The metacloud / supercloud / sky computing is actually a thing. It is happening.
One screen to rule them all?
Once in a while, I hear a new technology buzzword that captures my interest, because the concept itself makes sense to me. Case in point: METACLOUD / SUPERCLOUD / SKY COMPUTING.
I read an article from Deloitte (URL at the end) that states that the "metacloud / supercloud / sky computing" will be one of the next hot trends in technology. It certainly seems like a valid concept – and when I googled for more information, I found other articles – but no mention of actual companies building these metacloud tools. Even the original article from Deloitte failed to provide examples.??
I would like to give you a couple of use cases, but first, let's describe the problem the metacloud is trying to solve.
What is the metacloud?
The metacloud / supercloud is the next generation of services and tools that would allow unified design, deployment, and management of resources in any cloud, as well as in any data center. Think of it as a single control plane which is flexible and powerful enough to connect to every environment, and manage everything that you have deployed across different CSPs (cloud service providers), on prem, or in your corporate data center, making it easier to get things done.?
It doesn't matter if your resources exist in your AWS Account, or an Azure Subscription, or in GCP Projects, or physical servers in your own offices (anyone still running servers under your desk?), the metacloud tools and services would become the central point to design and deploy all of it – from a single console – and would ensure consistent configurations, security controls, and more efficient operations.
Sidebar:? These concepts are still evolving, so there are a few different definitions going around – which has led to some confusion.? Some people appear to think "multicloud" is the same as "metacloud". No, they are not synonyms.??
What problems do metacloud services solve?
In a phrase, the problem is exponential complexity.? Multicloud (using several CSPs) is very hard. Everybody managing a multicloud environment faces increased technology complexity, which has become a real constraint to speed. Sure, the multicloud approach has several advantages, but simplicity is not one of them. Currently, large enterprises may have an edge because of their abundance of resources. For example, large companies can afford to build dedicated teams to work with different CSPs (AWS, Azure, GCP) for different domains (configuration, deployment, security, etc.) creating large departments of people to deal with multicloud operations. Yet even with all these smart people working for them, large companies could take advantage of the next generation tools.?
Metacloud services definitely hit a sweet spot with small and midsize businesses, which are getting stuck in their journey to the multicloud, trying to hire people that know everything about every single cloud (since they have smaller teams, they are trying to find people with extraordinary technical skills in all CSPs, which is quite difficult). Smaller organizations have needed this category of tools for quite some time.?
How would it work?
The new tools and services would consolidate control and management, and eventually become an abstraction layer that allows organizations to deploy a DynamoDB in AWS, or Azure Cosmos DB, or an Oracle database somewhere else, with matching configurations. There would be no gaps or differences in any of these deployments, and the databases would have the same settings. The metacloud service would do some magic in the background to ensure consistency, and on top of all, instead of learning how to operate three or four portals and consoles, you could do everything from one single place.
It goes without saying that consistent configurations are a great idea, especially from the security point of view. It’s also an excellent way to demonstrate regulatory compliance.??
Examples of current tools
Three examples (one from each CSP):
Microsoft’s Azure Arc definitely checks all the boxes to be considered metacloud / supercloud / sky computing.
Microsoft originally defined Arc (in 2019) as a "bridge" to extend the Azure platform to the corporate data center, with not much emphasis on controlling multicloud environments. But over the last four years, Arc has grown into a platform of services to connect to Arc-enabled servers, Arc-enabled data services, Arc-enabled app services, kubernetes, etc. etc. on prem, as well as on other clouds.
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Arc “extends” the Microsoft cloud, so non-Azure resources (for example, physical servers in my server farm, or servers in another CSP) can be onboarded to Azure, becoming Azure resources. Then, it’s possible to apply Azure policies, etc. to these new resources, and manage them from a single place.
GCP has presented a somewhat similar concept (Google Distributed Cloud) that is focused mostly on the application layer (containers, powered by Anthos), and the extension of the GCP to the customer’s edge / customer’s data center. Google Distributed Cloud uses the tagline “build once, run anywhere”, so it is clear that they are targeting multicloud deployments at some point.???
And what about AWS Outposts? While it is the same concept that Google Distributed Cloud (the extension of the public cloud functionality into the customer’s data center), it looks like AWS is not controlling workloads in any other clouds. At least not yet.
Prediction
Metacloud is a buzzword that is here to stay. The public cloud itself is an abstraction layer – there are physical servers somewhere that I deploy and manage from my desk – whereas the metacloud is taking that abstraction concept even further. AWS, Azure, GCP, data center, become one single logical platform. It makes sense.?
I anticipate that, sooner or later, CSPs' own marketing teams will start using the METACLOUD / SUPERCLOUD / SKY COMPUTING terminology in their sales collateral. Eventually, they will start telling us the tools "now use AI".
Conclusion
The metacloud is happening. It's being fueled by a need for "universal tools" and a single pane of glass (whenever possible) to deal with the complexity of multicloud. Any company tackling complexity will naturally target solutions that offer flexibility, consistency, and faster delivery speeds. We needed this kind of tool, even if we didn't know it by this name!
About the author
I am a security architect with an interest in new and emerging technology capabilities, with a focus on cybersecurity.
Illustration credit: Microsoft, screenshot taken from Azure Arc video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuqbVfCchUI
Further reading:
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