You can't help getting the impression from Kerrie Holley, IBM's CTO of its SOA Center of Excellence, of how much the idea of services remain the underpinning of what we're trying to do. That's true whether you're talking about restructuring the enterprise data center, implementing a simple Web service, invoking software-as-a-service such as Salesforce.com, or go straight to cloud computing.
Yahoo Pipes is a way to mash up RSS feeds and Web pages into combined information, apply rules and filters, and publish it. When it launched Feb. 7, 2007, the Pipes API worked fine in principle. But as "Daniel" said from the audience at a San Francisco panel this week, Pipes wasn't ready to scale.
InformationWeek readers were the first to learn about Intel’s efforts to pack a data center onto a single chip, via my recent interview with Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner. (See Intel CTO Envisions On-Chip Data Centers.) Now, the chip behemoth has taken things one step further, formally announcing its single-chip cloud research project.
IBM has already established cloud computing centers in the Chinese cities of Dongying and Wuxi. In the former, the cloud will serve as a "smarter city" platform for development of services. In Wuxi, it will serve as a collective platform for software development. Now it's on to Ho Chi Minh City.
On the cusp of launching its Azure cloud computing service, Microsoft is also making a savvy bid to lock up a patent for one of the main worries--vendor lock-in--of cloud users. (The other big concern is security.) The folks from Redmond have filed a patent application for migrating data to a new cloud, which is what you'd have to do when leave your first vendor.
Cloud storage is constantly being discussed in the IT media today. When you get right down to it, what can businesses really use cloud storage for now? The small office, individual user has embraced cloud storage for backups and for collaboration, but what can larger businesses use these services for?
I need to add an FTP server to my environment, and as I sit here and struggle with how I'm going to do that and stay under my annual budget, it occurs to me that the cloud isn't a bad option anymore. The savings are pretty compelling, in fact; read on for a quick and dirty cost analysis.
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 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.
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.
The company enters the ranks of cloud competitors, supplying compute infrastructure as a service through its expanded data centers. MORE
| Where is your company in adopting infrastructure as a service? |
| Using it |
 50%
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| Considering it |
 40%
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| No plans |
 10%
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