What is an open cloud? Red Hat thinks it's not VMware.

Red Hat recently published its vision of what an “open cloud” should be (and even dedicated a separate “ Open Cloud ” page on this site to this question). What caused the debate about how this definition fits this or that decision. An article under habrakat is one example of such a discussion. I want to warn you that there are very controversial points in the article, but still I decided to translate it.


When the Open Source movement began to gain popularity, many software vendors tried to label the “open” label that didn’t really exist. Today, this is much less common, but even now we can see how cloud-based software vendors are trying to call their solutions “open”, although in fact they are not. Scott Crenshaw (Scott Crenshaw), vice president of cloud computing at Red Hat, explains this attempt to lure customers "openness", and then "lock" (lock-in) them on their decisions. This is very dangerous, Crenshaw says, because today's decisions regarding cloud computing will be reflected in the next ten years.

What is an open cloud? Crenshaw suggested calling open cloud solutions with the following properties:
1) Open source.
2) A strong, independent community.
3) Open standards.
4) Lack of patent restrictions.
5) Ability to choose the infrastructure.
6) Expandable, open API.
7) "Portability" of data and software.
')
This is a pretty clear definition and very few cloud solution providers match it. Most clouds have an open API or the ability to deploy software in your chosen infrastructure. However, very few of them guarantee the absence of patent restrictions or other problems with intellectual property. And only units have open source code. And the possibility of transferring applications and data from the cloud of one supplier to another - exceptional cases.

Obviously, the Red Hat cloud software fits the above definition. (Which is not surprising, it was they who proposed it.) What about the “Open Cloud Computing Strategic Alliance,” which was recently announced by VMware and EMC? When I asked if VMware met the above definition, Crenshaw attempted to diplomatically answer that they were only VMware’s shy steps towards openness. “They will be open on the day that VMware publishes the source code for all of its cloud products,” Crenshaw says.

Why is it important?
Is access to source code important? In fact, companies are not going to independently understand the source code. But the fact that other suppliers can offer competing solutions on the same code base gives users an additional advantage that they do not have when implementing proprietary solutions.

As an example, Crenshaw mentioned last year’s case with new vSphere pricing. Many customers were not happy with them and VMware had no choice but to cancel unpopular pricing. This happened precisely because of the fact that there is still competition on the market and the customers did not make a final decision regarding the software for cloud computing. This could not have happened in five years, when there would have been significantly more users who are "stuck" in the vSphere (or any other proprietary solution).

Choosing a cloud architecture is the most important IT decision. “No other solution will have such a big impact” on competitiveness and innovation in the IT department. Only the choice of an open cloud “gives you the opportunity to control your future,” Crenshaw says.

It’s not so important how useful the open cloud computing infrastructure is to running VMware. But choosing an attempt to call this proposal “open,” while it is based on proprietary technology, seems especially cynical. VMware and its partners could return to the discussion of the name and choose a better name for this initiative or offer a truly open solution.