InformationWeek Cloud Computing Weblog

Why Force.com Is Important To Cloud Computing

Mary Hayes Weier — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:01:15 -0500

Shortly before Salesforce.com's Dreamforce conference started last Wednesday, the San Francisco Fire Department had locked the doors to Moscone Center to let the crush of bodies entering it disperse before letting in more attendees. I thought, are you kidding me? All this for a mid-size software company? But as I talked to attendees over the next few days, I began to understand what was stoking such enthusiasm I haven't seen in years in the enterprise software industry.

The Million-Dollar Google Maps API

John Foley — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:48:49 -0500

The U.S. government's Apps.gov Web site provides new visibility into what federal agencies pay for cloud-based applications and commercial software, with offerings from vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, Jive, Microsoft, and Salesforce.com. One of the priciest products on the site: Google's Maps API, which lists for nearly a million dollars.

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Interop: Cloud Computing's Portability Gotcha

John Foley — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:16:04 -0500

There were a couple "aha" moments for me at Interop's Enterprise Cloud Summit. The first was that some companies are already storing hundreds of terabytes of data in the cloud. The second was that it can be a slow and expensive process to move that data from one service provider to another.

Interop: Which Cloud Is Right For You?

Paul McDougall — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:57:24 -0500

Look up in the sky and you might see cirrus, stratus, or cumulus clouds. Similarly, cloud computing comes in multiple flavors. The one you should choose depends on, among other things, how much vendor lock-in you�re prepared to accept in exchange for banishing complexity from your IT organization.

Microsoft Pioneers Cloud Framework As A Service

Charles Babcock — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:30:00 -0500

"Who would have imagined the explosion of interest in the cloud?" asked Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect, at the opening of Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference this week in Los Angeles. Well, Ozzie foresaw it and he listened to developers on how to best position his company.

Force.com Vs. Azure: Competition In The Clouds

Mary Hayes Weier — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:05:42 -0500

More than 15,000 people are attending the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco starting Tuesday night�good proof that Salesforce.com is fulfilling its destiny as a cloud computing platform provider. (This many people wouldn't show up for a CRM conference.) Meanwhile, down in L.A., Microsoft execs are talking to developers about building apps to run on Windows Azure. Is that the crash-boom-bang of competitive thunderclouds I hear on the horizon?

Uncle Sam's $24 Million Cloud App

John Foley — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:11:21 -0500

The U.S. government's cloud computing portal, Apps.gov, may be a breakthrough in fast, efficient, and transparent IT acquisition, but that doesn't mean it's cheap. Witness the multimillion-dollar software modules available to government agencies on the site.

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Encryption Is Cloud Computing Security Savior

Alexander Wolfe — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:36:41 -0500

I'm beginning to think that fears about cloud security are overblown. The reason: an intellectual framework is already in place for protecting data, applications, and connections. It's called encryption. What's evolving now, and isn't anywhere near fully baked, is a set of agreed-upon implementations and best practices. Today's post talks about some relevant and interesting work from Trend Micro and from IBM.

Amazon Data Center Project To Restart

John Foley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:35:07 -0500

Construction on Amazon.com's boarded up data center in Boardman, Ore., will restart in the "not too distant future," according to a report from KEPR, a local TV station. If all goes as planned, the project will be completed in the third quarter of 2010, say local authorities.

Amazon Bids For Windows Developers On Eve Of Azure's Launch

Charles Babcock — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:35:37 -0500

Four days before Microsoft launches its Azure cloud platform to developers at a conference in L.A., Amazon has come up with a .Net software development kit to help Windows developers produce code that runs in Amazon's EC2. It's probably just coincidence. But let's see what they're getting with AWS SDK for .Net.

Cloud Security In Focus Amid Data Theft Fears

Alexander Wolfe — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:23:48 -0500

Yeah, I know, this is another one of those "everything changes" moments where we're prodded into frenzied activity--as opposed to effective action--because an emerging technology has surged ahead of our ability to properly manage it. I'm talking about cloud computing, and the attendant fears not just of data theft, but of breaches of SaaS computing resources themselves. Fortunately, there are a bunch of below-the-radar efforts attempting to address these worries.

One CIO's View On Google Apps And Microsoft Office

Mary Hayes Weier — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:30:14 -0500

Today I chatted with Jeremy Vincent, CIO of Jaguar Land Rover, on his choice of Google Gmail for 15,000 users. You'll read the details of that decision in an upcoming story. But an interesting aside from the Gmail deal is Vincent's interest in Microsoft's plan to put its Office suite in the cloud.

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Microsoft Cloud Sales Exceed Expectations

Bob Evans — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:01:00 -0500

Microsoft Business Division president Stephen Elop says he's been pleasantly surprised that enterprise customers' demand for cloud-based versions of Exchange and Office have exceeded Microsoft's expectations.

Here's What's Different About 'The Cloud'

Charles Babcock — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:46:52 -0500

What's different about cloud computing versus the forms of computing that have gone before? It's really just a matter of scale, isn't it? The Google or Amazon.com or eBay data centers are maybe a little bigger than a big enterprise data center, right? Wrong. One answer lies in an example like Hadoop.

What's The Definition Of Cloud Computing?

Charles Babcock — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:47:20 -0500

What's the definition of cloud computing? I keep asking myself that question and hearing different answers. Despite the frequent use of the term, it still means different things to different people. That was evident at the Cloud Computing Conference & Expo this week in Santa Clara, where I thought I would find consensus.

HP's Hurd, IBM's Palmisano Agree: Cloud Is Lousy Name

Bob Evans — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:41:00 -0500

Sure, Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd and IBM CEO Sam Palmisano spit nails at each other over most things, but on this they agree: while cloud computing has tremendous potential as a technological approach, the term itself is a lousy name. We're with you, guys, but please: whatever the new name is, no more three-letter acronyms, okay?

NetSuite: A Study On Cloud Computing's Potential

Mary Hayes Weier — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:34:33 -0500

Will companies move their core business applications to the cloud? It's one of the great unanswered questions, and one reason NetSuite is so interesting to watch. Based on NetSuite's third�quarter financial report, the answer to this question remains partly cloudy.

Tech Pros Want Security, Healthcare, Green Certifications

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:37:45 -0500

Techies are seeking professional certifications in emerging areas like healthcare and green IT, and especially old standbys like IT security, according to a new survey.

Amazon Serves Up MySQL

Serdar Yegulalp — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:25:21 -0500

Amazon's newest cloud offering: MySQL 5.1 in the cloud, also known as Amazon RDS. And there's worry that it'll turn out to be a bad thing for MySQL in the long run, although that might not hold true for other open source repurposed in the same way.

Benioff Discloses All In 'Behind the Cloud' Except...

Charles Babcock — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:05:31 -0500

Five copies of "Behind the Cloud" have arrived at my desk, two intended for fellow IW staffers and three for me, an embarrassment of riches. It's Marc Benioff's book on how Salesforce.com was created and built into a successful company. I am reading it avidly� but some disclosures will apparently have to wait for the sequel.

Four Possible Reasons Why L.A. Chose Google Over Microsoft

Mary Hayes Weier — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:52:52 -0500

The Los Angeles City Council has chosen Google over Microsoft for 30,000 city employees' email accounts. What better place than Tinseltown for this tech industry drama to play out, with one councilman even delivering a choice line about whether cloud computing could push the city off the edge of a cliff (a drama AND an action film). But we're still waiting for an ending that answers this question: Why Google over Microsoft?

Innovation, Not Cost, New Cloud Battle Cry

Michael Hickins — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:08:00 -0500

Maybe folks are simply trying to talk themselves out of the recession (which would be a good thing in itself), but it seems like the conversation around cloud computing is shifting from cost-cutting to unleashing innovation.

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Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:08:00 -0500

Is Cloud Bigger Than The Advent Of The Personal Computer?

Charles Babcock — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:38:43 -0500

Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, says "the cloud" is a phenomenon that is bigger than the advent of the PC. I think he's almost got it right. Cloud is bigger than the PC Revolution, but it's big in part because it incorporates and extends the PC revolution to Internet server clusters. The cloud owes more to the PC than Eric acknowledges.

Alternative IT

Mary Hayes Weier — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:08:31 -0500

Cloud Computing. SaaS. They're such over-used marketing words that they've become the butt of jokes (Larry Ellison on YouTube, anyone?). But hopefully the hype machine hasn't generated too much noise to drown out the fact that there have been some significant, permanent changes in how CIOs view software. At InformationWeek, we call it Alternative IT.

Avoid Trap Of Proprietary Cloud Tooling: Use Simple API

Charles Babcock — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:11:36 -0500

What's the first thing you should do if you're thinking of developing software for cloud computing? At ZendCon, Zend Technologies user group yesterday, three members of a five member panel answered the same way: adopt Simple Cloud API, the open source cloud services interface.