Page 134 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

MANA GEMENT STRATEGIES F O R THE CL OUD R EV OL UTION

services. By that standard, Amazon’s success with AMIs has
forced a major provider to a lower price point than it might
have otherwise preferred.
Although the three leading x86 virtualization suppliers,
VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix Systems, have agreed to sup-
port OVF, that doesn’t mean that they’ve literally leveled the

playing field among themselves. On the contrary, their sup-
port is rigged as a one-way street. Each is willing to convert a
competitor’s virtual machine into its own format, but it will
not aid the customer in converting that virtual machine back
into its original format or even back into OVF. Each supplier is
thinking in terms of capturing a rival’s customers, not making
it easy for the customer to move workloads between clouds. In

the previous phases of computing, even this modest level of
cooperation would not have occurred, so OVF can be viewed
as somewhat enlightened behavior. But as I say, one-way streets
are just that and should not be confused with customer ease
of transit.
Many people think that the possibilities of cloud comput-
ing will not be realized until there is a smooth, reliable path
between the cloud and the enterprise data center and be-
tween different clouds. OVF and the current level of vendor

cooperation aren’t sufficient to guarantee that movement. So
let the user beware. If you’re a good customer of a cloud sup-
plier, you should point out a specific purpose for which you
want to use another vendor’s cloud. If you get the cold shoul-
der, you might express some determination to find a way
there—and not come back. The majority of your business is at
stake. Sooner or later, the provider will get the message.

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