An ecosystem encompasses a complex and changing network of interactions among organisms. It is a collaborative and orchestrated community in which the combined strength of the group is far greater than any individual element. The key factor that determines the health of an ecosystem is the interdependence of its members. A healthy ecosystem has three attributes: productivity, resilience and organisational diversity.
These characteristics are central to ecosystems now developing in the cloud computing space. Here cloud enablers and solution providers are collaborating on an unprecedented scale. They are bringing their technologies and products together and supporting them with their collective and combined strengths in terms of technology consulting, services and application integration.
In essence, a cloud ecosystem describes the complex system of interdependent components that work together to enable cloud services. In addition to the traditional elements of a cloud, it includes the specialist consultants, integrators, partners and third parties, together with anything in their individual environments that has a bearing on the other components in the cloud.
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What are traditional cloud elements? They are infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS), or as some industry watchers suggest - 'everything-as-a-service' (EaaS).
These cloud platforms have spawned the formation of dynamic environments that support the EaaS model - and the construction of cloud ecosystems in which there are no constraints.
As such, cloud ecosystems comprising any number of platforms can appear, grow and mature. This leads to the conclusion that IaaS, PaaS and SaaS are becoming irrelevant simply because EaaS is able to span the entire spectrum of IT capabilities as we know them - and potentially many more yet to be defined.
It has also rendered obsolete the long-held concept of complete vertical integration stemming from a single organisation.
Today, the collective set of capabilities from product and technology specialists, as well as experts in the areas of middleware, systems integration and those in the application space, are capable of forming an ecosystem that feeds and builds on itself, paving the way for solutions and platforms that will underpin the wave of growth forecast for the cloud computing arena.
As is already apparent, the potential abilities of specialists spanning multiple platforms and cloud environments, linked to multiple organisations and diverse product sets, are driving the formation of composite, merged and federated application models. In these models, partners in cloud ecosystems may cross-sell and even bundle each other's products and service offerings.
While tomorrow's companies will rely more heavily on the cloud, they will rely less on any particular cloud platform.
These partner-orientated ecosystems will be a boon for small and medium-sized businesses, which will benefit from lower combined costs associated with collaborative efforts.
Of course, the issue of security in a cloud environment will be valid even in partner ecosystems. With greater portability between cloud platforms, companies will demand security and transparency guarantees in their service level agreements (SLAs). They must be able to know where their data is located and apply proactive security.
Laying the foundations
Against this backdrop, it's reasonable to expect cloud ecosystems of the future to have many layers of abstractions, with one building on top of another. These ecosystems may well present development opportunities for specialists at ever higher levels, contributing to the formation of increasingly intelligent and interactive environments, which in turn generate ever-increasing value for their originators.
While tomorrow's companies will rely more heavily on the cloud, they will rely less on any particular cloud platform. In this environment, there is the likelihood that several innovative cloud-based applications will appear to take advantage of ever-closer proximities inherent in future cloud ecosystems.
But, what if the EaaS model that characterises the modern cloud ecosystem is too all-encompassing for the end-user?
Because flexibility, ubiquity, mobility and scalability are watchwords in the cloud ecosystem, customers do not have to buy a full range of services from a given provider. They can order a la carte. As one commentator puts it: "The cloud ecosystem is like a cafeteria where everything is within reach." End-users can build solutions with as much control as they need, at a price they determine, with as much visibility and granularity as is demanded by regulators and legislators.
Obviously a beneficial situation for all players, this 'create your own pizza' approach will encourage the establishment of cloud brokers, who will be adept at connecting companies to the right cloud resources to meet their needs.
Through brokers' efforts, cloud solutions will be able to be backed by a single point of technical, sales and service support, and - importantly - a single, perhaps unique, SLA.
In future, the most significant benefit of a cloud ecosystem to the end-user will crystallise as 'simplification of delivery'. Service providers can be expected to work closely with system integrators, cloud aggregators and telecommunications companies to optimise the assets of each company to 'deliver more with less', and thus achieve this goal.
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