Preface
The past couple of decades saw the business-centric concept of outsourcing services and the technology-centric notion of utility computing evolve along relatively parallel streams. When they finally met to form a technology landscape with a compelling business case and seismic impacts on the IT industry as a whole, it became evident that what resultantly was termed and branded as "cloud computing" was more than just another IT trend. It has become an opportunity to further align and advance the goals of the business with the capabilities of technology.
Those who understand this opportunity can seize it to leverage proven and mature components of cloud platforms to not only fulfill existing strategic business goals, but to even inspire businesses to set new objectives and directions based on the extent to which cloud-driven innovation can further help optimize business operations.
The first step to succeeding is to get educated. Cloud computing adoption is not trivial. The cloud computing marketplace is unregulated. And, not all products and technologies branded with "cloud" are, in fact, sufficiently mature to or even supportive of realizing actual cloud computing benefits. To add to the confusion, there are different definitions and interpretations of cloud-based models and frameworks floating around IT literature and the IT media space, which leads to different IT professionals acquiring different types of cloud computing expertise.
And then, of course, there is the fact that cloud computing is, at its essence, a form of service provisioning. As with any type of service we intend to hire or outsource (IT-related or otherwise), it is commonly understood that we will be confronted with a marketplace comprised of service providers of varying quality and reliability. Some may offer attractive rates and terms, but may have unproven business histories or highly proprietary environments. Others may have a solid business background, but may demand higher rates and less flexible terms. Others yet, may simply be insincere or temporary business ventures that unexpectedly disappear or are acquired within a short period of time.
Back to the importance of getting educated: as stated, it truly is the first step to success. There is no greater danger to a business than approaching cloud computing adoption with ignorance. The magnitude of a failed adoption effort not only correspondingly impacts IT departments, but can actually regress a business to a point where it finds itself steps behind from where it was prior to the adoption – and, perhaps, even more steps behind competitors that have been succeeding at achieving their goals in the meantime.
Cloud computing has much to offer but its roadmap is riddled with pitfalls, ambiguities, and mistruths. The best way to navigate this landscape is to chart each part of the journey by making educated decisions about how and to what extent your project should proceed. The scope of an adoption is equally important to its approach, and both of these aspects need to be determined by business requirements. Not by a product vendor, not by a cloud vendor, and not by self-proclaimed cloud experts. Your organization's business goals must be fulfilled in a concrete and measurable manner with each completed phase of the adoption. This validates your scope, your approach, and the overall direction of the project. In other words, it keeps your project aligned.
Gaining a vendor-neutral understanding of cloud computing from an industry perspective empowers you the clarity necessary to determine what is factually cloud-related and what is not, as well as what is relevant to your business requirements and what is not. With this information you can establish criteria that will allow you to filter out the parts of the cloud computing product and service provider marketplaces to focus on what has the most potential to help you and your business to succeed. We developed this book to assist you with this goal.
- Thomas Erl
Praise
"A cloud computing book that will stand out and survive the test of time, even in one of the fastest evolving areas of technology. This book does a great job breaking down the high level of complexity of cloud computing into easy-to-understand pieces. It goes beyond the basic, often repeated explanations. It examines the fundamental concepts and the components, as well as the mechanisms and architectures that make up cloud computing environments. The approach gradually builds the reader's understanding from the ground up.
In a rapidly evolving area like cloud computing it's easy to focus on details and miss the big picture. The focus on concepts and architectural models instead of vendor-specific details allows readers to quickly gain essential knowledge of complex topics. The concepts come together in the last part of the book, which should be required reading for any decision maker evaluating when and how to start a transition to cloud computing. Its thorough, comprehensive coverage of fundamentals and advanced topics makes the book a valuable resource to keep on your desk or your eBook Reader, regardless if you're new to the topic or you already have cloud experience.
I highly recommend the book to those looking to implement or evaluate cloud environments, or simply looking to educate themselves in a field that will shape IT over the next decade."
- Christoph Schittko, Principal Technology Strategist & Cloud Solution Director, Microsoft
"Cloud Computing: Concepts, Technology & Architecture is an excellent resource for IT professionals and managers who want to learn and understand cloud computing, and who need to select or build cloud systems and solutions. It lays the foundation for cloud concepts, models, technologies and mechanisms. As the book is vendor-neutral, it will remain valid for many years. We will recommend this book to Oracle customers, partners and users for their journey towards cloud computing. This book has the potential to become the basis for a cloud computing manifesto, comparable to what was accomplished with the SOA manifesto."
- Juergen Kress, Fusion Middleware Partner Adoption, Oracle EMEA
"Cloud computing, more than most disciplines in IT, suffers from too much talk and not enough practice. Thomas Erl has written a timely book that condenses the theory and buttresses it with real world examples that de-mystify this important technology. An important guidebook for your journey into the cloud."
- Scott Morrison, Chief Technology Officer, Layer 7 Technologies
"An excellent, extremely well-written, lucid book that provides a comprehensive picture of Cloud Computing, covering multiple dimensions of the subject. The case studies presented in the book provide a real world, practical perspective on leveraging cloud computing in an organization. The book covers a wide range of topics from Technology aspects to the business value provided by cloud computing. This is the best, most comprehensive book on the subject - a must read for any cloud computing practitioner or anyone who wants to get an in depth picture of cloud computing concepts and practical implementation.
- Suzanne D'Souza, SOA/BPM Practice Lead, KBACE Technologies.
"This book offers a thorough and detailed description of cloud computing concepts, architectures, and technologies. It serves as a great reference for both newcomers and experts and is a must-read for any IT professional interested in cloud computing."
- Andre Tost, Senior Technical Staff Member, IBM Software Group
"This is a great book on the topic of cloud computing. It is impressive how the content spans from taxonomy, technology, and architectural concepts to important business considerations for cloud adoption. It really does provide a holistic view to this technology paradigm."
- Kapil Bakshi, Architecture and Strategy, Cisco Systems Inc.
"I have read every book written by Thomas Erl and "Cloud Computing" is another excellent publication and demonstration of Thomas Erl's rare ability to take the most complex topics and provide critical core concepts and technical information in a logical and understandable way."
- Melanie A. Allison, Principal, Healthcare Technology Practice, Integrated Consulting Services
"The Cloud Computing book by Thomas Erl, Zaigham Mahmood, and Ricardo Puttini, is a comprehensive handbook on cloud computing that should be on every IT Architect's bookshelf. This five part book brings together the concepts you'll need to understand cloud computing, from the fundamentals of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, to applying appropriate cloud computing architectural configurations. It describes the management-related mechanisms that will help you to better articulate cloud related operational aspects to your technical and management stakeholders. As cloud computing matures within the enterprises we help to manage, we as IT architects, will be in a better position to consider cloud solutions from the fundamental to sophisticated architectural configurations after reading this book. The examples and case studies presented by Thomas and his colleagues will help you to apply appropriate architectural solutions to fulfill the needs of your enterprise. Many of us, as IT architects, are asked to present the economic justification of solutions we propose. This book presents cost metric and pricing models that can be invaluable in your assessment discussions."
"I highly recommend this book, well done gentlemen!"
- Andrzej Parkitny, SOA Enterprise Architect, TELUS
"Companies looking to migrate applications or infrastructure to the cloud are often misled by buzzwords and industry hype. This work cuts through the hype and provides a detailed look, from investigation to contract to implementation to termination, at what it takes for an organization to engage with cloud service providers. This book really lays out the benefits and struggles with getting a company to an IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS solution."
- Kevin Davis, Solutions Archite
Preface
The past couple of decades saw the business-centric concept of outsourcing services and the technology-centric notion of utility computing evolve along relatively parallel streams. When they finally met to form a technology landscape with a compelling business case and seismic impacts on the IT industry as a whole, it became evident that what resultantly was termed and branded as "cloud computing" was more than just another IT trend. It has become an opportunity to further align and advance the goals of the business with the capabilities of technology.
Those who understand this opportunity can seize it to leverage proven and mature components of cloud platforms to not only fulfill existing strategic business goals, but to even inspire businesses to set new objectives and directions based on the extent to which cloud-driven innovation can further help optimize business operations.
The first step to succeeding is to get educated. Cloud computing adoption is not trivial. The cloud computing marketplace is unregulated. And, not all products and technologies branded with "cloud" are, in fact, sufficiently mature to or even supportive of realizing actual cloud computing benefits. To add to the confusion, there are different definitions and interpretations of cloud-based models and frameworks floating around IT literature and the IT media space, which leads to different IT professionals acquiring different types of cloud computing expertise.
And then, of course, there is the fact that cloud computing is, at its essence, a form of service provisioning. As with any type of service we intend to hire or outsource (IT-related or otherwise), it is commonly understood that we will be confronted with a marketplace comprised of service providers of varying quality and reliability. Some may offer attractive rates and terms, but may have unproven business histories or highly proprietary environments. Others may have a solid business background, but may demand higher rates and less flexible terms. Others yet, may simply be insincere or temporary business ventures that unexpectedly disappear or are acquired within a short period of time.
Back to the importance of getting educated: as stated, it truly is the first step to success. There is no greater danger to a business than approaching cloud computing adoption with ignorance. The magnitude of a failed adoption effort not only correspondingly impacts IT departments, but can actually regress a business to a point where it finds itself steps behind from where it was prior to the adoption – and, perhaps, even more steps behind competitors that have been succeeding at achieving their goals in the meantime.
Cloud computing has much to offer but its roadmap is riddled with pitfalls, ambiguities, and mistruths. The best way to navigate this landscape is to chart each part of the journey by making educated decisions about how and to what extent your project should proceed. The scope of an adoption is equally important to its approach, and both of these aspects need to be determined by business requirements. Not by a product vendor, not by a cloud vendor, and not by self-proclaimed cloud experts. Your organization's business goals must be fulfilled in a concrete and measurable manner with each completed phase of the adoption. This validates your scope, your approach, and the overall direction of the project. In other words, it keeps your project aligned.
Gaining a vendor-neutral understanding of cloud computing from an industry perspective empowers you the clarity necessary to determine what is factually cloud-related and what is not, as well as what is relevant to your business requirements and what is not. With this information you can establish criteria that will allow you to filter out the parts of the cloud computing product and service provider marketplaces to focus on what has the most potential to help you and your business to succeed. We developed this book to assist you with this goal.
- Thomas Erl
Praise
"A cloud computing book that will stand out and survive the test of time, even in one of the fastest evolving areas of technology. This book does a great job breaking down the high level of complexity of cloud computing into easy-to-understand pieces. It goes beyond the basic, often repeated explanations. It examines the fundamental concepts and the components, as well as the mechanisms and architectures that make up cloud computing environments. The approach gradually builds the reader's understanding from the ground up.
In a rapidly evolving area like cloud computing it's easy to focus on details and miss the big picture. The focus on concepts and architectural models instead of vendor-specific details allows readers to quickly gain essential knowledge of complex topics. The concepts come together in the last part of the book, which should be required reading for any decision maker evaluating when and how to start a transition to cloud computing. Its thorough, comprehensive coverage of fundamentals and advanced topics makes the book a valuable resource to keep on your desk or your eBook Reader, regardless if you're new to the topic or you already have cloud experience.
I highly recommend the book to those looking to implement or evaluate cloud environments, or simply looking to educate themselves in a field that will shape IT over the next decade."
- Christoph Schittko, Principal Technology Strategist & Cloud Solution Director, Microsoft
"Cloud Computing: Concepts, Technology & Architecture is an excellent resource for IT professionals and managers who want to learn and understand cloud computing, and who need to select or build cloud systems and solutions. It lays the foundation for cloud concepts, models, technologies and mechanisms. As the book is vendor-neutral, it will remain valid for many years. We will recommend this book to Oracle customers, partners and users for their journey towards cloud computing. This book has the potential to become the basis for a cloud computing manifesto, comparable to what was accomplished with the SOA manifesto."
- Juergen Kress, Fusion Middleware Partner Adoption, Oracle EMEA
"Cloud computing, more than most disciplines in IT, suffers from too much talk and not enough practice. Thomas Erl has written a timely book that condenses the theory and buttresses it with real world examples that de-mystify this important technology. An important guidebook for your journey into the cloud."
- Scott Morrison, Chief Technology Officer, Layer 7 Technologies
"An excellent, extremely well-written, lucid book that provides a comprehensive picture of Cloud Computing, covering multiple dimensions of the subject. The case studies presented in the book provide a real world, practical perspective on leveraging cloud computing in an organization. The book covers a wide range of topics from Technology aspects to the business value provided by cloud computing. This is the best, most comprehensive book on the subject - a must read for any cloud computing practitioner or anyone who wants to get an in depth picture of cloud computing concepts and practical implementation.
- Suzanne D'Souza, SOA/BPM Practice Lead, KBACE Technologies.
"This book offers a thorough and detailed description of cloud computing concepts, architectures, and technologies. It serves as a great reference for both newcomers and experts and is a must-read for any IT professional interested in cloud computing."
- Andre Tost, Senior Technical Staff Member, IBM Software Group
"This is a great book on the topic of cloud computing. It is impressive how the content spans from taxonomy, technology, and architectural concepts to important business considerations for cloud adoption. It really does provide a holistic view to this technology paradigm."
- Kapil Bakshi, Architecture and Strategy, Cisco Systems Inc.
"I have read every book written by Thomas Erl and "Cloud Computing" is another excellent publication and demonstration of Thomas Erl's rare ability to take the most complex topics and provide critical core concepts and technical information in a logical and understandable way."
- Melanie A. Allison, Principal, Healthcare Technology Practice, Integrated Consulting Services
"The Cloud Computing book by Thomas Erl, Zaigham Mahmood, and Ricardo Puttini, is a comprehensive handbook on cloud computing that should be on every IT Architect's bookshelf. This five part book brings together the concepts you'll need to understand cloud computing, from the fundamentals of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, to applying appropriate cloud computing architectural configurations. It describes the management-related mechanisms that will help you to better articulate cloud related operational aspects to your technical and management stakeholders. As cloud computing matures within the enterprises we help to manage, we as IT architects, will be in a better position to consider cloud solutions from the fundamental to sophisticated architectural configurations after reading this book. The examples and case studies presented by Thomas and his colleagues will help you to apply appropriate architectural solutions to fulfill the needs of your enterprise. Many of us, as IT architects, are asked to present the economic justification of solutions we propose. This book presents cost metric and pricing models that can be invaluable in your assessment discussions."
"I highly recommend this book, well done gentlemen!"
- Andrzej Parkitny, SOA Enterprise Architect, TELUS
"Companies looking to migrate applications or infrastructure to the cloud are often misled by buzzwords and industry hype. This work cuts through the hype and provides a detailed look, from investigation to contract to implementation to termination, at what it takes for an organization to engage with cloud service providers. This book really lays out the benefits and struggles with getting a company to an IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS solution."
- Kevin Davis, Solutions Archite
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