Google excludes scheduled maintenance from its Google Apps SLA, but not Google App Engine

Back in July of 2010, I wrote about how Cloud Service Providers exclude scheduled downtime from their service level agreements.  Last Friday, Google made a significant change to their SLA for Google Apps by removing scheduled downtime from their Google Apps SLA:

• Exclusion of scheduled downtime from availability SLA
• Exclusion of intermittent downtime (periods of less than 10 minutes) from availably SLA

Obviously, it is good news for Google Apps customers.  It highlights Google’s infrastructure & operational maturity (in this case, for Google Apps specifically).  

I also think the announcement is important, because it sets a higher standard for service delivery.  By raising the bar, Google also intensifies competitive pressure on service providers such as Microsoft to offer more robust Cloud services.  Ultimately, both customers & the industry should benefit from this.

However, as I discussed in my July post, for infrastructure & platform services such as Google App Engine for Business, scheduled maintenance still remains excluded in all SLAs:

• GAE: http://code.google.com/appengine/business/sla.html
• AWS: http://aws.amazon.com/agreement/
• Azure: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=72193dd2-eeaa-4054-93f6-f6b725cf76af&displaylang=en#QuickDetails
• RackSpace: http://www.rackspacecloud.com/legal/sla/
• GoGrid: http://www.gogrid.com/legal/sla.php
• …

It is 2011.  If we mark the beginning of Cloud Computing by the initial public release of EC2 (2006), I think enough time has passed for Cloud service providers to do a better job of managing planned outages in a non-service-disruptive way. 

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Sidebar - I am a regular user of AWS, GAE, Force.com… I have been using these services for more than a couple of years.  To be fair, I have never received any emails from any of the major cloud for scheduled downtime.  I have received a few from other service providers.  So, I would say that they are all doing a pretty good job operationally (a lot better than probably what most enterprises would do), and make sure the services are always up, and almost always perform well :-].  So, they just have it in the SLA agreements for legal protection & liability.   

Never-the-less, when it comes to migrating or designing enterprise solutions, depending on the application type and use-case, this can become an issue, and require both technical implementation & operations planning.

A quick & dirty look at web traffic trends on AWS, Azure, Force.com, GAE, and IBM Dev/Test cloud

Since the introduction of EC2 in 2005/2006, a lot has happened.  New service providers such as Google App Engine (GAE) and Force.com have emerged.  Existing hosting providers such as GoGrid & RackSpace have transformed to cloudify their service delivery model.  And, existing platform vendors such as IBM and Microsoft have raced to implement or acquire solutions to respond to this fundamental shift. 

Different types of vendors are competing for market positions.  Some are new: Abiquo,  Nimbula, Cloud.com (formerly VMOps)…  And, some are mature: VMware, Novell/Attachmate, CA, BMC, DELL, …  [The vendor landscape is big and complex, and includes other types of vendors including systems integrators…]

As we close 2010, I thought it would be interesting to look at some usage trends of the big names in the Cloud market. 

The statistics come from Alexa.  It uses its own methods for capturing HTTP traffic, and normalizing the data.  As such, it is important to note that it does not include non-web app workload deployed on these cloud services.  In addition, it is common for enterprises to use DNS aliasing (CNAME) to map to a custom URL.  So, it is important to consider traffic to custom URLs would not be included in the following presentation.

Comparing aws, azure, force, gae, and ibm

View more presentations from babak hosseinzadeh.

The intent is to provide some ideas about usage and future trends, as these vendors battle it out for dominance and market share.

Please send me any comments or questions at babakh@yahoo.com.

Wish everyone a Happy New Year!

vmforce: Is Salesforce getting into IaaS?

VMware and SalesForce.com have scheduled a joint webcast on April 27th. Rumors are circulating that Salesforce is planning to offer IaaS based on VMware virtualization platform. 
If true, this would be a good move for Salesforce for the following reasons:

• Currently with Force.com, you can build and deploy only a limited set of applications (i.e. CRM centric, business process-based/case-management types of apps).   With IaaS, it will possible to deploy all sorts of applications on their platform. 
• Building on top of VMware virtualization stack (i.e. vSphere), Salesforce should be able to facilitate integration and management of hybrid computing environments for those enterprises that have already invested in VMware.   This would be a huge advantage over competitors such as Amazon & Azure.
• Azure already offers hosting (Windows).  In some cases, an IaaS from Salesforce may be viable alternative to MSFT.
• Obviously, an IaaS Cloud Service offering enables Salesforce to engage enterprise customers on multiple levels thereby increasing marketshare.

So, what about VMware?   How would this help them?
VMware wants to be the technology backbone for all IaaS providers.  This is evident in their vCloud initiatives, and investments in vCloud Express and Terremark.   Salesforce.com is a key player in Cloud computing.  Enabling Salesforce deliver an IaaS on top of their virtualization stack is a major deal for them.  If the model proves successful, it can become a big headache for Amazon, Azure, and GAE. 
VMware also sees itself as a platform for hybrid Cloud Computing:

At this point, this is all speculation.  We should find out more on April 27th. 
What are your thoughts about vmforce?  Do you think VMware would be able to strike a similar deal with Google, eBay or Yahoo to offer an IaaS?

What apps are likely to move to the Cloud…

Earlier this week, IDC published an interesting survey on what applications are likely to move to the Cloud.   I thought about blogging about this, because they made some good points & observations in their analysis, and it also follows my previous post on application and workload analysis for Cloud Computing nicely.  
I am not going to repeat what’s said in their survey, but wanted to add a couple of points before moving any application to the Cloud:

• Cost: What is the current annual cost of maintaining and running the existing application?   For most enterprises, cost reduction is the key driver for Cloud, so establishing the cost should probably be one of the first activities in any migration.  [N.B. If the Cloud is considered for new applications, a similar cost analysis should be performed to estimate the initial cost of building the application + estimating the annual ongoing maintenance and operation.  It would be best to breakdown the costs in terms of infrastructure, operation, and solution development & maintenance.]
• Cloud Selection: Different Clouds offer different capabilities and different charge-back models.  As an example, with Google App Engine, you can upload your web app to Google’s infrastructure.  You’re not charged unless the application serves requests.   Now, contrast that with EC2.  Obviously, you must launch your AMI to start your application, so you’re billed for CPU usage even if the application is sitting idle. Please note that I am not suggesting GAE is better than AWS.  They are different platforms for running different types of applications, and offer different capabilities.  So, Cloud selection is a very important consideration not only with regards to costs, but also in terms of building, delivery, and management of the target solution.

There are many other considerations such as service provider’s alignment with the enterprise in terms of operations, support, compliance, SLA, and technical fit of the Cloud service vis-a-vis the application, etc…
Finally, in the overblown world of Cloud Computing where “Cloud” is myopically restricted to only a few forms such as AWS, GAE, Force.com, etc, it should be noted that many companies have already been using Internet-based services routinely for more than a decade.  These services have been used to fulfill simple functional requirements such as address normalization or tax calculation to more complex business processes (i.e. risk analysis) or business process outsourcing (i.e. order fulfillment) where enterprise data is typically hosted on an external  service provider or tightly integrated with the service provider.  So, in addition to the list of application types that IDC has presented in their survey, hosted solutions and/or BPOs represents another class of candidate applications for “Cloud Computing”.