5 Promising Cloud Computing Start-Up Storage Services For 2010
Jul 8th
Cloud servers for file sharing, storage and syncing is clearly becoming a phenomenon but while there are a few pioneers on the side, there are however a selected few that stands out and can confidently compete with the big players in the industry through their promising service and continued growth.
Early adopters of the cloud file sharing technology started offering their services only a couple of years ago. Today, as the demands are moving up for a faster data transfer using the power of the cloud, a bunch of great providers sprung on the web to potentially offer a much better and cheaper alternative.
Egnyte, a cloud file service provider based in California, USA provides businesses and individuals with online file storage, file sharing, and computer backup spaces. Storage folders running on Egnyte can be set with permissions for privacy, can handle large files, can be accessed from anywhere on the internet, and offers drag and drop option.
Accounts on Egnyte can also be accessed using your mobile phone’s browser. Basic account is at 14.99/month with 20GB capacity.
HostedFTP on the other hand offers easier file sharing via its email interface after you have uploaded a file aside from having most of the salient features of cloud sharing such drag and drop, folder permission settings, and file handling. What’s best about HostedFTP is that it includes a file sharing plugin that is brandable and customizable while at the same time is easier to implement to a website/blog.
I have already tried this service and in deed, it was pretty fast more than I have expected and safely secured through the use of an added security such as TLS/SSL connections.
A personal account at HostedFTP is $10/month, 10 GB and at lightning speed. Not really that cheap compared to other providers of its kind but you will definitely be pleased with it.
ContentCube offers a secure alternative way of sharing files other than FTP. With ContentCube, you can collaborate with your clients, Store and share all kinds of files online, securely and easily.
A basic account (which is free at the here) at ContentCube normally have 100MB, drag-&-drop upload, enhanced security, collaboration, 3D presentation view…
Kaze Cloud provides storage space with transferable or shareable accessibility via a pass key called USA The recipient then downloads the free Kaze Cloud client application but an Amazon S3 account is required aside from the $15 which you will pay after the trial of 15 days has expired.
Boxcloud is a fairly new service that allows you to share photos and videos with your friends and colleagues simply by creating workspaces through the aid of CloudFire. The latter will then find all the photos and videos on your computer and put them into place for easier distribution via drag and drop interface similar to Dropbox. The only difference is that CloudFire can connect your account to Facebook for easy wall posting with an inclusive automatic backup functionality which maintains the quality of your photos and videos through the aid of Amazon datacenters.
Basic Account is priced at $24/month with 20 active workspaces, unlimited 2 clients plus 50GB storage.
Choosing the right service provider is most of the time dependent on your budget however, you should not forget the value of an efficient tool in keeping your businesses’ growth moving forward.
Resource and Contribution Provided By CloudFileSharing.com
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Bluewolf Announces Sponsorship of Cloud Computing World Forum in London
Jun 21st
LONDON–(Marketwire – June 21, 2010) – Bluewolf (www.bluewolf.com) announced its sponsorship of the Cloud Computing World Forum (www.cloudwf.com), held from June 29-July 1 in London at the Olympia Conference Center. An agile business consulting firm, Bluewolf (www.bluewolf.com) has more than a decade of success in Cloud computing and SaaS solutions, such as Salesforce CRM.
“For over a decade, we have brought the vision of cloud computing to life for thousands of clients worldwide, through our agile business transformation methodology,” said Penny O’Rourke, Managing Director, Bluewolf International. “We are a leader in putting cloud computing to work for businesses worldwide, to make it an effective part of their business process.”
More than 2000 IT decision makers are scheduled to attend the Cloud Computing World Forum that will feature the most complete conference agenda around cloud computing and software-as-a-service, with leading suppliers, integrators and end-users all taking part.
About Bluewolf
Bluewolf is a global pack of experts committed to partnering with clients to achieve agile business transformation. Only Bluewolf can bring 10 years of best practices to every project and guarantee its success. Bluewolf is distinctly positioned between classic management consultants and breakthrough technical designers. Its world-class portfolio proves the company’s ability to match its agile methodology with unparalleled vision. From demand generation to close, from channel effectiveness to customer care, to IT staffing and remote managed services, the company helps clients attain efficient, responsible business performance gaining the label of tomorrow’s business standard.
Bluewolf clients include QlikTech, Orange Telecom, Univar, ADP, Chevron and more. For more information, visit http://www.bluewolf.com/. To view client success stories, visit http://www.bluewolf.com/tv/. Join the conversation on Bluewolf Twitter and Bluewolf Facebook.
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Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie on the privacy issues of cloud computing
May 17th
When he joined Microsoft, Microsoft’s chief software architect Ray Ozzie got a chance to take a step back and look at the technology industry.
What he saw was that the PC wasn’t the centre of the computing universe any more – but like Nvidia’s Jen-Hsun Huang, he told the Future in Review conference this week that he doesn’t think it’s going away any time soon either – he also had words to say about the cloud, online privacy, HTML 5 and Apple.
“The world that I see panning out is one where individuals don’t shift from ‘I’m using exclusively this one thing called a PC as a Swiss army knife for everything I do’ to using a different Swiss army knife. The beauty of what’s going on in devices is you can imagine a device.
“Previously you could imagine software and build it but hardware was very hard and took a long time to build. Now you can imagine end-to-end device services.
“So there’s probably a screen in the car that federates with the phone when you bring it into the car. Will we have a device with us that’s always on? Yes. We call it a phone but it’s a multi-purpose device.
“Will we also carry something of a larger form factor that we can quickly type on? For many of us, the answer is yes.” And what will it look like? “The clamshell style of device is a very useful thing and I think it will be with us for ever. I think there is a role for the desktop too…”
Read more: Full Source: http://www.techradar.com/news/software/microsoft-s-ray-ozzie-on-the-privacy-issues-of-cloud-computing-689969?attr=all&src=rss#ixzz0oBsBCTIt
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8 Tips to Getting Started in Cloud Computing
May 10th
In the old days, infrastructure meant buying $5,000 servers, putting them into high-security, cooled rooms, and hiring IT folks to make them all work. And then doing this all over again so that you’d have redundancy. Those days are gone—in fact, if you tell investors that you need money for IT infrastructure, they’re going to question your intelligence.
Cloud computing is what has changed the game. It provides small businesses with the ability to deploy websites and applications quickly, to pay only for what you use, and leave all the management issues to someone else. It makes for a leaner business that can react faster to challenges and opportunities.
But cloud computing also requires understanding a whole new technology and computing philosophy. I was lucky when we put my company’s website, Alltop.com, “into the cloud” because our service provider, Rackspace, hosts hundreds of companies and our developers at Electric Pulp have done this many times. The gang at Rackspace and I have come up with a list of ten tips to help you get started in cloud computing:
1. Know the different options available to you. “Cloud computing” simply means that you pay only for what you use—like electricity, but it can be found many forms. A platform-as-a-service (PaaS for short) works well for front-end applications and websites. It takes care of a lot of the infrastructure you need to get started. An infrastructure as a service (IaaS for short) gives you access to a command line and allows you the flexibility to customize your load balancing, autoscaling, security and failover settings, but requires advanced technical knowledge in system administration.
If you don’t have someone comfortable programming in a terminal, an IaaS is not for you. Infrastructures-as-a-service require some system administration experience. If you don’t have someone with this type of expertise, either find a competent systems administrator or consider a platform-as-a-service instead. A PaaS provider should be able to handle basic but necessary tasks such as load balancing and security.
2. Understand that scaling is a skill, not a default. Cloud computing gives you a lot of flexibility to scale at a lower cost. However, no cloud provider offers “infinite scalability” out of the box though. The world’s most popular websites and applications have professionals working full-time to ensure uptime and speed when they are needed most. Be sure to factor this into your long-term IT costs.
3. Implement a disaster plan. The cloud is not fool proof, but there are ways to protect yourself should it go down. A multi-tenant cloud will go down on occasion. If uptime is crucial to your business, be sure you have a disaster recovery plan, geographic failover, and redundancy set in place.
4. Don’t be naïve. Cloud computing will not make up for a poorly written application or database structure. A hosting provider gets the blame for a lot of performance issues. If a database is not set up properly, or code is not optimized, there is nothing a hosting provider can do to make up for this. When it comes to developers, remember that you often get what you pay for. Be sure to check their resumes and portfolio for other work.
5. Budget for your specific use-case. Calculating your budget is not as simple as reading a provider’s website. Cloud computing treats hosting as a utility. Like other utilities such as electricity, your bill will vary each month with usage. If you see a surge in traffic or users, use more space, or process more information, expect to pay more at the end of the month.
6. Choose a cloud provider on your needs, not its popularity. Do you need something that is highly elastic in a short period of time? Are you going to need support and additional services? High availability? Integration with third party software? Different cloud providers excel at different things. Consider your individual needs, do your homework, and ask cloud providers questions about their availability, speed, security, and integration before you sign up.
7. Remember: some applications are not good fits for cloud. Cloud computing is great for anything you’d need to deploy quickly and at a low cost. However, just like multi-tenant buildings are not good for every business, a multi-tenant cloud is not good for every application. If you have high security or bandwidth needs, you will need to pursue dedicated gear.
For security reasons, any application that requires PCI or HIPPA compliance is not a good fit for cloud computing. A multi-tenant cloud may also not be able to handle extreme performance loads often seen by more resource intensive applications. Evaluate your specific needs and don’t rule out dedicated or hybrid hosting (a combination of cloud and dedicated hosting) if it looks like the right fit.
8. Think outside of the box. When hosting becomes a commodity, it opens your business up to new and exciting things. You can deploy applications or sites on the fly. Consider media rich or real-time elements to your application or website. Set up a server just to comb through customer information or other data your company collects. These possibilities were not as accessible to the masses before cloud computing, so don’t be afraid to try new things and expand how your business operates.
Full Source: Guy Kawasaki at OpenForum
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Cloud Computing: 10 Reasons Microsoft Should Buy Facebook Now
May 6th
Facebook April 21 launched several tools to extend its tendrils deeper into the connective tissue of the Web, unveiling social plug-ins and instant personalization capabilities that let users share information between the leading social network and popular third-party Websites. While this effort has stirred the hornet’s nest inhabited by privacy advocates, Facebook is the premier private Internet company for a number of reasons. As such, Microsoft, which is struggling to remain viable in the Internet space, would do well to acquire Facebook before it gets too large and expensive to afford.
1) Microsoft Is Adrift Online
Microsoft’s online business has lost billions of dollars. Its Bing search engine, the new focal point of its online endeavors, has rallied to almost 12 percent share in 11 months. But Google continues to mop the floor with all search comers, commanding 65 percent of the search market.
2) Facebook Is a Social Superpower
With close to 500 million users, Facebook boasts the largest social network in the world. Microsoft has struggled in the social sphere. Microsoft points to MSN as a heavily trafficked social site, but it’s more of a news portal than a social network. Grabbing Facebook, which lets users upload links, photos and videos and share them with users, would give Microsoft instant market share and credibility in this space.
3) Get Facebook at Google’s Expense
Despite Google’s best efforts and intentions with Google Buzz, the search giant, like Microsoft, remains on the outside looking in for the social Web. If Microsoft were to grab Facebook it would give the software giant a major piece of the Internet puzzle, giving Microsoft the upper hand on Google for a change.
4) Facebook Is a Rising Power in Search
Researcherssaid search queries on Facebook grew from 395 million in January 2010 to 436 million in February 2010, a growth of 10 percent. With hundreds of millions of users spending 20 minutes or more on Facebook each day, it’s no shock that these users are doing searches to navigate the social network. Buying Facebook would enable Microsoft to catch more users looking to share and search.
5) This Means More Search for Bing
Facebook and Bing could then form a powerful one-two punch in search, with Bing offering general search results, and Facebook offering powerful social search capabilities. In time, it wouldn’t be hard to envision Microsoft integrating the two, taking care to preserve user privacy.
6) Where There Is Search, There Are Ads
Forrester Research analyst Augie Ray told eWEEK: “A combination of Facebook and a search engine or ad network would create a very interesting opportunity to share more relevant advertising to searchers or surfers based not just on search or surfing history but also consumers true interests as expressed via Facebook Likes, applications, groups, games and other activities.” Of course, Facebook and Microsoft would have to negotiate privacy hurdles.
Continue…
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Cloud Computing – Software Forecast Becoming Steady: Many More Clouds
May 5th
Pretty much every day comes more proof that a cloud has descended over the software sector, bringing a storm of change.
On Tuesday, Microsoft (MSFT) executives extolled the benefits of cloud computing at a show in Taiwan, emphasizing CEO Steve Ballmer’s recent declaration that his firm “is all in.” On Monday, IBM (IBM) bought a company to bolster its cloud portfolio.
John Kalkman, a Microsoft vice president, spoke about the potential of cloud computing Tuesday at a company event in Taiwan that backed up CEO Steve… View Enlarged Image
Cloud computing transforms the delivery of technology. It lets users access software and computer resources over the Web — or in the cloud — rather than installing and managing their own systems.
A handful of startups led the early charge into cloud computing over the past decade. They became known as software-as-a-service vendors. A decade later, SaaS firms have largely been vindicated for their belief in the cloud.
More than 95% of companies plan to maintain or increase their use of SaaS systems, according to a survey released by Gartner on April 29.
The largest pre-cloud software companies — including SAP (SAP), Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft and CA (CA) — have been forced to get active in the cloud. It’s a situation of the big guys trying to catch the smaller guys in a competitive field that, for now, offers room for growth.
IBM says global revenue from cloud computing will jump to $126 billion this year from $47 billion in 2008. On Monday, IBM said it would buy privately held Cast Iron Systems. The company makes middleware that will help IBM integrate cloud-based software systems with on-premise software. Cast Iron’s platform integrates applications from firms such as Salesforce.com (CRM).
“We’re now opening the door and walking into a new era for our industry,” Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce.com, proclaimed in a recent Silicon Valley speech. “Computing is moving forward very rapidly and we have to pay close attention.”
Benioff was called the “godfather” of the cloud movement recently by Tony Perkins, head of AlwaysOn, an online network geared to venture investors and startups. From its 1999 start, Salesforce preached SaaS and cloud computing.
Next Wave: Social Networks
Now, Benioff sees the next wave of cloud-based business software designed more like social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Salesforce is developing an online service called Chatter, designed to work like Facebook for businesses.
Test users say the service has taken off “like wildfire” and were “shocked at how quickly” adoption occurred, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Mark Murphy.
“Participants have discovered that Chatter is driving tangible business value in totally unforeseen ways,” Murphy wrote in a research note last Friday. He rates Salesforce as overweight, or buy, with a 12-month price target of 101. The stock now trades near 87.
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Ford Syncs With U of M Students for Cloud-Connected Car Apps
May 4th
In-car apps have been a bit of a buzzword for some time, but Ford is in pedal-to-the-metal mode since launching its Sync technology last month. The system allows for all sorts of four-wheel fun and japes, including voice control. The next step: cloud-based apps. Six teams of students from the “Cloud Computing in the Commute” program at the University of Michigan have each developed an app as part of a contest run by Ford’s Research and Advanced Engineering program.
The winner, Caravan Track, was designed for friends undertaking the same journey at the same time–Spring Break ahoy! After setting a route via the Web, drivers can share vehicle telemetry like fuel level and speed, keep an eye on their fellow drivers, and send notifications about road conditions and hazards via a multiple-choice interface (no need for a keyboard or typing).
There’s a bit of social networking built into all of the apps, which use Ford’s Windows 7-based software platform, Fiestaware, along with the usual petrolhead stuff like GPS location awareness and real-time vehicle data. The other designs included Fuel Tracker, NostraMap, and Points-of-Interest, but it’s the social media-based apps that are the most interesting. The GreenRide Challenge puts carpools together via Facebook, even allowing for a potential sponsorship deal whereby drivers who accrue points can benefit from a rewards system (free wiper blades, anyone?), and the Listen. Speak. Rate. Share. app, which sounds like a cross between TomTom and foursquare or Gowalla, lets users review locations via sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and the ubiquitous Facebook.
There is no doubting the fact that the rate of in-car infotainment systems are improving almost as fast as Jenson Button can get round the Monaco streets, but all of this is dependent on the state of the mobile broadband network. These cloud-based apps will need a reliable 3G network–which is probably great when you’re in the middle of a heaving metropolis, but not so cool if you’re somewhere remote.
The Caravan Tracker dudes earned their prize, a two-week-long road trip from Michigan to San Mateo in California, where they’re going to test out their app en route, before showing it off to the public at the Maker Faire.
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Cloud Computing: Sharpen Your SAAS Smarts Before Committing to the Cloud
Apr 27th
The cloud revolution has taken the software industry by storm, heralding wholesale changes in how applications are consumed and delivered. As with prior shifts in the software industry, cloud computing has created new opportunities and shaken up the positioning of market leaders. The industry is again seeing a new game changer with companies like Salesforce.com, NetSuite and Workday taking the limelight with their cloud-only SAAS (software-as-a-service) delivery models. Many software companies, or ISVs, struggle with how they should begin offering cloud versions of their products to customers. While moving from a traditional licensed software business model to a SAAS model is by no means trivial, there is good reason to make the switch—the market is hungry for cloud-based software options, and the SAAS model offers significant competitive advantage to the ISV when implemented properly. In this presentation, Apprenda, which develops its own platforms called SaaSGrid, lists what companies should know when moving to the SAAS model.
Source: eweek
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Sneaking around IT to get to the cloud – Cloud Computing Blog
Apr 23rd
A Ponemon Institute survey recently piqued my interest. In the 2010 Access Governance Trends Survey, 87 percent of respondents said too many employees were able to access information that should have been out of reach. And guess what? Cloud computing was a factor — 73 percent of respondents said that cloud-based applications were enabling business users to skirt organizational controls.
The core issue is IT’s loss of control over its assets, including data. Let’s face it — departments are sick of waiting for development and deployment of core business applications or infrastructure services, and they’re going directly to a cloud computing provider to get what they need. Think of it as a kind of technological infidelity.
[ Get the no-nonsense explanations and advice you need to take real advantage of cloud computing in the InfoWorld's 21-page Cloud Computing Deep Dive PDF special report, featuring an exclusive excerpt from David Linthicum's new book on cloud architecture. | Stay up on the cloud with InfoWorld's Cloud Computing Report newsletter. ]
Going around IT and straight to the cloud has become common practice in the last few years. Salesforce.com built its business selling directly to the sales staff rather than to IT; eventually, IT was forced to accept SaaS (software as a service) after the fact. I’ve watched those battles firsthand.
Today, things are even worse. Now you can get storage as a service, database as a service, and even complete application servers and app dev platforms that are delivered on-demand. With such endless resources available, corporate fiefdoms are creating so-called rogue clouds — their own array of cloud computing services, including data repositories, that they alone control. IT may not have a clue about what’s going on.
The trouble with the rogue approach is that there’s no way to ensure that data is handled in accordance with corporate policies. Worse, that data may come with compliance issues, including personal medical or financial information where the law dictates how the data is handled and where it can reside.
Full Source: InfoWorld
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Cloud Computing News – Twitter to have paid tweets show up in searches
Apr 13th
SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter announced Tuesday that it is introducing advertising, allowing companies to pay to have their messages show up first in searches on its site.
The feature is called Promoted Tweets. Twitter says Best Buy Co., Sony Pictures, Starbucks Corp. and Virgin America are some of the advertisers.
Twitter has grown quickly in popularity since it started in 2006 but has yet to define a plan for turning its wide usage into profits. The eventual introduction of advertising was expected, although Twitter also has been making an undisclosed amount of money by providing Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. with access to messages for their search engines.
The new Promoted Tweets are to be “called out” as ads on top of search results on Twitter, much as sponsors can pay for listings atop rankings on search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. That means Twitter users would see the new ads when they search broadly for topics being tweeted about. But in a blog post by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Twitter said it might take the Promoted Tweets service further and make them also show up in the feeds of messages that users get from people they are “following” on the site.
Stone said Promoted Tweets will need to resonate with users. If a Promoted Tweet isn’t replied to or forwarded by other users, it will disappear.
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