[occi-wg] Resource Types: Compute / Network / Storage

[Krishna Sankar (ksankar)]

Thanks. Got it and agreed. We need to focus. But we should make sure we
depict the world that is above and below us in a realistic way. 

|-----Original Message-----
|From: Alexis Richardson [mailto:alexis.richardson at gmail.com]
|Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 9:59 AM
|To: Sam Johnston
|Cc: Krishna Sankar (ksankar); occi-wg at ogf.org
|Subject: Re: [occi-wg] Resource Types: Compute / Network / Storage
|
|Our current goal is to settle on an API for IaaS.  Anything remotely
|confusing needs to be parked.
|
|In the context of this goal:
|
|"Compute", "Storage", "Network", inasmuch as they have an API, are
|*infrastructure services* provided by folks who are in the IaaS
|business.  They abstract the infrastructure so that it can be
|consumed.  Hence I suggest that 'infrastructure' is the right word to
|put below the three infrastructure services.  We don't care what
|happens below that.
|
|
|
|On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Sam Johnston <samj at samj.net> wrote:
|> One recent post by one analyst which concedes that it's a
"problematic
|term,
|> perhaps, because a few of the vendors employ it towards different
|ends"
|> isn't reason enough to scuttle it (which has been in fairly
widespread
|use
|> for well over a decade), especially in the absence of an alternative
|> proposal. Appistry have dropped the term and Microsoft's Azure is now
|a
|> "Services Platform" (someone's dyslexic perhaps), even if they still
|use
|> fabric sporadically with developers.
|>
|> This is what Cisco have to say about Unified Fabrics:
|>>
|>> The typical data center environment supports two to three parallel
|>> networks: one for data, one for storage, and possibly one for server
|>> clustering. In addition, servers often have dedicated interfaces for
|>> management, backup, or virtual machine live migration. Supporting
|these
|>> interfaces imposes significant costs related to interfaces, cabling,
|rack
|>> space, upstream switches, and power and cooling.
|>>
|>> Unified fabric consolidates these different types of traffic onto a
|>> single, general-purpose, high-performance, highly available network
|that
|>> greatly simplifies the network infrastructure and reduces costs. To
|do all
|>> this, a unified fabric must be intelligent enough to identify the
|different
|>> types of traffic and handle them appropriately.
|>>
|>> In addition to reducing total cost of ownership, unified fabric
|supports
|>> broader data center virtualization by providing consistent,
|ubiquitous
|>> network and storage services to all connected devices.
|>
|> I'd like to see us get some clarity here one way or another because
|it's a
|> source of significant confusion (if we can't get it right between us
|then
|> what are customers meant to think?).
|>
|> Sam
|>
|> On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 6:38 PM, Alexis Richardson
|> <alexis.richardson at gmail.com> wrote:
|>>
|>> Fabric is also used to refer to PaaS:
|>> http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2008/11/14/cloud-types/
|>>
|>> I suggest we drop the word 'fabric'.
|>>
|>>
|>> On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Sam Johnston <samj at samj.net> wrote:
|>> > On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 6:14 PM, Krishna Sankar (ksankar)
|>> > <ksankar at cisco.com> wrote:
|>> >>
|>> >> But then SaaS is Software over PaaS; PaaS is fabric over IaaS;
|IaaS is
|>> >> compute, storage and network. Isn't fabric the P is PaaS ? and in
|IaaS,
|>> >> we
|>> >> see raw compute/storage/network ?
|>> >>
|>> >> If we want to maintain the Software-Platform-Infrastructure
|terminology
|>> >> hierarchy I am fine with that. Then we should switch the fabric
|and the
|>> >> Compute-Storage-Network.
|>> >
|>> > [Ab]use of the term "fabric" to refer to software platforms like
|Azure
|>> > is so
|>> > far as I can tell a fairly recent trend (and one I'm relatively
|>> > unconvinced
|>> > by). Granted the contept (whereby many interconnected nodes, when
|viewed
|>> > from a distance, appear to be a single coherent "fabric") could be
|>> > applied
|>> > to both hardware and software, but it is most often applied to low
|>> > level,
|>> > interconnected hardware such as SANs and InfiniBand... and
servers:
|>> >
|>> >> What is fabric computing and how does it improve upon current
|server
|>> >> technology?
|>> >> The simplest way to think about it is the next-generation
|architecture
|>> >> for
|>> >> enterprise servers. Fabric computing combines powerful server
|>> >> capabilities
|>> >> and advanced networking features into a single server structure.
|>> >
|>> > We do need something to refer to the underlying hardware/firmware
|but
|>> > I'm
|>> > even less convinced by proposed alternatives ("unified computing"
|being
|>> > the
|>> > most obvious example). Perhaps "Hardware Fabric" would clarify?
|>> >
|>> > Sam
|>> >
|>> >
|>
|>