Cloud Front Office

The Mysterious Case of the $0.72 Or Why #Cloudcomputing Should Not Be Like Telco

I've been trying different cloud providers in the last few weeks. This required me to give my credit card out to 8 different cloud providers (CTO at newScale is a dangerous job). This is a story of one of the

To protect the innocent, I've given them code name based on fruit.  I was working with cloud provider GRAPE, learning their console and trying to figure out how to upload my machine image.

Suddenly I noticed that I had been charged $0.72 for bandwidth charges. I had not uploaded or downloaded anything yet, so I was curious as to why I had been charged for consuming 4 megabytes. And the charge was per Gig transferred, so like the famous minutes in my phone bill, 1 byte over the limit and it seem to trigger a 1 Gigabyte charge.

So, I send an e-mail to GRAPE's help desk and fun and games begin.  It goes like this:

Day 1 - Send query to help desk

Day 2 - Receive email that says I need to go to the billing department and provides e-mail. (Why can't they send e-mail to billing department, and cc me?).  So I send the email.

Day 5 - Follow up from Helpdesk: "Did the billing dept" return my inquiry. My answer: no

Day 6 - Case resolved.Maybe. "You will not be charged for the bandwidth charges as you will be given the 1st 1GB of data transfer for free."  My response was but what are you charging me for? And what gigabyte is free?

This event raises all sorts of uncomfortable questions for me.

First, it's $0.72 so in a larger bill, I'm very likely to miss it. How am I going to track my consumption and then check it against their records? 

Second, it's not clear what behavior I engaged in that results in charges, so I'm unlikely to be able to manage it.

Third, I'm all of a sudden in the same damn predicament that I have with my cell phone bill, which is I don't understand the charges at all so I'm paying for all sort of fees. 

I want another telco relationship like I want to be mauled by bears while listening to a dentist drill symphony

Without standardization, packaging and product management, you won't succeed with a private or public #cloud

The last few days, I've been trying to get a VMWare appliance loaded to a cloud service to no success.

As I wrote in "This is so NOT cloud.." and "I'm Still Waiting" it's been a bumpy ride and I still haven't achieved what I wanted to achieve.

Which has me reflecting on why is this happening? And my thinking so far is this:

They truly do not understand what customer self-service is; the result is endless rounds with support that create failure points. For example, wrong cost quotes. For example, login info that is lost in the mail and can't be recovered.

Oh, they all have this shiny consoles to turn an instance on and off. It's not sufficient, they need to figure out the whole product experience!  For example, one has a nice console, but you need a command line to upload. Which requires JDK 1.6. Which cannot be added to a locked machine. Said command line has little to no documentation. After 5 hour upload process, it fails with cryptic error.  As I said, truly don't understand self-service.

What I'm seeing is the need for whole product thinking and much better packaging of services. This is the job of the product manager.  These hosting providers theoretically have them; but most IT organizations don't.

And that's why I think, without standardization, packaging and product management, you won't succeed with a private or public #cloud 

Further (Mis) Adventures in Cloud Computing. Like Bob Marley, I'm Still Waiting. #cloud

Yesterday I wrote about my effort to find a cloud provider that I can use to upload an image.

I tried three.  Each one is in some state of beta-ninnes, with complex sign up procedures, no clear self-service catalog.  You see, I'm pretty sure they've done a mahvelous job putting their infrastructure in place, using the best tools, hardware out there. 

But no thought to the user experience.  So here's the countdown.

Cloud One, the upload takes 5-6 hours, fails, then gives me a cryptic error message. So every cycle of trial and error is a day. Status: Not working

Cloud Two, after scary, long sign up process, chat sessions, disconnected chat sessions ("I was talking to Randy about.... sigh...."), appeals to product manager ("let me get back to you"). I'm finally provisioned!  But it doesn't work with VMDK. Status: Not working

Cloud Three, Same as two, but I can't log in... so I call support and they ask me two questions: account # and domain name.  Me: "I don't have them, this is the only number I got from sign up" Support: "I can't find you." Me: "Here's my name, address,credit card, blah" Support: "I can't find you." 

Much later... We'll get back to you soon.  That was yesterday. Status: Not working. 

So I'm still waiting... Lest you think I wasted the whole day in this foolish quest without gain, it did remind me of how much I love Bob Marley's "I'm Still Waiting"  So enjoy!

This is so NOT #Cloud. Why Amazon Still Wins.

I have a VMware appliance I want to test in the cloud. So I've looked at several providers. Turns out so far I'm having no luck. 

I want to share one experience that I had today, but it's representative of the other experiences today.  These all companies that claim to have a cloud offer, so off I go to their websites to sign up and get going. 

No one has self-service ready to go.  No one has a catalog that I can just see service descriptions, SLA's and pricing.  NO ONE!!! 

I find nothing.  So I click on the chat.. This is a transcript of a very nice conversation.

Hello. Your Sales Professional is Salesperson
Welcome to [REDACTED] Salesperson will be right with you.
Salesperson
Welcome to [REDACTED}, how can I help you and what would you like to accomplish today?

Me
Use cloud hosting. I have a VM appliance I'd like to use

Salesperson
Are you a current customer?

Me   
no

Salesperson
Alright, you are looking to run a VM app in our Cloud environment?

Me
yes. I have VMDK / OVF file i want to upload and run

Salesperson
Great! Could i have a cloud specialist contact you to go over our offerings?

Me
yes.

Me
now?

Salesperson
It will be soon, within the hour if that is OK?

Me
ok

Salesperson
May I receive your contact info, i.e., full name, company name, phone, email?

Me
Rodrigo Flores, newscale, etc, etc

Salesperson
Thanks Rodrigo, do you know how many VM's this is going to be running across or is it just one VM?

Me
1 to test. more later if it works

Salesperson
Sure, do you know RAM and Storage you are looking for?
Me
2 G RAM, 5 G storage

Salesperson
Great, I will have a specialist contact you ASAP Rodrigo.

Salesperson
Is there anything else i should know?

Me
no. thanks

Salesperson

Great, we will be in contact shortly and thanks for chatting in. Have a nice day!!!

A while later I do get a call. We have a conversation about memory, disk, what I'm trying to do, etc, etc.  I want to upload a VMDK.  So that requires another internal discussion and I'll get a call later.

I use EC2 for a whole bunch of servers; unfortunately, I need to test this very specific configuration so it has to be VMware hosting. 

I'll report on what I find. 

Update: One called me back and told me their cloud package starts at $2000+ a month. Still don't know what I get for that or if I can use my appliance. FAIL!