The Guardian newspaper (online version) is reporting, and I think that we are all experimenting it…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/feb/24/google-email
“It is inevitable that this will happen from time to time. What it does prove is that the more data we entrust to the cloud, the more important it is that we have reliable backups in place.“
With the Cloud Computing Paradigm, at least until recent developments, we have only worked with already existing technologies. Most of all, what Cloud Computing paradigm adds is the great feature of concentrating everything in a articulated and integrated way.
To be able to add real value to the Cloud Computing products and solutions we must innovate, not only in the infrastructural technologies, but also in those who will have direct impact in user experience. In the time being we already have interoperability technologies, Identity Management and authorization platforms, great developing tools and deployment platforms, etc, etc. And what about new functionalities, features that will add real value and will be able to create new kind of user experience? In a recent post Pedro has introduced interesting points about how the Cloud will expand or grow, but I think that we could start by simpler examples.
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Quoting a ZDNet article: «If there were any lingering doubts about whether Amazon Web Services were enterprise ready they dissolved this week once IBM became a partner. And now that Amazon and IBM have teamed up a picture of multiple computing clouds is emerging. Amazon Web Services teamed up with IBM to provide pay-as-you-go access to Big Blue’s database servers, Lotus and Websphere middleware running on Novell SUSE Linux. Those applications will run on Amazon’s EC2. While much of the details have been covered what’s notable is the vision. IBM’s cloud will connect to Amazon’s and licenses will also carry over. To the enterprise IBM’s endorsement makes Amazon an official member of the corporate cloud club.»
It’s cloud related interesting reading, but things will not be so easy for IBM and friends…
UC Berkeley researchers have outlined their view of cloud computing, which they say has great opportunity to exploit unprecedented IT resources if vendors can overcome a litany of obstacles. It’s interesting reading and the paper outlines 10 obstacles to cloud computing…
Amazon has recently introduced its management console to the EC2 platform. This is a major step forward and gives users real power and control over the EC2 infrastructure. This console not only provides the tools to manage all virtual EC2 instances, but also gives access to a large group of AMIs ( Amazon Machine Images) built by the AWS community.
Quote from the AWS site:
“…The AWS Management Console gives you a quick, global picture of your cloud computing environment so that you can see what resources you’re operating and conveniently manage those resources…”
Although this is a real step forward, this seems that Amazon guys still have a lot of problems to solve, the most relevants are the security of its access control infrastructure, and also the dependencies over the quality of users’ network (Internet Access).
CloudAve have also good points about this: http://www.cloudave.com/link/amazon-web-services-makes-it-easy-for-the-hackers-oops-users