The Problem With Sun's Cloud Strategy

Sun's plans for a cloud computing platform and related Sun Cloud services are getting a thumbs up for the technology, innovation, and openness that Sun promises to bring to this emerging market. Unfortunately, Sun's cloud could be dead on arrival.Rumors that IBM might acquire Sun can't be a good thing for Sun's ambitious plan. Developers and IT pros want to know that their cloud vendors are going to be around for the long term, that the data and applications they put in the cloud (i.e., Sun's data centers) will be in a safe, secure place for years to come. Questions about Sun's future as a company carry too much uncertainty to let them reach that comfort zone.

We know from recent experience that cloud vendors aren't always in it for the long haul. In February, platform-as-a-service vendor Coghead announced that it was going out of business, forcing customers to find a new home for the cloud apps they had built there. (See "Coghead Failure Highlights Risks Of Cloud Computing.")

Many people agree that Sun's cloud software would be a boost to IBM's own cloud initiatives, which seem to be not well understood and/or appreciated. "Perhaps the most important element of the deal lies in Sun's potential for cloud computing," writes BusinessWeek's Steve Hamm in an article headlined, "How Sun Would Help IBM Get Into The Cloud."

However, that assumes that IBM sees it the same way, that Big Blue would make Sun's Open Cloud Platform (underlying technologies include Java, MySQL, OpenSolaris, and Open Storage) and Sun Cloud services centerpieces in its own cloud computing strategy, and we have no way of knowing that. Early adopters of Sun's cloud technology and services would essentially be gambling that IBM would carry through on the work that Sun has begun, yet IBM hasn't uttered a word to that effect. (To be fair, IBM hasn't confirmed the acquisition talks, so there's not much it can say about Sun's cloud technology at this point.)

There is an exit strategy for would-be Sun cloud computing customers. The Sun Open Cloud Platform, which can be used to build private clouds in corporate data centers, will be compatible with Sun Cloud public services. If necessary, IT organizations could migrate their workloads from the Sun Cloud to internally managed clouds based on the same technology. But that would put them back at Square One -- do-it-yourself data management -- defeating the purpose of moving into the cloud in the first place.

[For more on Sun's cloud and how its GUI-based Virtual Data Center tool can be used to create and deploy virtualized servers of many varieties, including OpenSolaris, Windows and Linux, see David Berlind's ReviewCam post here.]