Web ServicesOracle Proposes Cloud Management API Based on Open Standards

Oracle Proposes Cloud Management API Based on Open Standards

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Oracle has released details of a proposed standard API for managing the cloud. The draft specification, released Wednesday, has been submitted to the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) for inclusion with the organization’s proposed Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) standard.

The computer giant said its proposed Oracle Cloud Elemental Resource Model API covers the common elements of a cloud implementation by specifying the relevant machines, storage volumes and networks. Specifically, the spec submitted to the DMTF describes how a machine can be provisioned from an image; how a volume can be attached to a machine; and how a machine can connect to a network.

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) said the goal of its proposal is to encourage open standards, noting the Oracle Cloud API follows the Representational State Transfer (REST) architecture style and uses HTTP methods to interact with the resources to achieve provisioning, associating, modifying, and retiring of entities. The idea is that broad adoption of open standards in the fast-growing cloud computing space will simplify adoption and management of cloud resources.

“The Oracle API standard we’re proposing is for managing cloud resources with openness and portability across clouds and the ability to move workloads easily among clouds. The API abstracts away the underlying cloud components, meaning you don’t need to know the things below and companies can focus on innovating on top that matter to them,” Rex Wang, vice president of product marketing at Oracle, told InternetNews.com.

“In general this allows customers to use whatever management framework they are already using to provision underlying cloud infrastructure for applications,” he added.

Oracle said the proposed API leverages virtualization, clustering and dynamic provisioning across all layers of the stack to make sure users can easily and efficiently manage their cloud-based resources with a high degree of flexibility and utilization and reduced costs.

While various vendors, including Oracle, already offer enterprise management systems, they don’t necessarily handle different vendor offerings, including public and private cloud resources, in a straightforward way. One example the proposed API is designed to address is “cloud bursting” where an organization looks to a public cloud to run some workloads during a peak load period, but then returns the job to the data center when the public cloud resources aren’t needed.

“The vision is that this standard will enable a single pane of glass to manage workloads no matter where they’re running. But we need standards to make that happen,” said Wang.

Wang said it was hard to predict how soon the DMTF might rule on Oracle’s proposal. “We’re very active in the working group, which includes other vendors,” he said. “It’s something our customers are asking for and we think it’s the best way we can serve their needs and the best way other companies can as well.”

 

David Needle is the West Coast bureau chief at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.

 

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