>> There are various service when we talk about the Cloud,
and not all Cloud services are created equal.
There are some reasons that we may move to the cloud,
partially move to Cloud,
dump with both feet all in.
Now, the main service models are SaaS,
PaaS, and IaaS.
That's software as a service,
platform as a service,
and infrastructure as a service.
I'm starting to talk about software as a service.
This is one piece that everybody has used.
When I say everybody, almost
everybody, we all have email.
If you've got Gmail or Yahoo or
some other Internet-based email application,
you didn't have to install software
so that where you can access Gmail.
You go to a website and
access the mail through their access,
that's software as a service.
We're utilizing software that's
actually running on someone else's server.
We haven't called it software as a service
forever but that's been around for dozens of years.
Software as a service is often the easiest to understand.
Now, there's been an explosion
SaaS lately because of the benefits.
One of the benefits is called thin computing,
meaning when I first got my home computer,
I remember that thing had 50 megs of hard drive space,
and it had four megs of RAM,
and I was queen of the universe.
I dropped some money on it because I
wanted a good high-end system.
At that time, that was thousands of dollars,
the easiest way to have made yourself
crazy during that time period.
You spent a lot of money on a computer and then look at
the next week of the prices because
the technology got better and better.
But the prices, you spend
all this money then the next week,
you'd see that computer on sale for
10 percent less and it continued.
Another problem with that was as
applications became more and more complex,
we would have to update these computers.
It's not enough that I spent all this money on
them but now I need to add a more RAM.
I needed a bigger hard drive.
My processor isn't as powerful today as
it was so we'd have to upgrade.
About every year and a half in a business environment,
we'd find that processor speed doubles,
well as the applications using the processors.
If you're looking at upgrading
every year and a half or even
every 2-3 years, that's very expensive.
Then I have to think about maintaining the software.
I buy all the software licenses,
I install the software in the machine,
softwares updates.
I have to keep the updates to make
sure that as the updates come out,
my clients are able to run them in the new software.
It's a hassle. Instead, we have thin clients.
I don't have to invest in lot of hardware
because I'm not running natural applications.
Those applications are running on a Cloud-based server.
By the way, when we say Cloud-based,
we just mean a server that we
can access through the Internet,
and these applications are running on different machines.
It's their problem to update.
It's their issue to keep things
patched and my client computer can be thin.
As matter of fact, I was looking at buying a laptop
about three years ago and it was $400 or $500.
I was pricing laptops today and can get
laptops for like 85 bucks.
Back when I bought mine,
I wanted a terabyte of hard drive space.
I wanted a lot of RAM.
I wanted these specifications.
Now, some of these laptops
barely come with any hard drive space at all.
They come with enough memory,
but not a ton, maybe four gigs of memory.
The reason for it is
these thin clients where
everything we're doing is online.
Just about any software from five years ago,
we would've had a buy and install via desk or
network share on our individual systems.
Now we're not loading up our individual systems as
a software but we're accessing that through the web.
That saves me from having application conflicts.
It really is a win-win situation.
Now, the next service is called platform as a service.
When you see a platform as a service,
what I want you to immediately think
about is software development.
If I'm a software developer,
and I'm trying to create
a proprietary application for my organization,
I'm not going to go out and write
a million lines of code.
No. I'm going to take advantage of
Cloud libraries that are out
there, and those costs money.
I'm going to need an environment where
I can run my software.
I'm going to need a database on
the backend if I'm collecting
information that needs to go into a back-end database.
Again, all that costs money and requires administration.
Instead, I can lease
a platform as a service provider so that way
I can develop software and leverage all the tools
that my service provider has.
Last but not least, infrastructure as a service.
With infrastructure as a service,
we're going to take advantage all the resources of
a Cloud service provider or the compute function.
When we think about computing, we think about RAM,
storage and operating environment,
and a network environment.
Basically, everything that used to be in
our server room or at a separate data-center,
depending on the size of our company,
is now being stored with Google or Microsoft,
and it's being provided with
the resources instead of mine.
It shouldn't feel very different to end-users.
It really is just a matter of accessing the network.
Then having the high-speed links to
our Cloud service provider that's accessing the service.
Their responsibility becomes the physical location,
maintaining it, physical security,
physical devices themselves, hypervisors,
security to the hypervisor,
but everything above the hypervisor is ours.
We build our own virtual network so we have
a lot of control over what
this environment is going to be,
but we lessen our expense,
and certainly from a capital expense standpoint,
and don't have to find an entire data center.
Also, same things.
We don't have to keep upgrading.
Those services are provided for us.
As with most things in life,
networking and Cloud computing go better with pizza.
Let's take this analogy and make things make sense.
Let's say I have a fabulous pizza and I actually do.
I bought myself one of those big ceramic green eggs.
If you haven't seen them, look them up.
They're are phenomenal and you can get
really high heat and smoky flavor.
Anyway, let's say I make a mean pizza.
Word gets out that I make a mean pizza
because I invited a few folks over.
Before I know it, I've got lots of
people coming to me on Thursday pizza night.
What I'm finding is that it's hard to keep up with
all the orders because I've only got one big green egg.
I can purchase another,
but they're expensive and I have to maintain it,
store it, and so on.
Whereas traditionally, at one point in time,
I would have had to continue making this
in-house and keeping it on-premises.
I'm looking at some other options.
One of the services that we have here in the DC area,
is a kitchen as a service.
Ultimately, there are facilities
where you can come in for their counter space.
They provide you with the bare minimum.
It's bringing in your tools, you're on pizza dough,
you're on toppings, and I've to cook pizza.
That said, I have a ton of
control in the environment because maybe I don't want
to make pizza tonight and I want chicken or
pasta and that kitchen as a service, I do as I please.
I have the most basic tools
provided for me and I do what I want.
If I want to cook pizza, I cook pizza.
Now, platform as a service.
Platform as a service is going to be
like I walk in and bake environment.
Let's say I pay Domino's Pizza Hut
and say I want to be more involved
with the pizza process.
They are going to say look, will let you have our dough,
but you bring in your own toppings,
you cook the pizza, it's your responsibility.
You still get the kitchen and the oven,
gas for the oven.
I even get the pizza dough, though
what I do with it is mine,
I can turn it into a PN pizza.
I can make a thin crust,
it's provided for me,
but I do have some limits.
I'm given the pizza dough,
so I can't make chicken.
I can't make all the other things.
I'm limited with the tools that they provide me.
They also give me a pizza cutter and a spatula.
Just some of the basics.
I can create what I want,
but I have to create what they provide.
Then last, software as a service.
You know what, I'm tired of
making pizza for the neighborhood.
I'm just going to go out, get my cell phone,
dial in the digits, and a pizza delivered to the house.
That's software as a service or pizza as a service.
I get very few choices.
I can't call Domino's and say I
want pizza with broccoli and clams.
I don't know why those toppings came to mind,
that sounds like the most disgusting
pizza I can think of,
but you know, they make some crazy pizzas today.
Domino's has a set of ingredients.
I get to order it, I can customize it a little,
extra pepperoni or whatever,
but I don't get to add,
or remove the ingredients or
modify the basic service they provide.
This really is very
comparable to services with the Cloud.
The question is, what do I get?
How flexible is my environment?
I don't get much with kitchen as a service.
I don't get much with infrastructure as a service,
I get a hypervisor and
the capability of spinning up a virtual machine.
It's all up to me from there on out,
and I can build any network type that I want.
With the walk-in and bake,
I have to operate within another environment
where I'm given a certain amount of tools.
Platform as a service is just
designed for software and they provide
you with a set of the most commonly used tools
and environments in which to operate.
I don't have as much flexibility
but what I create is mine.
Then I can get pizza as a service.
It is basically software as a service.
I go out and use what they give me.
I use Gmail or Webex or QuickBooks or whatever,
and they provide me with an active service.
I don't get to go to QuickBooks and
say I want to stream videos for you.
I don't get that customization option.
What I do get is everything taken care of for me.
When you look at the various services,
is always the trade-off between how much control I
get and how much responsibility I have.
We have to find the balance.
I hope pizza as a service helps out a little bit.