Utility computing (UC) is likely to be mainstream by the year 2005, according to Gartner while IDC believes that UC is the current trend, delegates heard at a Sun Microsystems seminar in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg recently.
Currently the UC model is a reality in network infrastructure and hardware and logical hardware architecture. This will be followed by the more complex logical infrastructure hardware, then applications and finally business services.
Jan Dry, solutions and technology manager at Sun Microsystems for the sub Sahara region, says Sun is working in partnership with customer IT departments to provide an evolutionary set of facilities to accommodate UC and thus allowing it to be implemented over time.
"Utility is not a new concept," says Dry. "Imagine paying the cable company, the generation plant and service provider for your electricity. The IT industry is a little more complex than that, of course, because there are so many elements that have to be 'billed', but essentially the mechanism is the same.
"Customers have told us that their infrastructures are under-utilised and cost too much, are not responsive enough and are hard to change. They have asked us to help them with virtualisation techniques, how to achieve end-to-end quality of service and the best architecture for Web services.
"They told us that their applications are too complex and the number of elements that make up their data centres are growing too fast."
In response to these user needs and as systems move towards UC, says Dry, Sun's N1 initiative gives new meaning to the word "system" and is now offering centralised operation, multiple operating system domains, routing and soft cabling and resource management.
"N1 as a technology is a well-defined set of layers and structures. We are bringing it to market in a structured manner, setting up servers and running and managing them for their lifecycle.
"The end result is that users are given a virtual end-to-end service infrastructure. We are driving the vision of the data centre as a single system meeting market requirements and eliminating discrete systems. N1 in its final form will be the provision of dynamic allocations of software and hardware resources."
In the true meaning of UC, customers will specify their needs and Sun will configure the system in its environment before shipping it as a customer-ready solution.
He emphasised that a key element successfully delivering achieving UC is Sun's recognition that it cannot do it alone. So it will partner with industry experts such as ICL and Comparex, Oracle, Deloitte & Touche, EDS, Cisco and Computer Associates.
"Sun is well on the way to using the principles of utilities like electricity, water and telcos and applying them to the IT infrastructure. It will reduce operational costs directly or via increased visibility. You will be able to buy computer infrastructure 'power' from providers which meter your usage and charge back accordingly.
The utility computing seminar was also addressed by Kevin Melville, GM of sales at Rentworks, which offers Sun Microsystems Finance. He gave delegates an insight into the flexibility of paying only for what and when computing is required. Sun Microsystems Finance has been in place for about 18 months and is generating much interest in the corporate sector where even financial institutions are utilising the Rentworks solution.
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Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision - "The Network Is The Computer" - has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com.
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