Page 60 - 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

by itself, but when microprocessors are combined into four-,
six-, or eight-CPU servers, and thousands of these servers are
clustered together in a cloud data center, they represent a new
type of computing resource, one that combines an ability to
deliver either standard or high performance at prices that
reflect low-cost parts. These individual microprocessors are re-

ferred to as x86 chips, and they are produced on a scale that
dwarfs the output of any of the high-end processors used in
IBM mainframes or large Unix servers.
It’s possible to build a large computer or computer clus-
ter without using x86 parts. For instance, HP’s Superdome
and Sun Microsystems’ UltraSPARC 10000 Starfire use high-
end server processors that pack more processing punch into

each CPU but lack the economies of scale possessed by the
cloud data centers built from x86 parts. But as of now, there
are no clouds based on high-end CPUs. It’s not in a definition
anywhere, but cloud computing connotes mass-produced
parts assembled into massive units delivering new economies
of scale.
Clouds are a form of cluster computing, and so far only a
small handful of companies have gained the knowledge of
how to build out very large clusters for general public use.

These companies include Amazon Web Services, Google’s
App Engine, Microsoft’s Azure cloud, the Rackspace Cloud,
Sun Microsystems (now part of Oracle), IBM, Yahoo!, eBay,
and Facebook. Other large Internet companies have also built
big data centers with x86 parts, but so far they are not available
to the public for on-demand, general-purpose, cloud-style
computing uses.

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