A short history of cloud computing, and why Platform as a Service (PaaS) is an important aspect of this technology. Presented at bcs Oxfordshire, February 2014

1. From Cloud Computing to
Platform as a Service
Andy Piper
@andypiper (MBCS CITP)

2. Hello
I’m Andy

3. This morning!
Reminded by my cloud-native
Little Printer…

4. Developer Advocate @ Cloud Foundry
!
maker, hacker, educator, LEGO fan
podcaster, writer
Open Source contributor
Eclipse Project Lead (Paho / MQTT)
!
excited by “what’s next”, Internet of Things, etc.
a few things about me

5. My background

6. Today’s topic: Cloud!

7. So what do we know
about “The Cloud”…?

8. 29% an actual cloud
51% believe affected
by weather
54% say they never
use (but 95% turn out
to do so)
20% pretend to know
...
16% know it means
computer services
68% say it’s good,
when explained...
What the heck is
“The Cloud”?
Citrix study (1,006 person survey)

9. 1. Cloud, and how we got here
2. Platform as a Service?
3. Why Open Source will rule the Cloud

10. How did we get here?

11. 1st
MAINFRAME
3rd
CLOUD
Automation of
financial
accounts
ISAM
2nd
CLIENT-SERVER
& WEB
Automation of
most paper processes:
ERP, CRM, Email, …
pioneered by new Consumer
Internet giants – requires a new
Application Fabric
New Data-fabrics
Mainframes
c. 1960s-1980
New Experiences
New Biz Models
Relational
Databases
Mini’s & PC’s
c. 1980s-2000s
Eras of Computing
Cloud-Enabled
Datacenter
mid-2000s … now

12. Gmail, Salesforce,
Flickr, Google Docs...
Software
Google AppEngine,
Heroku, Cloud Foundry,
EngineYard, OpenShift,
Azure, Apprenda...
Platform
Infrastructure
3 layers
Amazon EC2, Google CE,
OpenStack, vSphere,
Rackspace, Cloud Stack,
Eucalyptus...
IaaS, PaaS, SaaS

13. They brought the
virtualised infrastructure
Infrastructure as a Service
= the new hardware

14. Infrastructure Clouds
- consumer web companies built out according to
their own needs to support Software

15. They brought the APIs
and data (aka MBaaS)
APIs - mashups, data, agility

16. But - still need to build
& manage Platform

17. They brought the rapid
development
push ‘myapp’ -> running

18. They brought the
business challenge
data leads to advantage

19. Characteristics of the Cloud
•
vast scale
•
decreasing cost
•
agility of delivery (even at scale)
•
rapid data analysis and iteration (“big data”)
•
innovation

20. To succeed where those guys have? Platform

21. Characteristics of PaaS
•
Applications and Services (data) are kings
•
Opinionated!
•
De-emphasised infrastructure / hardware
(VM, kernel, disk, network etc)
•
An “operating system” for IaaS

23. Rumours of the demise of PaaS are greatly
exaggerated…

24. Why Open wins

25. From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
1991
An important year in software
Hello everybody out
there using minix !
I’m doing a (free)
operating system
(just a hobby,
won’t be big and
professional like
gnu) for 386(486)
AT clones.

26. 21+ years later: Linux has won

27. #P0WN ALL
TEH
GADGETZ !
Linux runs everywhere
(even old versions, on crashy
airline entertainment systems...)

28. It runs on Windows Azure!
Jun 2012, w. Canonical

29. Linux is ubiquitous
(but often invisible)

30. It works.

31. No single language to
“rule them all”

32. Data gets bigger
(and faster, and needs
analysis, and SCIENCE)

33. Composability is key

34. An Operating System for
the Open Cloud
Multi-IaaS, Multi-Framework,
extensible…

35. Open & public from the start
Code all on Github

36. Infrastructure !
Clouds (CPI)
Runtimes and !
Frameworks
All about Choice
Data Services
and APIs
composability is key…

37. The 2014 Cloud
Forecast?

38. more developers
building
!
more awesome apps & services
in the OPEN

39. Connect
apiper@gopivotal.com
http://twitter.com/andypiper
http://andypiper.co.uk
http://slideshare.net/andypiper

40. Image credits
!
• Happy Tux http://igloo.crystalxp.net/ZeNDaMs
• Signpost http://www.flickr.com/photos/16002150@N08/2006266695/
• open road https://secure.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/2049233526/
• lego world MOC https://secure.flickr.com/photos/dirkb86/8554933153/
• Other images are author’s own, or royalty-free and CC-licensed works
from Wikimedia Commons