossom

Openness is a standard necessity. To realize the interconnection between the clouds, different types of cloud or cloud services need to be based on open standards and protocols that require interoperability, migration, and governance of basic attributes, as well as the characteristics of Mobility, federation, and visualization. At present, with the "interconnected cloud" as the practical goal of the relevant cloud computing standards have been launched, the industry has become increasingly aware of the importance of standards for industry guidance, the mainstream it standardization organizations have begun related work.

The Pan-Cloud computing standards Group includes ISO/IEC, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), ITU (International Telecommunication Union), open grid Forum (Open Network Forum), SNIA (Global Network Storage Industry Association), DMTF (Distributed Management Task Group), OASIS (Structured Information Standards Promotion organization), the Open Group and other well-known ISO, also has NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), ETSI (European Telecommunication Standardization Association) and other countries or regional organizations, as well as CSA (Cloud Security Alliance), Open Cloud Initiative (OCI), Open Cloud Manifesto (Open Cloud Manifesto), ODCA (Open Data Center Federation), Global Inter-cloud Marvell Forum (Global Cloud Technology Forum), such as the newly established cloud computing standards development agencies. In China, Cesi (China Institute of Electronic Technology Standardization) is also involved.

The cloud computing definition given by NIST has played a key role in promoting the process of cloud computing standards. Currently, standards such as OCCI (Open Cloud Computing Interface), CDMI (Cloud Data management Interface), Cimi (Cloud Infrastructure Management Interface), OVF (open virtualization format) are widely concerned with the performance, OVF has become the official standard, OCCI, CDMI, Cimi are also expected to become the official standard. In addition, there are new standards that are active, such as SCIM (Simple cloud identity management), TOSCA (topology and orchestration specification for Oasis Cloud applications). (The enclosure lists some of the organizations that are actively promoting the standardization of cloud computing and related cloud standards).

In terms of security, CSA (Cloud Security Alliance) has released Cloud Audit (Cloud Audit), Cloud Controls matrix (Cloud control matrices, referred to as CCM) and consensus assessments (consistency assessment program). CSA was founded in 2009, has been committed to building a cloud computing environment, the best security solution, the organization has become the global cloud security core strength.

In addition to the above visible standards, there are frameworks and reference architectures that can promote the standardization of cloud computing. Currently, the ITU has launched a functional cloud Reference Architecture (Functional Cloud RA), NIST and Opengroup launched the Cloud Computing Reference Architecture (Cloud Computing ra), and DMTF has also released a reference Architecture for cloud Management (RA for managing Clouds). In addition, traditional IT service management best practices such as ITIL, Frameworx Telecom Business Architecture best practices also have positive reference to the development of cloud computing standards.

The cloud-computing market already has some factual standards, backed up by the actions of major standardization organizations. For example, the AWS API developed by Amazon WEB Services and the API collection OpenStack API provided by the OpenStack community. It is noteworthy that the OpenStack community wants to end vendor lock-in through a standardized set of APIs, allowing businesses to migrate workloads randomly between their own private OpenStack cloud and any other public OpenStack cloud. These factual standards have been developed as a result of the expansion of the scope of services of the large cloud service providers, and the relevant legal norms are maturing as users rise to the requirements for cloud services compliance.

Interconnected cloud opens value new space

From LAN to Internet, the value of network connection is pushed up to new heights. Based on the open standard framework, the market value of the internet has climbed rapidly and become the decisive force leading the industry change. Cloud computing standards are also expected to recreate the same wonderful, cloud computing model is expected to derive more business value through the interconnection and integration of standard public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, community cloud, and so on.

"Freer customer choice, unbind manufacturers" is an important goal of cloud standards, but also the most direct benefit to the cloud consumers after its mature application. For example, an enterprise can flexibly offload some applications from the private cloud to the external public cloud platform, and the enterprise can easily replace the service providers of the public cloud, such as migrating from Amazon Cloud services to Google Cloud services. Although some cloud service providers also provide some basic cloud service migration capabilities, the enterprise still faces the problems of complex migration process and insufficient data security because the relevant standards are not perfect.

With the support of the standard, third-party value-added service providers are bound to win the Battle of the New World. In a cloud environment with full interoperability and mobility, users can enjoy more value-added services. Cloud interconnection and integration will also derive many new added value. It is conceivable that there are too many business opportunities to be explored in the depth of application of the interconnection. Around the enterprise application in the cloud movement, the rational allocation of computing resources, automated management and migration, cloud services integration after the unified delivery are promising areas.

Although the future is infinitely magnificent, it still has to start at the foot. For the initial stage of the cloud computing standardization process, with the market and the user's close interaction will be to their own perfect and mature play a positive role in promoting. At the same time, the authoritative standardization organization and the cloud computing domain large-scale supplier between the deeper cooperation, also will promote the standardization process, simultaneously takes into account the cloud computing standardization system independence and the practicality.

"Enclosure"

Some cloud computing organizations and the cloud standards they launch

Cloud Computing Management Working Group (CMWG)

Cimi (Cloud Infrastructure Management Interface): This document defines a logical model for managing resources within the infrastructure, the service domain. The model was developed to address the use cases listed in the "Look at cloud management model and protocol requirements architecture" file.

Open Grid Forum (OGF)

OCCI (Open Cloud Computing Interface): OCCI consists of a set of open source community-led norms. These specifications are submitted through an open grid forum. Occi is a multi-purpose specification for cloud interaction with resources. To some extent, it has vendor independence and platform neutrality, which can be extended to solve many problems in cloud computing.

OCCI Core Specification: The OCCI core model defines the representation of an instance type that can be manipulated through a occi rendering. It is an abstract concept of actual resources, including methods for identifying, classifying, associating, and extending these resources. With these core and model capabilities, OCCI provides a boundary protocol and an API that serves as a front-end to the provider's internal management architecture. Customers of the service can be end users and other system instances. Occi is suitable for both of these situations. Its key function is that OCCI can be used as a management API for all types of resources while maintaining a high level of interoperability.

SNIa Cloud Technology Working Group

SNIA CDMI (Cloud Data Management Interface): A specification for interoperability transmission and data management in a cloud storage environment. The CDMI specification is currently a SNIa architectural standard and will be submitted to the Incits authority for approval as ANSI and ISO standards.

Distributed Management Task Group (DMTF)

OVF (Open Virtualization Format): This specification illustrates an open, secure, portable, efficient, and extensible format for the encapsulation and distribution of software running on virtual machines.

Structured Information Standards Promotion Organization (OASIS)

TOSCA (topology and orchestration specification for Oasis Cloud applications): The goal of the TOSCA Technical Committee is to fully enhance the portability of cloud applications and IT services running on complex software and hardware infrastructures. It facilitates this by explaining the interoperability of applications, infrastructure cloud services, service segments, and these services (e.g., deployment, patching, shutdown) operations. Services such as deployment, patching, and shutdown are not dependent on the services created by the provider, as well as any specific cloud or hosting technologies. Tosca will also associate a higher level of operational behavior with cloud infrastructure management.

The functionality provided by Tosca will greatly promote the portability of unlocked cloud services and solutions to a higher level, it can be implemented by deploying application porting to any compliance cloud, making existing applications easier to migrate to the cloud, more flexibility (user choice), and dynamic cloudy provider applications.