In many ways it is possible to see the Cloud as the ultimate Wide Area Network (WAN), and one of the problems that often occurs with them is that they can put users at the mercy of a network over which they have no direct control. This can be a particular concern for users planning to move from an on-premise infrastructure to the Cloud.
There are two issues here for users. One is the design and architecture of the actual services required, while the second is the way those services interact with the Internet. The first problem is function of service design and architecture, particularly where the target is to recreate existing on-premise functionality in a cloud environment, and can therefore be an issue that is very specific to the requirements of the individual business. The second, however, is more generic to the cloud as a delivery mechanism and solutions are available that can be applied more widely.
This, according to Mark Day, Chief Scientist with Riverbed , is where the existing technologies of network optimisation are finding new traction in the development of the cloud. Riverbed’s core market, for example, has centred round network optimisation required as a result of on-premise server consolidation, where users take infrastructure out of branch offices etc and centralises it. “This does create a situation where previously `central’ users are now all `branch’ users,” he said. “Most attention in cloud computing is currently focused on the datacentre but there are also a lot of other issues that are important, such as users getting to data”.
May sees a closer relationship between optimising services, which are constructed from complete applications, parts of applications, utilities and other code components, and optimising at the network level.
“There is less difference than you might think,” he said. “There’s a couple of observations here. The first is that what Riverbed means by applications is that we’re talking about a protocol layer that is happening above TCP. There are three layers to the problem. The first is the number of bytes crossing the network, which requires a straight de-duplication/compression aspect. Then there’s a piece about the behaviour of TCP across the network, which is similar whether we’re talking enterprise, the Cloud or web services. That last piece is what we call application, but not so much concerned with the nature of the packaging of the application as the format of the data across the network. Here, understanding the patterns that happen in http applications and the way we can make them more efficient is more transferable than the structure of the application.”
So, while the company is optimising at the bit and byte level, the results impact high level applications. “Think of an application you want to migrate to the Cloud, and suppose it is something familiar such as Exchange. What you’re going to find is that the Outlook client that’s talking to Exchange is going to expect to do that the same way regardless of the way Exchange is being presented to the organisation as it moves into the Cloud. As Riverbed cares about the protocol interactions, we get to take advantage of that regardless of where the applications are, be that datacentres, the Cloud or somewhere else.”
When it comes to accelerating services there is not yet an equivalent generic approach at the next level of abstraction - the service level. This is going to be an issue where service architects will need to optimise each service individually. Network optimisation, however, can be applied both at the enterprise level and, when it comes to the cloud, at the service provider level as part of the core service available to all users.
“We do get people asking us to speed up an applications” May said. “The issue here is that it depends upon how the application is structured. There are many applications that are badly structured that are not amenable to what Riverbed can povide. The company can help when it comes to making WANs work well, so if users like the way it works over the LAN but hate it over the WAN there it is a good candidate. If it is just a badly structured application other people may have the expertise.”
Post new Comment