Is there a silver lining in Google's Cloud?
Ok I know it’s April fools day and maybe I should be posting pranks, but something has been really bothering me about the cloud computing situation. Amazon are literally running away with the jewels and the other big players just seem to be standing around watching. Well thats not strictly true, IBM have mentioned their ‘blue cloud’, and we Know Microsoft have their own ‘live cloud’ plans (although not enumerated), Microsoft could also be acquiring Yahoo as a means to extend their cloud offering according to some sources. So where the hell is Google in all this? Surely they will take a hand in the cloud computing game, yet we hear the deafening sound of silence from them. That means to me (just like it would for Apple) that there is something huge going on, thinking differntly and with alternate business models, that is what this post is about.
I’m not alone in thinking that Google may do things differently with their cloud offerings, Winer thinks they will go with the freemium model (free and payed premium options) unlike Amazon’s AWS which is pay only. Freemium makes a great deal of sense for Google and is a model they obviously like, just take a look at Google Apps, it follows the freemium model perfectly. Google also has a history of doing free first and finding a business model after. In terms of business models there are a number of suggestions. Winer suggests reduced cost for Google technology acquisitions, the cloud acts as a combined VC/Technology platform, thus when they acquire successful implementations on their platform, integration into Google becomes a breeze. They also gain mindshare allowing educational establishments to use their cloud for free, becoming part of the curriculum. There is also a huge identity battle going on right now with Microsoft,Yahoo etc.. this move could deliver a fatal blow to the other identity players if the Google cloud use became prolific. In addition successful implementations would likely move to the premium GCloud, bringing in direct revenue. Ok enough speculation around Google’s motive and business models lets crack into how the hell they could do it.
Now if we assume they go the freemium route, they would need a system that can scale with free. This is no mean feat, free can get pretty prolific very fast, if free meant everyone got an EC2 equivalent that could add up to a severe drain on even Google’s resources. This is where I believe Google may ‘think different’, they will need more control and greater scalability without limiting innovation. Also I believe they will want to make it easier to get started than the current AWS offerings, they would need a shorter learning curve. In this sense the GCloud would need to have some basic constraints and familiar development models to attract modern web application builders. So how will they do it, what will the cloud be made of, how will regular web developers use it?
So here is the really speculative part, if we assemble together Steve Yegge’s Next Big Language (NBL) and his recent project G-ROR (No not Ruby On Rails, it’s Rhino On Rails) as well as his top secret project NBE (Next Big Environment?) we can pick up some important clues. This are useful for several reasons:
- Google intend using this stuff internally to build apps (at least prototyping them)
- It is a perfect vehicle to build google API infrastructure into (GData,Search,OS..)
So what is NBE? My guess is that NBE is a combination of Java Virtual Machines (JVM) plus supporting Google API libraries with security wrappers. Here is how it could work; Google’s equivalent of EC2 would be a Cloud Virtual Machine (CVM), this CVM can run any suitable Java byte code that has been built with the CVM toolkit. The CVM toolkit does some sanity checking etc..to prevent abuse. Each CVM acts like a secure independent system (note - not operating system) isolated from the others with controls to enable you (or Google) to start, stop and control it remotely via a CVM API. These CVM instances will of course run in the Google managed datacentres.
So how will developers build the CVM apps? To start with I believe they will use G-ROR, a rails like development platform that includes an equivalent to active record for GData, allowing data to be stored in the GCloud transparently. It will be a development model that many are already familiar with, one which has already shown itself to be popular and very quick to get up to speed with. The main difference will be that the programming language (initially) will be Javascript rather than Ruby, this will appeal to an even wider developer audience, Google loves javascript in case you haven’t noticed - NBL?.
So there you have it, that is how they could deliver cloud computing ABC economically and with the constraints/controls required for a freemium model. They could run numerous CVM instances per server to make the whole infrastructure scalable and financially viable.
I think they could also offer premium CVMs, with extra features (more memory, dedicated processors etc..) building ontop of the JVM/CVM. They could for example offer existing server side language choices from the JVM such as JRuby, Jython, Groovy and Scala to name just a few. All of these compile down to Java byte code and could thus run on the CVM platform just by adding the required support libraries. And guess what, that would make Google’s CVM one of the most language accessible cloud platforms around, just look at how appealing that could be to the web developers everywhere (NBE?).
Of course this is all just idle speculation, but there may be a grain or two of truth to it. Does this Google cloud offer a developer’s silver lining ? I would be interested in what you think, does this idea appeal to you as a developer? Is what I am talking about severely floored? I am completely nuts?,I wanna here you thoughts, go on let loose…
Re: Is there a silver lining in Google's Cloud?
Fascinating thoughts ... sounds very "logical" (which is the kind of plausibility I like even though I know the world doesn't always work that way)
Yegge's NBE undoubtedly includes his JS editing mode for Emacs (and apparently writing Emacs extensions in Javascript) so maybe that's gonna get mixed into the pot too. Emacs can even become a client to Ajaxy cloud apps?
Would be quite cool to develop directly on the cloud from Emacs. And write everything (server and client) in JS.
Re: Is there a silver lining in Google's Cloud?
Over the last few years, Google has become a lot more interested in relating revenue to computing capacity, so I'm not sure they work do any type of non-paid thing for computing services where they couldn't collect/make use of the data.
There also seems to be a huge tension within Google between the JVM and C++/Native code. I'd be very surprised to see Google rolling out a platform based on JVM-style technology beyond Android.
Finally, I'm not sure Google is coordinated enough to pull off what you're describing. Google seems to do well at putting small toes in the water, trying something, and putting more toes in the water. Android and Open Social are exceptions to this, but neither has proven to be a success and one might even claim that Open Social is DOA.
But, yes, AWS has been strikingly well done. It'll be interesting to see if Amazon has an "end game" beyond just providing computational capacity.
Re: Is there a silver lining in Google's Cloud?
As far as Google's data collection goes history is on your side, although premium Google Apps goes against the grain, further any engagement with real businesses will require a non-data model I think Google have to move this way. Also their free cloud offering may reserve them the right to advertise or use the stored data in some anonymous way perhaps
I am not familiar with the internal tensions around languages, but the JVM seems the only real way to go, C++/Native would never work just think of the security issues. The advanatage of say a JVM over an EC2 instance is control/security and scalability (nodes per server).
I get similar feelings in my engagements with Google and wonder if they are talking to each other in a co-ordinated fashion. This is a really valid point, can they be co-ordinated enough to actually challeng this market opportunity. I do however beleive it's to big not to be on their Radar and thus one must assume they have at least some modicum of a plan brewing. I would certainly expect Microsoft to respond over the coming years, Google are unlikely to let everyone else play by themselves.
On Open Social and Android it is really to early to tell and both of these are signs to Google looking at the bigger picture even if the fail they could well learn from the experience just like Microsoft have in the past.
I love what Jeff and the team at Amazon have done and am betting my near term future on it, I also have some insight as to how hard it is to get right. Cloud computing is non trivial, cloud computing for the masses even less so.
If GCloud supported Scala would you be interested in using it, especially if you could port lift to it?
Re: Is there a silver lining in Google's Cloud?
He was saying that CBS is an advertising company and all content development and media channels are intended to sell eyeballs.
Google's business apps are pretty weak considering the size and aspirations of the company. I suspect the prime driver may be selling advertising which is their prime revenue model...so you make apps just good enough to use in order to put associated contextual ads on them...
Advertising in a cloud hasn't come into focus yet....
A cynical tangent but I think there might be some truth in it...
Re: Is there a silver lining in Google's Cloud?
However their future is less certain, wanting to organise the worlds information won't just happen by dealing with advertisers and consumers, they also have to organise business information surely.
If they do need to get into the business information market, advertising inside web apps isn't a dish that businesses are likely to swallow. That isn't to say that Google can't come up with other data monetizations around the business data that we haven't seen yet of course.
I would also add that businesses are likely to be suspicious of Google using their data, in fact this could well be an obstacle. Google premium web apps illustrates that they understand this at least to some degree. Is this just a token or is it something emerging that Google are likely to champion moving forward.
I would also expect Microsoft to enter further into this territory and would therefore expect Google to respond if they haven't already acted.
Re: Is there a silver lining in Google's Cloud?
A lot of Google stuff seems really kind of rinky dink to me right now though - their ui and execution is really inferior imo. The idea of a Google cloud seems very grey and foggy to me, lacking crispness etc...
It's one thing for Zoho to have a gossamer weight business suite for use in Starbucks etc, but Google?
Re: Is there a silver lining in Google's Cloud?
- If ones purchase ledger was stored in secured GData and Google analyzed this (anonymously) in order to recommends ways of cutting costs via say new supply aggregating purchases or whatever.
- Or some extreme forms of business intelligence could be perhaps achieved across large aggregations of business data.
The cloud is very real, spending anytime with the growing groups of developers and businesses building on AWS provides some real insight to the way things are moving, I can't see how Google can ignore that anymore than businesses can long term.
I think we are already well beyond use in StarBucks (even though I like StarBucks myself!!)
Re: Is there a silver lining in Google's Cloud?
However...in a firewall and security world - which is where my enterprise collaboration head still is - their current solutions don't pass muster, and purchase ledgers stored in secured GData are a ways off judging by the attitude of some of the corporate characters I've been dealing with, to put it mildly...
I hope they pull it off, but there's a lot of work to do there...