Architecture and Practices on Cloud Interoperability and Portability

Dr Thomas Lee

24 September 2013

Enterprise Architecture / Cloud Computing SIG Speaker Session

Hong Kong Computer Society

Agenda Importance of Cloud Computing Standards

Cloud Portability and Interoperability

OGCIO Expert Group on Cloud Computing Services and Standards

Cloud Reference Architectures

Open Group Guide on Cloud Portability and Interoperability

Conclusions

224-Sep-2013 HKCS EA / CC SIG Seminar






Conclusions


Standardization and Interoperability To technology, cloud computing is an evolution; to economy, it

will be a revolution: Share resources and optimize their use: technology and people

Liberalize the market: SMEs can compete with business giants

Network effects will accelerate cloud adoption From independent cloud services to collaborative cloud services

Value > Cost + Risk

Interoperability is key to exponential growth of cloud computing Standardization is the means to this end

Freedom and openness are the culture of Internet

Many governments and consortiums set out initiatives to foster cloud interoperability and portability

24-Sep-2013 HKCS EA / CC SIG Seminar 4

Internet Growth and Standards

Source of Internet host statistics: Wikipedia / ISC

No

. of

Inte

rnet

ho

sts

(lo

g s

cale

)


1980Ethernet,USENET 1982

TCP/IP,SMTP

1983DNS

1986IETF

1988OSI

1989BGP

1995802.1a/b

1992GSM

1998GPRS,

SNMPv1

2008LTE

2009WiMAX,

802.1n

2003802.11g

2012802.ac

2001UMTS(3G)

Internet

1991HTML

HTTP 0.9

1995JavaScript,RSS, mp3,

PHP

2013HTML5(Draft)

1996HTTP 1,

CSS

1994W3C

1997WAP,

HTML 4

2002RSS 2

2000REST,WAI

1999RDF

2003SVG

Web

1998XML,SOAP

2005OpenID

2010OAuth 1,CDMI,

OCCI 1.1

2002WS-I

2004WS-

Security

2008OVF 1.0

2013OVF 2.0

Cloud






Conclusions


Portability and Interoperability Cloud portability: the ability to migrate application

runtime or data between different clouds

Cloud interoperability: the ability of same or different applications running on different clouds to collaborate

Between different public clouds or between public clouds and private cloud (or on-premises infrastructure)


Portability


Your VM / App / Data

Cloud A Cloud B / Private Cloud

Cloud Service Interface Cloud Service Interface

Portability


Your VM / App / Data

Cloud ACloud B / On-Premises

Infrastructure

Cloud Service Interface A Cloud Service Interface B

Co

nversio

n /

Reco

mp

ilation

/ A

dap

tation

Converted VM / App / Data

Interoperability


Cloud A

Your App X Cloud B

Your App X

Cloud C

Your App Y

Compatible processes, protocols and data formats






Conclusions


OGCIO Expert Group on Cloud Computing Services and Standards (EGCCSS) Draw expertise from the industry, academia, community

and Government to facilitate and drive cloud computing adoption and deployment in Hong Kong, as well as facilitate expert exchanges among cloud experts both within Hong Kong and with the Mainland.

Working Groups:

Working Group on Cloud Computing Interoperability Standards (WGCCIS)

Working Group on Cloud Security and Privacy (WGCSP)

Working Group on Provision and Use of Cloud Services (WGPUCS)


Key Deliverables InfoCloud portal that provides guidelines for

Cloud service consumers

Cloud service providers E.g., how to become a government cloud service provider

Useful practice papers and checklists: Practice Guide for Procuring Cloud Services by OGCIO

Practical Guide to Cloud Computing by Cloud Standards Consumer Council

Cloud Standardization Whitepaper (雲計算標準化白皮書) by China Electronics Standardization Institute (中國電子技術標準化研究院)

Checklist for SMEs on selecting Cloud Service Providers

Checklist for porting an application to cloud (under review)

Directory of cloud technical standards


Hong Kong Cloud & Guangdong Information Portals



Major National and Global Initiatives Open Group

Guide on Cloud Computing Portability and Interoperability

IEEE

P2301 - Guide for Cloud Portability and Interoperability Profiles

P2302 - Standard for Intercloud Interoperability and Federation

ITU Focus Group on Cloud Computing

7-part technical report on cloud standardization

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap

US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap

China Electronics Standardization Institute (中國電子技術標準化研究院)

Cloud Standardization Whitepaper (雲計算標準化白皮書)

Cloud Data Center Reference Architecture (雲計算數據中心參考架構)







Conclusions


Reference Architecture A reference architecture depicts what business and IT

service building blocks can be delivered by public and private cloud services

RA helps an enterprise to define its cloud adoption strategy and roadmaps and refine its Configuration Management Database

RA helps an service provider position itself what services to sell, what to develop on its own, what to procure from others

Whether an interface is based on open standards determines the interoperability and portability of building blocks


NIST Reference Architecture


Can be based upon to develop the enterprise cloud adoption landscape: as-is, transitions, target

Map cloud vendors / services being and to be used on the building blocks

Other Cloud RAs


CESI Conceptual Model

ITU Cloud Architecture

Map Application Components to Cloud Services


Network

System (OS)

System (Physical)

Platform

Data

Application

Security

Man

agemen

t

Internet

Backend OS

RDB SSchema

En

terprise

Firew

all

En

terprise System

M

anagem

ent

Intranet

Physical Server

Android

DB

Data Access Mobile App

Data on Mobile

Directo

ry S

ervice

Vendor’s Hypervisor

App Server

Vendor ’s CDN

Push Server

App Server OS

Data on App Server

Op

en

ID

Clo

ud

Se

rvice

M

an

ag

em

en

t

Business Logic

Show which application components are deployed on public clouds and on-premises (or private cloud) in solution architecture

Each component should be loosely coupled from each other

Templates for different types of solutions, e.g., CRM, HR, mobile

Exit strategy should be planned for each cloud component

Check whether the component can be deployed to other vendors or private cloud with minimal modification

Deployed on cloud





Open Group Guide on Cloud Portability and InteroperabilityConclusions


Open Group Guide Open Group Guide: Cloud Computing Portability and

Interoperability by The Open Group, April 2013 Explains major cloud portability and interoperability issues Recommends customers on how best to achieve portability and

interoperability when using Recommends suppliers and standards bodies on how standards

and best practices should evolve

Cloud computing enables massive economic activities and makes significant contribution to GDP Like Internet yet with even greater potential

Potential will not be realized without portability and interoperability Growth of the Internet is largely due to high level of portability and

interoperability


Architecture for Portability / Interoperability Business architecture

Business strategy, organization, functions, business processes and information needs

Information systems architecture Application architecture

Capabilities that provide business functions and manage data assets

Data architecture Logical / physical data assets,

data management resources

Technology architecture Platform services, logical /

physical technology components

Business

DataApplication

Technology

24-Sep-2013 24HKCS EA / CC SIG Seminar

Cloud Service Models


Source: Open Group Guide - Cloud Computing Portability and Interoperability

Cloud Portability Data portability

Reuse of data components across applications

Application portability

Reuse of application components across PaaS’s

Platform portability

Platform source portability: reuse of platform components across IaaS’s

Machine image portability: reuse of bundles of platform + application + data (i.e., VM image) across IaaS’s


Platform PortabilityPlatform source portability Machine image portability



Cloud Interoperability Application interoperability

Between different / identical application components

Data synchronization between components in different clouds

Platform interoperability

Between platform components, e.g., database

Set-up and transfer of application session states:

User ID and authentication

User locale and preferences

Other application states (e.g., items placed in shopping carts)


Cloud Interoperability (Cont’) Management interoperability

On-demand self-service management of different clouds (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, public / private)

E.g., manage cloud services together with in-house systems using generic system management COTS

Publication and acquisition interoperability

Between marketplaces, app stores, etc.

Standard interfaces to different stores


Distributed Computing Reference Model

24-Sep-2013 HKCS EA / CC SIG Seminar 30Source: Open Group Guide - Cloud Computing Portability and Interoperability

Applications Mapping to DCRM



Portability / Interoperability Interfaces


So

urc

e: O

pen

Gro

up

Gu

ide

-C

lou

d C

om

pu

tin

g P

ort

ab

ilit

y a

nd

In

tero

per

ab

ilit

y

Portability / Interoperability Interfaces (Cont’)


So

urc

e: O

pen

Gro

up

Gu

ide

-C

lou

d C

om

pu

tin

g P

ort

ab

ilit

y a

nd

In

tero

per

ab

ilit

y

Security of WS-I and HTTP WS Styles


14-Aug-2013 34HKCS EA / CC SIG Seminar

Application Design Principles Loose coupling

Service-orientation

Stable interfaces

Described interfaces Human / machine readable descriptions

Use of marketplaces (a.k.a. app stores)

REST (Representational State Transfer)

BASE (Basically Available, Soft State, Eventual Consistency) c.f. ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation Durability)


Recommendations• Problem areas:

• Platform-platform / application-platform interfaces

• Service descriptions and management interfaces

• Data models, machine image formats

• Loose coupling, service-orientation, stable and described interfaces, marketplaces, REST, BASE

• Each area covers:• Problem summary

• Recommendations for current practice

• Recommendations for standards development


Application-Platform Interfaces Problem summary

Various programming languages to be chosen for the interface

No agreement on what functionality is needed

No commonly accepted application-platform interface standards

Recommendations for current practice Enterprises should seek to use cloud platforms with vendor-

independent programming interfaces

PaaS vendors stating that they support .NET or J2EE should say which versions they support

Recommendations for standards development The industry should identify best practice in use of direct HTTP

and JSON, including means of authentication and access control (such as OAUTH), and develop standard profiles for interoperability between service platforms using this approach.


Machine Image Formats Problem summary

A standard machine image format makes portability possible across different infrastructure service providers, as well as across infrastructure services of a single provider.

The DMTF OVF standard is designed to meet the need for a machine image format standard.

Recommendations for current practice Enterprises developing cloud infrastructure services should evaluate the

OVF standard and support it if feasible.

Enterprises developing cloud management systems should evaluate the OVF standard and support it if feasible.

Enterprises procuring cloud infrastructure services or cloud management systems should evaluate the OVF standard and look for support for it as appropriate.

Recommendations for standards development The industry should work to ensure that the OVF standard is and remains

fit for purpose, and to encourage its use.


BASE Transactions Problem summary

There is a need for robust and scalable services that are loosely-coupled and have stable interfaces that are easy to describe.

Recommendations for current practice

Applications should be designed using the Representational State Transfer (REST) style, though without insisting on its full rigor.


CAP Theorem You can only guarantee at

most two of them

ACID Consistency and Availability

BASE Availability and Partition

Tolerance

Designed for scalability

Eventual consistency may not ensure data are consistent as expected


Consistency

Availability

PartitionTolerance






Conclusions


Conclusions Architects can formulate a cloud reference architecture for their

enterprises To further develop cloud adoption landscape, strategy and roadmap

Interoperability and portability are factors to consider when adopting cloud services in addition to costs and security Manage (rather than avoid) vendor lock-in Open standards vs. fast time-to-market / lower TCO Exit strategy should be planned in solution architecture

Cloud vendors should develop products for portability and interoperability In the long run, these features will become a competitive advantage

Cloud interoperability will become a determinant of success Like what happened to the Internet / Web


Thank You