From Cloud Computing to Sky Computing

Abstract

We consider the future of cloud computing and ask how we might guide it towards a more coherent(一致的) service we call sky computing. The barriers are more economic than technical, and we propose reciprocal(互惠的) peering as a key enabling step.

我们展望云计算的未来，并探讨如何将其引导至一个更具一致性的服务，我们称之为“天空计算”。其障碍更多在于经济方面而非技术方面，而我们提出互惠互联作为一个关键的推动步骤。

Introduction

In 1961, John McCarthy outlined what he saw as the future of computing (we regretfully note the gendered language):

“computation may someday be organized as a public utility, just as the telephone system is a public utility. We can envisage computer service companies whose subscribers are connected to them [...]. Each subscriber needs to pay only for the capacity that he actually uses, but he has access to all programming languages characteristic of a very large system.”

“计算也许有一天会被组织成一种公共事业，就像电话系统是一种公共事业一样。我们可以设想计算机服务公司，其用户与他们相连[...]。每个用户只需为他实际使用的容量付费，但他可以访问非常大系统特有的所有编程语言。”

As a prediction about technology, McCarthy’s vision was remarkably prescient. His short description accurately depicts what we now call cloud computing, where users have access to massive amounts of computation and storage and are charged only for the resources they use. On the contrary, his prediction about economics was far off the mark(偏离了实际); today, in the United States even telephone service is no longer a public utility(公用事业) but delivered instead through a competing set of providers. However, while not a utility, phone service is largely a commodity(商品), providing a uniform user experience: i.e., no matter what provider you use, you can reach anyone, and switching providers is relatively easy; you can even keep your number when switching.

作为对技术的预测，麦卡锡的愿景极具前瞻性。他简短的描述准确地描绘了我们现在称之为云计算的概念，即用户可以访问海量的计算和存储资源，并且仅为他们使用的资源付费。相反，他对经济的预测却大大偏离了实际情况；如今，在美国，甚至电话服务也不再是公共设施，而是通过一组竞争的提供商来提供。然而，尽管电话服务不是公共设施，但它在很大程度上已经商品化，提供了统一的用户体验：也就是说，无论你使用哪个提供商，你都可以联系到任何人，切换提供商相对容易，甚至可以在更换时保留你的号码。

Returning to McCarthy’s prediction, what concerns us here is not that there is no single public computing utility, but that cloud computing is not an undifferentiated commodity(无区分化的商品). In contrast to telephony, the cloud computing market has evolved away(远离) from commoditization(商品化), with cloud providers striving to differentiate themselves through proprietary(专有的) services. In this paper we suggest steps we can take to overcome this differentiation and help create a more commoditized version of cloud computing, which we call the Sky computing. Before doing so, we briefly summarize the history of cloud computing to provide context for the rest of the paper.

回到麦卡锡的预测，令我们关注的并不是没有单一的公共计算设施，而是云计算并没有成为无差别的商品。与电话服务相反，云计算市场已经从商品化的发展轨道上偏离，云服务提供商通过专有服务来努力区分彼此。在本文中，我们建议采取一些步骤，克服这种差异化，帮助创建一个更加商品化的云计算版本，我们称之为“天空计算”。在此之前，我们简要总结云计算的历史，以为本文其余部分提供背景。