What is cloudbursting?

May 3, 2010 – The nice thing about ill- or loosely-defined terms such as cloud computing or cloud storage is that they lead to more confusing, yet catchy, terms. Examples: cloudstorming, cloudware, cloudsourcing, cloud spanning and cloudbursting. You can get definitions for all of those, and more cloud terms, on the Cloud Computing Wiki.

That wiki defines cloudbursting as “The dynamic deployment of a software application that runs on internal organizational compute resources to a public cloud to address a spike in demand.” Cloudbursting is typically used to address seasonal or event-based traffic peaks, and is closely related to cloud balancing.

For context, the wiki offers two references to cloudbursting, both from The 451 Group:

“ISV virtual appliances should underpin a new surge in cloud use followed by self-service mechanisms and enterprise connectors enabling organizations to ‘cloudburst’ to using cloud services.”
and
“In addition to direct sales to enterprises, going forward it hopes that extending out from private clouds to public ones – what we like to call ‘cloudbursting’ – will become a prevailing IT weather pattern and provide it with additional opportunities.”

Cloudbursting could be particularly advantageous in the context of storage and virtual servers.

If you’re confused, or need further clarification, join us for a Webcast this week, Wednesday, May 5 at 1:00 EDT, 10:00 PDT. “Server Technology to Cloudburst for Increased Flexibility and Lower Costs” Webcast presenters will include 451 Group analyst William Fellows and Eric Burgener, senior vice president of product management at InMage Systems.

Here’s the description:
Cloudbursting, or provisioning virtual servers on demand within a cloud infrastructure, provides end users with the ability to then failover applications to these newly provisioned VMs. This opens up a lot of new use cases for cloud infrastructure beyond just the recovery-oriented services available now. This Webcast will focus on the use cases across three different areas -- recovery, administration and production -- and look at what technologies will enable these new use cases for cloud infrastructure. The presentation will also explain what end users should be looking for from their cloud providers, and what benefits and cost savings they can achieve.

Register here.

And then there’s George Clooney’s take on a completely different type of cloudbursting in this YouTube clip from The Men Who Stare at Goats.