Open Cloud Principles
Sam Johnston: The Open Source industry is built around the Open Source Definition (OSD), which is itself maintained by the non-profit Open Source Initiative (OSI). The fledgling “Open Cloud” industry should be built on a similar set of well-defined Open Cloud Principles (OCP) and the associated Open Cloud Initiative (OCI) will closely follow their example.
It is getting to be a crowded place in the clouds, what with the Open Cloud Manifesto, the Cloud Bill of Rights, and the Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum. I’m sure I’ve missed countless others.
I like the OCP’s focus on open APIs, open formats, and open data. Speaking as an open source person, I think the bullet on Open Source (optional) should simply be dropped. Always bet on protocols and formats, as long as the focus is on ensuring that the the entire stack can be swapped out or ground up rewritten as the service owner sees fit, the rest will work out.
By contrast, I think that the concept of Interoperability is significantly in need of expansion. As if often said, the great thing about standards is that there are so many to chose from. Simplicity is not an sufficient differentiator. Security is a great example: sending passwords in the clear is the “simplest” solution, but generally viewed as a non-solution. Google’s solution is simple: as long as everybody has a Google Account, everything “just works”. It may work, but it is an anti-pattern in terms of openness. Worst: security is never a one size fits all: what is appropriate for Bank of America may not be appropriate for a wiki.
Additionally, simple standards also often compose in weird and unexpected ways. For this reason, interoperability requires more than a set of principles, it requires a set of profiles and testing tools. Start small, pick something like OAuth, and expand over time into areas such as integration, portability, interoperability, governance/management, and metering/monitoring.
P.S. SamJ: one other anti-pattern: use of iPaper and Flash to publish open letters.