Interoperability between clouds requires more than just VM portability
The issue of application state and connection management is one often discussed in the context of cloud computing and virtualized architectures. That's because the stress placed on existing static in...
Published Feb 10, 2009
Version 1.0
Lori_MacVittie
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Let's step back away from the marketing push of "hardware versus virtual appliance" for a minute because regardless of which model the customer wants, the issue of portability across clouds remains.
Even if the ADC is a virtual appliance, there are *still* issues with configuration and collaboration when moving from one environment to another. It really has less to do with the deployment model and more to do with the connectivity layer. Firing up a virtual appliance is meaningless unless it can be directed to the applications it is supposed to be delivering. Same thing with hardware.
The issue with portability and interoperability isn't about deployment models or hardware/virtual appliance/whatever-comes-next, it's about collaboration and orchestration of the connectivity layer. That a virtual image of an application will carry along configuration/operating meta-data is good, but we need meta-data surrounding its dependencies as well for true interoperability across cloud implementations.
Lori