The ISV community is far too often left out of debates about the viability of HPC in the cloud and the concerns of this group can sometimes be misrepresented. Some believe that the greatest challenge at the moment is licensing agreements, but this is not necessarily the case as there are other barriers that make this a secondary issue at this point–a secondary issue that will have a solution, of course, but not until the larger roadblocks are removed.
While at ISC in Hamburg, Addison Snell of Intersect360 Research addressed the issue of how ISV licensing has been perceived as a major hurdle in delivering HPC as a service along the SaaS and utility models but in fact, in for those who have been testing new models that vary from the traditional licensing by the core, node or processor, this is by no means the greatest challenge. While ISVs will continue evaluating methods of licensing in the cloud, the more persistent matter of data movement and security are more important at this point. The fact is, this will not be a significant part of their revenue right now—there are larger matters to address in the interim.
The following interview clip with Addison Snell provides a brief overview of what the ISVs are thinking about at this stage based on an analyst’s perspective–a perspective that is itself rooted in his extensive conversations with members of the ISV community.