The news today from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and VMware reinforces how the cloud is far less about data centers and public clouds than one extended network that allows for data to flow without distinction between the two.
According to a post on the AWS blog, VMware images can now be imported into AWS. That means a data center can essentially be imported into AWS.
The cloud is becoming far more than AWS or a data center built on VMware technology. It’s now an infrastructure that supports a data fabric more than anything else. That data is like dust, blanketing the entire network, seeping everywhere.
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The virtualized data network is changing the definition of cloud computing. The network is flattening. That allows for data to pass from on-premise systems to cloud environments. CPUs can be moved to where they are needed, based on the network load.
According to Amazon’s Jeff Barr:
“VM Import lets you bring existing VMware images (VMDK files) to Amazon EC2. You can import “system disks” containing bootable operating system images as well as data disks that are not meant to be booted.
This new feature opens the door to a number of migration and disaster recovery scenarios. For example, you could use VM Import to migrate from your on-premises data center to Amazon EC2.”
But there are some questions that come of this. For instance, when is Amazon going to allow the full export of data?
All Barr would say on Twitter is that AWS will listen to its customers.
In the meantime, here’s what the new service means.
You can start importing 32 and 64 bit Windows Server 2008 SP2 images right now. Amazon supports the Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter editions.
Barr says AWS is working to add support for other versions of Windows including Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It will support several Linux distributions including CentOS, RHEL, and SUSE. Images can be imported into the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).
This is just another example that shows how a company can move out of the so-called private cloud, a term that is becoming far less relevant than ever before.
Instead, what we see is a world where the cloud extends beyond data centers into services like AWS.
This will be a dominating trend in the next year. The data center will be fully connected to the cloud.
The significant issue to emerge will center more around storage and networking. But we will save that topic for another day.
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