Networks Need Major Overhaul for Cloud Computing to Work Properly

During the Broadband World Forum 2010 Stefan Dyckerhoff provided a keynote speech on the topic concerning networks being ready for Cloud Computing. Cloud Computing is the concept that everything that a person would need to do on the computer would be available on the Internet somewhere so that we (computer users) would not have to rely upon the installation, maintenance, and so forth of maintaining applications on our personal computers. All these applications would live on the cloud, all of our data would live on the cloud, and we would have access from any computer from anywhere in the world.

Cloud Computing is the dream, but is it a reality? There are a number of hurdles that need to be addressed before Cloud Computing will become a reality, and most of the changes that need to be made are rather significant. They range from increased security to network reliability. In Mr. Dyckerhoff's keynote address he mentions that Cloud Computing can run on the current networks, but so much as when everything is running properly. He equates the Internet network to a railroad or telephone system in that when things work ok, everything runs smoothly, but if there is a problem, this is where things come to a halt.

Network stability is going to be a major issue at play in how well we all adapt to Cloud Computing. For the world to get on board and move our entire lives to living on the cloud, we will all need to see more stability, and I agree that this means a major overhaul. Moving to IPv6 which is another related topic needed in order for true "Cloud Computing" to work properly going forward. This means that not only do large companies need to embrace the new IPv6 standard and upgrade their equipment in order to take advantages of the IPv6 protocol, so will all home and small/medium business users. As the end of IPv4 draws closer to an end, so our dependence on the Internet and cloud services grow, but this will only happen with new network hardware. This new hardware also needs to be smart hardware. At the current state of affairs, most network hardware is relatively "not-smart" meaning for example that if a router goes down that often times all devices behind that router is off-line or non-reachable. New network hardware will need to find a way around this limitation in order to find new routes easier and allow for easier failover solutions.