The Great Cloud Divide

It has been interesting to watch the evolution of cloud computing over the past few years. It has morphed from the X-as-a-service model to include "cloud based services", those services that are offered in a hosted model; it has been extended, to cloudwash those services that don't even remotely qualify; and now it is showing signs of speciation in that major players are aligning to one flavour or another.

We are speaking, of course, about alignment on open source vs. proprietary software, one vendor vs. another and the alliances that interconnect or separate them.

Open sourcing one's software suite has been a proven method to increase the use of software and generate revenue through services. Typically, this has been done by offering a pared down version of the software and holding back some features for a paid premium version. Red Hat showed that this is a feasible business model and has come a long way since its early days to offer a free version and a supported version.

Interestingly, Citrix open sourced CloudStack and committed to continue development of CloudStack with the community on the open source version. The only supposed difference between CloudStack and CloudPlatform? The logo.

Citrix also partnered with AWS to "...seamlessly connect corporate data centres to Amazon Web Services..." and, given the fact that AWS also partnered with Eucalyptus, this is a safe bet that AWS is building a community around hybrid cloud deployments.

Now VMware has acquired Nicira, a virtual network infrastructure software vendor, who has strong ties to OpenStack. Is this VMware's response to Citrix's moves in cloud computing? VMware certainly does not appear to be making moves to open source vCloud Director so it would stand to reason that they would lean towards an open source competitor of CloudStack's to counter Citrix. It certainly seem that lines have been drawn in the sand.

In all of this kerfuffle, there have been questions about what AWS plans to do. As mentioned, AWS is banking on growing its business by reaching out to private cloud customers and integration of their provider's products. This much is obvious from the Eucalyptus and Citrix partnerships. Therefore the likely outcome is the status quo, one that would be favored by most. The other possible outcome is that AWS open sources its products. I don't pretend to know what outcome could possible look like but I suspect that the likelihood is fairly low given the revenue streams AWS has built over the years.

So, it appears we have serious competition between VMware and Citrix for all things cloud. At first blush, it appears that Citrix may have the upper hand by aligning itself with AWS "early on". It is probably only a matter of time before VMware makes similar moves.

Adding to this complexity, Microsoft and Cisco are in the wings looking to make a mark with their own products. Of the two Microsoft may be better positioned to gain market share against all comers due to the fact that it has a full suite of market leading products that are already offered in a SaaS model and that may be deliverable in a SaaS model in a private environment in the near future as well.