>  So here are some questions which some might be able to answer!
> 1) Do we have experience in switching between clouds. How easy is that?
>     This involves the actual hosting of service and in some cases (common
> for Grids) of data-compute affinity i.e.
> 2) If one needs extensive associated data does one need to move or
> replicate data between clouds. e.g. if I store my data in S3, when is it
> practical to compute on clouds other than EC2. This involves both bandwidth
> and cost of bandwidth
> 3) The issue of affinity is also relevant within a single cloud.
> Does/should cloud provider assign compute-nodes "near" the needed data?
> 4) and in a different class of application; can I specify node-node
> affinity as needed by parallel computing jobs that need a few microsecond
> latency for communication between nodes.

> Khazret Sapenov wrote:

> On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 4:30 PM, Geoffrey Fox <g...@grids.ucs.indiana.edu>
> wrote:

> > 2) Maybe this will enable concepts like Cloud Economies?
> >    Grid economies are well studied with high quality ideas but
> > complexity (IMHO) has led to little use of Grid economies

> Geoffrey,
> This is what I have off top the head, sorry if it is too muddled:

> It is hard to say whether and when it'll use grid economy.
> Currently we have sporadic cases of entire chain (like Amazon Compute
> Cloud), where you have supplier of compute capacity (S), third parties (R),
> consumers (C) charged flat or variable fee for amount of resources (CPU-hour
> or a combination of metrics).

> Lets consider why almost all entities of cloud computing ecosystem might
> be interested in it.
> For simplicity, I omitted an imported hidden entity - hardware vendors
> (H), who sell more units, necessary to power the cloud.
> Suppliers (S) benefit from selling at wholesale prices and having margin.
> Third parties (R) serving as retailers, resell compute capacity in
> different forms, such as hosting websites, SAAS etc. This area is growing,
> since it gives huge cost savings to resellers. Consumers (C) also benefit
> from cheaper services.

> Going further, there's a question whether this economy would use trading
> model(using market-based resource management and scheduling) or keep
> proprietary chargeback schemes.
> In my opinion, once it enters the stage where retailers of compute
> capacity (or it's large clients) need to manage the risk of availability of
> compute capacities, there will be obvious need for regulated market.

> regards,
> Khaz Sapenov

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