An Overview of the Cloud Computing Vendors

There's an excellent article on many of the cloud computing vendors, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, and RackSpace by Michael Miller of PC Magazine.  I highly recommend it, especially for a nice understanding of the difference between Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), and of just what each vendor is offering.

But I was disappointed that IBM, HP, and the other enterprise-focused cloud vendors were only mentioned, especially since IBM is believed to be one of the largest of the cloud vendors, with a very broad portfolio of offerings -- so broad, in fact, that it's hard to find one IBMer who can put all of them on one page!  I'm going to try to do that shortly, but it's important to remember:

• IBM's strengths underly its cloud offerings -- an emphasis on considering the requirements of large enterprises, especially security, compliance with regulatory guidfelines, and the issues of large-scale computing.
• There is an emphasis on upporting private clouds -- and IBM has built or helped build quite a few, around the world, but there are also public services -- MIchael Miller mentioned one, an IBM development and test cloud.  Other public clouds include desktop virtualization, Lotus-based SaaS for collaboration and communication, and analytics.
• IBM offers some of these services both on public clouds and as behind-the-firewall services.

It's particularly interesting to note that long before we started talking about community clouds, IBM was building some, providing cloud computing services to governments, software start-ups, and other groups, both non-profit and for-profit.

It's easy to overlook exactly what enterprise vendors are doing; they operate in a somewhat different environment than the highly visible Amazon, Google, et al.  But they are an important part of the new cloud computing infrastructure and through their customers and business partners affect large movements in computing from older architectures to the cloud computing paradigm.

Comments

[Computing in the cloud]

I just come to knoe that cloud computing is "we can pay for what we use".I just want to know more details about?

In which domain it is used?
How it is related to ERP?
What are the researches going on this field?

Just give me an abstract which help me to start my work?

[Concego Cloud Computing]

Cloud Computing is rapidly shrinking to smaller devices that can be easily carried around. Since these devices are not stationary they all carry the ability to connect to the Internet. PC sales are declining and smart phone sales are increasing all over the world with greater emphasis on consistent connectivity. This necessitates a paradigm shift towards computing that does not depend on a single machine or a group of machines.

I would like to get your thoughts, Amy, on how this will effect small and large enterprises that are currently working with cloud computing technologies.

[cloud computing security]

Everybody is sure that cloud computing is key to the future of IT, but people often seem unsure quite what it is. In fact, it's an umbrella term for a number of different trends, all involving the internet and its potential to simplify the way we use computers and extend their capabilities.

The "cloud" is the internet, and the term is fitting – it's large, out there somewhere, and fuzzy at the edges. Cloud computing is about putting more of your material out there and less on PCs or servers that a business runs for itself.