ReadWriteCloud

It is fairly evident that the iPad and cloud computing are deeply tied to each other. A selection of storage and cloud management apps now are available on the iPad. So, we want to know: "How will the iPad affect cloud computing?"

But before we get to that question, let's take a look at last week's poll. We asked: "Is Oracle a Cloud company?"

The news may be about the iPad this weekend but it's the cloud that will hover hot over Apple by the Fall and in many respects challenge its hegemony over how we store and share music and video.

According to CNET, that's about the time of year that it looks like Apple will unveil its cloud-based music service.

When will the iPad deliver in the enterprise? We first asked this question on Feb 11th when we interviewed the Citrix team. At the time, we gave it a thumbs-up as the Citrix team had good answers for all of our questions.

Today, with the launch of the iPad, Citrix has delivered on its promise of making Citrix Receiver (powered by XENApps) for iPad available as a day one app in the iPad app store. Seeing is believing, so today we took a look at the new application on the new device.

Zynga is a leading example of how to wield cloud infrastructure to achieve scale. The company uses RightScale to help match demand of its incredibly successful game franchise with appropriate resources. Zynga seems to be a master of understanding how to model customer demand and underlying resources. As even virtual goods have COGS (cost of goods sold) server resources are part of the bill when conjuring up virtual goods for tens of millions of users.

Although we can't all be as smart (or cute) as Zynga, many of us are catching on that scaling into the cloud is a smart choice. This brief analysis of RightScale looks at its offerings and the momentum the company is gaining in the market.

The cloud computing story for the iPad will fill out as more applications become available. The first few applications we've seen give a glimpse into how the cloud plays a role in the iPad's future, especially with collaborative services such as online meetings.

Cisco is launching a WebEx client for the iPad. Cisco is one of the more experienced companies for developing cloud-based products through its hosted service. It's beefing up that strategy, too, as mobile plays a more significant role in the workplace, especially as video is concerned.

At 1:00 a.m. on Sunday morning I was doing routine maintenance on my personal Amazon Web Services account and instead found myself looking at something I had no right to be seeing: A database with 800,000 user accounts to the e-card site CardMaster.com. Along with that were the database passwords and back end of a major U.S. Public Broadcasting Service news show website (Gwen Ifill's Washington Week), including daily updates from panelists on the stories they cover.

Cloudkick is a cloud monitoring start-up that helps system admins manage cloud servers. Today, the company announced it is getting physical, bringing its cloud monitoring capabilities to internally hosted servers and virtual machines.

The company has had a lot of success in helping companies who startup in the cloud and start to achieve scale. It already has a host of hot startup companies including Posterous, Bump Technologies, and Urban Airship. Through listening to users, the company decided to offer local server support to merge its view of all server assets for these organizations.

EMC is a large company focused on high performance storage for enterprises. It's offerings are closely aligned with the idea of extending infrastructure from virtualization to private cloud infrastructure. The company wants to help IT data provisioning services are as easy as Amazon and as secure as Fort Knox.

To get a handle of where enterprise data storage meets the web, we looked for inspiration from architects of the web and Internet, including web pioneer Sir Tim Berner-Lee and Vint Cerf. We take a look at EMC as positioned as the closet, physically, to the core assets of the enterprise.

Another Earth Hour has passed by this weekend. Electrical systems across the globe were shut down to observe, for an hour, that energy is precious. In this moment, we also acknowledge that as humanity, we have the power to do better for ourselves. One great thing about Earth Hour is the photos. If you haven't yet, check out the brilliant photo essay at Boston.com on Earth Hour 2010.

If you haven't taken initiative to shut down your computer yet, read on to get a refresher on how better computing resource utilization creates a better world.

In our poll last week, we asked: "Does it Really Matter How Cloud Computing Is Defined?" This week, we want to know: "Is Oracle a cloud company?" The questions have some relationship as how we defien cloud computing has some impact on the way we view a company and its overall vision.

As for the overall debate, most of our respondents to last week's question agreed with the RedMonk team on this one. The number one response :

"It's simple. Just think of cloud computing as servers, middleware and apps."

The interest in this topic is shifting. About 100 or so people responded to the poll, compared to past polls that have had more than 1,000 votes. Maybe the more legitimate question should be: " Does it NOT matter at all how cloud computing is defined?"