A Cloud Surge Protector

Chet Kapoor, CEO of Sonoa System used a very interesting analogy in a recent blog post. In the post he referrers to an article on wsj.com which argues that as the pace of change accelerates, trust becomes vital currency and we need rethink how we address technology.

Kapoor draws parallels with what he says is happening within cloud computing and what he calls "the API economy". In particular, he asks "how do we control this increasingly out-of-control, interlinked world? His Answer? “online surge-protectors to stop run-ups and panics”

His comments of a cloud surge protect really struck a chord with me. If you think of a load balancer as an analogy for a traditional electrical surge protector, you really start to see the opportunity for cloud bursting within a modern data center used in much the same way you'd use a backup power supply or even a circuit breaker.

So here is my take on a cloud surge protector definition using the Wikipedia description of a traditional surge protector as my base.

A cloud surge protector (or cloud surge suppressor) is an appliance designed to protect computing infrastructure from sudden spikes in network & application demand. A cloud surge protector attempts to regulate the compute capacity supplied to an infrastructure by either blocking or by automatically redirecting requests to a third party cloud provider.