Cloud Computing

CHAPTER 7 Operations, Management, and Orchestration in the Cloud

The first words in the title of this chapter refer to the means of supporting the Operations and Management (OA&M) of the Cloud infrastructure. While the practice of operations and management has been fairly well understood and even partly standardized, the word “orchestration” remains somewhat ambiguous, one of the most misused words in the industry. Yet the concept of orchestration is critical to Cloud Computing. Our first task is to clarify this concept.

Things were simpler in the 19th and 20th centuries,¹ when orchestration simply referred to the task, performed by a composer, of writing a score for an ensemble of musical instruments (typically a symphonic orchestra). The same word has also referred to the musical discipline—taught in conservatories as part of a composition curriculum—of writing for orchestra. The discipline catalogs the musical characteristics (range, timbre, technical difficulties, and idioms) of the representatives of various groups of instruments (strings, woodwind, brass, and percussion)—the subject also referred to as instrumentation—and teaches how different individual instruments may be combined or juxtaposed to achieve the sound color and balance envisioned by a composer. It should be noted that the physical characteristics of the instruments employed in the modern symphonic orchestra have been largely standardized, and orchestra performers have been trained according to this standard. ...