He notes that the service-level agreements (SLAs) for all the hosted applications are the same as those offered in the operation's traditional on-site computing environment - that is, 99.999% uptime. Google only offers 99.9% as does Amazon S3...and yes, those extra digits make a world of difference.

In addition, DISA also uses the same information assurance process (the process of managing information-related risks) for the RACE applications as it does for any apps running on the traditional, on-site computing platform. They've even cut the security accreditation process from 80 days to 40 thanks to built-in information insurance controls in RACE. 

One of the most obvious benefits of a cloud computing infrastructure, though, is the speed of deployment. The cloud platform has cut the acquisition time for a new server from 6 months to 24 hours - a change that means DISA will now be able to rapidly deploy new applications to the military in record time. "That's a must for worldwide missions with ever-changing computing requirements," says Sienkiewicz.

RACE runs using VMware on HP blade servers. Defense Department customers can choose either Microsoft Windows or Red Hat Linux and are able to configure their server with up to 4 CPUs, 8 GBs of memory and up to a terabyte of storage. Test servers are $500 per month and production servers are $1200 per month. Next year, RACE will be deployed on the DoD's classified network (SIPRNet) as well. 

According to news from the eyeos team, the new eyeos 2.0 operating system isn't just a revamp of the company's former product, it's something entirely new, built "from scratch," notes a company blog post. With a new UI (pictured below), new applications, and new concept for how the web-based desktop should work, the update is more than a fresh coat of paint.

Upon login, for example, instead of displaying a simulated computer desktop complete with icons and wallpaper, the updated OS features a new dock bar whose menus link you to applications, events, contacts, and more.

The other key part to eyeos 2.0 is the focus on collaboration. As with Google Docs, eyeos provides a web office component that allows you to invite friends to collaborate with you. As multiple users log in to edit the same file, colored lines display to highlight which sections are being edited by your colleagues or friends. You can also add comments and view the changes made by the other collaborators. At the moment, though, this "web office" feature appears to be limited to a word processor and calendar.

Other updates in eyeos 2.0 include real-time notifications via a new instant messaging component, a re-written file system and kernel, a new sync tool for syncing files, contacts, and calendar from your local desktop to the web, and new base applications which function as real apps as opposed to demos of what eyeos can do.

Why No Love for Webtops?

The main difference between what Google plans to offer with Chrome OS and what eyeos and other "webtops" like it is that Chrome OS doesn't live in a web browser, it makes the web browser the operating system. Even though Google's browser will sit on a Linux kernel, this won't be apparent to end users. The browser, for all intents and purposes, is the OS. And unlike eyeos, Google is making deals with netbook manufacturers to come preinstalled on their hardware. Eyeos, on the other hand, is still a destination you reach via URL (Well, for the most part.)

Despite the revamp, new look, and new features of eyeos 2.0, end users probably won't take note of this or any other webtop for that matter. As Ray Valdes, research director at Gartner Research, was quoted as saying a few months ago: "I have not seen growth or traction among the Webtop companies over the past year," Valdes said. "From a long-term perspective, I don't see any change to current market trends, which are that Webtop ventures are not gaining market traction."

But why are users so underwhelmed? For one thing, the web office components of any of these ventures are poor comparisons (if they exist at all) to what Google Docs provides. The poor webtops would be better off partnering with Zoho Docs instead, a feature-rich web office startup that could offer a real alternative to Google's online office. Webtop Ghost tries to make this transition easier by linking to both Google Docs and Zoho as opposed to offering their own applications, but they're more of an exception than a rule.

Additionally, there's more than a bit of hesitation among end users to make a full-on switch from a system they know - be that the OS on their local hard drive or Google's cloud-based programs - to some young startup that may up-and-disappear at any time, like the better known You OS did only last summer.

Finally, there are issues of lag time and speed. Web OS's that try to simulate the local desktop experience simply can't duplicate the feel of native applications. And when they try, they can often end up using a huge chunk of memory in the process.

Eyeos: But Wait, We're Not Just a Webtop, We're Software Too!

Although eyeos has to fight all the same issues facing webtops as described above, they have an identity issue too. It seems eyeos can't decide if they want to be a traditional webtop accessible via the eyeos.info URL or open source software you can install on your own server. This latter solution is designed for users worried about the "privacy and confidentiality problems" that come from hosting your data on a "big company's" server.

While the host-your-own option will appeal to a handful of do-it-yourselfer geeks out there, the majority of mainstream users - and even the majority of early adopters - aren't looking for a web OS you have to install on your own. If folks are that into privacy and open source, they'll just install Linux and manage their own backups instead. Besides, offering the host-your-own solution almost misses the point of being a web OS. The promise of cloud computing is that it's supposed to make our lives easier - our data lives on the web now and not on our fallible hard disks and CDs. We don't have to backup, because Google (or any other cloud vendor) does that for you. We don't have to worry with hard drive space either - we use the cloud, sometimes even for a fee, and we can get to our data from anywhere using any device. And all this is provided to you within your browser. Yes, it does mean that we give up a bit of our privacy in the process, but it's a trade that most are willing to make.

All this being said, the updates to eyeos 2.0 are a nice step forward for the fledging webtop and will appeal to those interested in that sort of thing...but, sadly, we're guessing that most of you aren't.

Where Are the Other Cloud Agents?

Back in December, we wrote about the rise of cloud agents (a term coined by Chris Arkenberg). These agents are automated applications that help us parse through the data swarming around us to provide us with the information we need. At the time, we highlighted a service similar to Tweecious called Twitchboard, another app that also posts the links you tweet to Delicious. According to the Twitchboard site, more services beyond Delicious were "coming soon," but here it is April now, and no others have been integrated. That's disappointing to say the least, but what's even more disappointing is that these sorts of "cloud agents" are so few and far between.

At the time of the previous post, some people missed the overall point, thinking we were raving about a Twitter to Delicious cross-posting app. The truth is, we were excited about this concept of automated agents. Unfortunately, since that time, we've seen very few apps that fit the description. In fact, only a couple of others really come to mind...and to be frank, we're not sure if they even count.

One such service is SocialToo, a "social web companion" which has the ability to automate many tedious Twitter tasks like catching you up on your follows, unfollowing people who didn't follow you back, deleting all your friends, or automatically following people for you. It's the service's automated, "set it and forget it" behavior that we think might allow it to be classified as a cloud agent. Another is "Twollo," a Twitter service that finds like-minded tweeters and follows them for you automatically.

Within the Twitter ecosystem, there are probably slews of others which we just can't think of right now. But do apps that automate tasks within Twitter count as cloud agents? They're not all parsing information to separate signal from noise (well, maybe Twollo is), they're just saving us time. We would love to see some "real" cloud agents emerge that provide more than just automation. We want intelligent cloud agents, too. Know of any?

We don't really expect Apple to create a web-based iTunes anytime soon. Why should they? The company's iPods and iPhones dominate the mp3 player market and are locked down so that they, in theory, could only work with the company's iTunes software.

Could SoundCloud Set Us Free?

But then we saw the player from SoundCloud, the company that "moves music." Until now, SoundCloud has been focusing on their service that lets musicians and fans freely distribute and share tracks with each other via the web. Using widget-based dropboxes combined with a social network of fellow music fans, SoundCloud makes it simple to move large files over the web without having to resort to FTP, bitTorrent, or other complicated services.

Right now, their new Cloud Player doesn't do all that much, we'll admit. In fact, we're sorry to say that it actually seems overwhelmed and broken. When trying to create a playlist, we just see the spinning circle. When we tried to play a track, all we got was a message: "transferring data from api.soundcloud.com." Obviously, this app is nowhere near ready for primetime. It looks like a great idea, sure, but one that's only a pretty picture of what could be. We love that idea, though - an app for finding and playing tracks, discovering music, saving playlists, even creating smart playlists - all in the cloud.

Yet with the Cloud Player's iTunes-like interface, we could begin to imagine a new world where music could be shared, distributed, organized, and played, all over the web. The only missing piece to total music domination is device support. Assuming the Cloud Player ever worked, how could we get the music from the web to our iPods and iPhones?

The easy answer would be iPhone app, of course. But given that SoundCloud's service is essentially a new platform for music distribution and discovery, it would actually be a competitor to iTunes, and Apple doesn't tend to approve apps that offer competing services. To get approval, they would have to integrate with iTunes somehow, perhaps by presenting links to purchase songs in the iTunes online store. Alternately, they could forgo the iTunes App Store altogether and build something for the open-source Android OS instead...no worries about app approval there.

Yes, It's Broken...But Is It Unique?

Let's backtrack a little. We see that the Cloud Player is simply not a worthwhile app just yet. It doesn't even work, so why are we bothering to review it? The answer is because SoundCloud, the company behind the app, is doing something different that many other online music streaming services do not: distribution and monitoring. Let me explain...

Here at ReadWriteWeb, we love services like Lala, The Hype Machine, and Last.fm for example. Hype Machine tracks mp3 blogs, Last.fm uses free music to encourage legal music sales, but Lala looks the most promising for a true move to the cloud. At least, so far. The company's latest business model revolves around not just being your "jukebox in the sky" but letting you own tracks for streaming forever. 10 cents per track. $1 per album. With four major labels on board and lots of indies, the catalog looks good.

But how does Lala amass its music collection? From you, the user, uploading your mp3s to the web. Lala gives you the rights to the unlimited streaming of your own tracks, and everything else can be streamed just once. Combine that with an iPhone app and you've routed around iTunes altogether. (Guess that's why it's not approved yet).

Lala has it all except for one thing: the source of the tracks themselves - they had to come from somewhere, right? You probably either torrented them or purchased them...possibly even from iTunes. For Lala to beat iTunes at its own game, Lala needs direct access to the artists and their music.

That's where SoundCloud is different. With their service that "moves music," an artist could upload a track to SoundCloud, which then could immediately become available in your web-based iTunes replacement app (The Cloud Player), and perhaps then it could be instantly streamed over your mobile device, too. Meanwhile, when you're on your desktop or netbook, you only need browse to the cloud player's web site to have a fully functional music management tool where you make playlists, share them with friends, and seek out new music. Combine that with Lala's and Last.fm's model which lets you stream tracks for free to encourage purchases, and you have a system that no longer needs the desktop, the music labels, proprietary software or hardware. In addition, on the flip side, the artists using SoundCloud can track the distribution of their tracks, the number of plays, and more.

Sounds great, right? Well, if only it worked. The Cloud Player is open source, though. Maybe you can fix it?

All of these applications are meant to complement the Windows Live online experience and work closely together. You can, for example, use Windows Live Sync to keep your online and offline photo albums in sync. Live Sync has replaced FolderShare.

We tested the new versions of the Live Essentials for the last few weeks and all of them represent a major update to the older versions.

Even if you don't typically use the Microsoft's Live services, installing the Live Photo Gallery, for example, is well worth a try thanks to its seamless integration with Live Photos and SkyDrive. This new version compares quite well with Google's Picasa 3 and also lets you upload photos to Flickr. Photo Gallery also ties in with other Microsoft tools like Auto Collage or PhotoSynth.

Windows Live Writer, on the other hand, is more of an evolutionary update, but it is the favorite blogging client for a lot of us Windows users here at RWW and the update makes handling media files a lot easier.

Also worth a look are the enhanced Live Toolbar and the Windows Live Messenger, which has received a major facelift. The Live Toolbar (IE only) now displays your updates from the Windows Live online services, including new messages and pictures from friends. You can also use the toolbar to sync your IE7 and 8 bookmarks between different computers.

Software Plus Services

The real selling point for the Live Essentials suite, however, is how well all the apps play together, both online and offline. Live Photos, for example, can use your Live Messenger and Hotmail contact lists for tagging faces, or the Live Messenger connecting to your status updates on your Live Profile page. The one Live Service that has remained behind, though, is Live Mesh, which seems to be on its own development track. We assume, however, that it will be merged into the Live services at some point.

With Cloud, there is no desktop. You turn on your computer and it boots up to a Google Chrome web browser page which includes a dock of application shortcuts similar to what you would see on an Apple PC. Introduced at the recent Netbook World Summit in Paris, this simplified "OS" is an ideal install for the new ultraportable notebook computers called "netbooks," according to the company, as it is both fast and lightweight. It really is a true netbook, after all - it embodies the name in a way that none of the other netbook operating systems do.

However, unlike the various Linux-based netbook operating systems out there, including Good OS's failed "gOs" that was installed on the now-discontinued gPCs, Cloud OS does not intend to replace Windows. Instead, it runs alongside it. Presenting a hybrid approach to computing, Cloud gives you quick access to a number of web apps directly from the dock, including Google's Gmail, Calendar, Maps, Docs, Blogger, and YouTube, which you can launch alongside other rich client applications like Skype.

When you need to do heavier lifting, which on a netbook probably means running Microsoft Office, you can switch over to Windows or whatever OS may be running. (Cloud is compatible with all operating systems, says Good OS).

Cloud: OS or PXE?

If Cloud was installed on a traditional laptop or desktop, on the other hand, it would be akin to the Preboot Execution Environments (PXEs) installed on consumers PCs. It is in these PXEs that we may initially test the waters of a cloud OS's potential. Take for example Dell's forthcoming Latitude ON: a  Linux-based system-on-a-chip that consists of a low-power ARM processor and flash memory running independently of the laptop's CPU and hard disk drive. With it, you'll be able to launch a Firefox-based browser, web mail, calendar, and contacts application as well as a Microsoft Office and PDF viewer. Cloud OS is merely an alternative to that software, albeit without the Microsoft Office/PDF support.

But is a PXE really the Cloud OS of our dreams? In our imaginations, at least, there was no app that still required the computing power of the desktop. Is that ever going to be a reality?

Do We Really Want or Need a Cloud OS?

Today's computer users may not need to run as many desktop applications as they did in the past, but there are still several apps whose cloud versions exist only as lightweight counterparts to the real deal. Adobe's Photoshop is a great example of this - although there are several web based photo-editing apps, most would argue that they don't compare in either features or richness to their desktop counterpart. Then there is, of course, the staple: Microsoft Office. It will soon come in a web-flavored version called Microsoft Office Web Applications, but will it really replace the desktop software entirely? Even more, do we want it to?

As we transition to the cloud, we're seeing more attempts at merging the online and offline worlds. Adobe gave us AIR apps, which can be designed to run in offline mode, syncing data back to their various motherships when your internet connection returns. Google delivered Google Gears, a simple yet somewhat clunky implementation that takes web apps offline. Why clunky? Gears doesn't automatically detect a lost connection, you see. (Switch off your Wi-Fi and see what Google Reader does. Oops, an error occurred, it will say.) Instead, using Gears means you must first click the provided button or link which saves the data to your computer for offline viewing. If it wasn't for the syncing it offered, this wouldn't be much more of an improvement over the good ol' "make this web page available offline" trick.

The Drawback to the Cloud OS: An Offline World

So far, these hybrid approaches to dealing with the cloud seem to imply that we're not entirely ready for a complete transition. Internet is not everywhere yet, unfortunately. So where does that leave our hopes for a true cloud OS? Do we first need ubiquitous broadband and Wi-Fi before a cloud OS can become a reality?  Or will we one day surf a free second internet provided by Google? Is Google right now perfecting a hybrid OS in secret? Whatever the case, despite its name, Cloud OS doesn't feel like like the cloud-based OS we dreamed of, but it may be a good first step in that direction.

Take a recent unfortunate situation for Ylastic, a company that provides a single front-end to manage Amazon Web Services, who was recently an unwillingly participant in one of these cloud bursts.

But something wasn't quite right. And over the course of a few hours the story played out via Twitter as Ylastic noticed issues with its EBS instances.

When the problem was finally identified, Ylastic discovered that the data could not be recovered. They were forced to recover from an earlier snapshot, that contained only a subset of the data.

Finally, after recovering what data they could, Ylastic had to go to its customers with the unfortunate message:

"AWS has finally terminated the frozen instances. But the EBS volume is still detaching and has been for hours. It doesn't seem like we will be able to get into it at this point. Some time in the last month or so, our EBS snapshotting of this stuck volume seems to have stopped working correctly.... We have gone back and run through all the snapshots, and the last good snapshot that we have is from October 1."

Who was at fault? Amazon? Ylastic? Truly, no one. It was simply a combination of issues. A perfect storm in the cloud, as it were. And that perfect storm resulted in data loss for Ylastic and its customer base.

Does this mean we should run screaming from the potential the cloud holds? No, absolutely not. But it's an unfortunate reminder that the system is far from perfect and that those who are relying on the cloud to serve critical aspects of their business should be ever diligent to ensure that the data is being backed up.

For all the technical magic of the cloud, it's still the basics of data management that matter most.

Linux Makes Netbooks Even More Affordable

In the rest of the computing world of desktop computers and mainstream notebooks, you're typically choosing between Windows Vista or Mac OS X, but in the world of netbooks, it's Linux or XP. Those two operating systems are perfect for netbooks thanks to their lower CPU and power requirements.

For those pinching pennies (and who isn't these days? ), the Linux netbooks are even more affordable than their XP counterparts, typically falling into the $300-400 range. If you're already doing most of your computing in the cloud - that is, you use webmail, create and edit documents using a service like Google Docs or Zoho, store your photos online at a site like Flickr, and, most importantly, don't need to run a bunch of software programs on your desktop, the Linux computer is now looking more like a viable option than before - and one that saves you a bit of change too. Just look at these prices: the Acer Aspire One ($399), the HP Mini 1000 ($379), the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 ($349), and the MSI U90X ($369).

Breaking Into Mainstream

As any Linux fan will tell you, the beauty of this OS is its stability. These Linux machines don't crash, boot quickly, and are generally known to be all-around reliable computers.

However, there are still a few folks out there who are going to go with the XP option for familiarity's sake. There's comfort in knowing that your peripherals will work and that you could run Windows-only desktop software if you needed to. Although there are tons of open source alternative software programs out there, an average computer user isn't likely to know what those are or how to find them.

Those issues still stand in the way of mainstream adoption, and have led some buyers to return their PCs to the manufacturers. An MSI executive, Andy Tung, recently reported on the high return rate of the Linux machines, saying: "Our internal research has shown that the return of netbooks is higher than regular notebooks, but the main cause of that is Linux. People would love to pay $299 or $399 but they don't know what they get until they open the box. They start playing around with Linux and start realizing that it's not what they are used to. They don't want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks."

The Linux PCs may also end up getting a run for their money when Windows 7 is released to the wild as that OS is netbook-ready and easy on the CPU, memory, and battery use, according to the news coming out of this year's PDC.

Linux Gets A Foothold

That being said, this move to netbook computing is offering Linux a foot in the door of mainstream computing in a way that may have never been possible before. Without the economic crisis to factor in to people's spending decisions, people probably wouldn't have considered the Linux option as strongly as they're doing today. When every dollar saved counts, the decision to go Linux may be more about cost savings than anything else, but that might be what it takes to get people to try the OS computer geeks have been raving about for years.

Are you going to buy a Linux or XP netbook? If so, tell us which ones you like and what's factoring into your decision.

Amazon will continue to offer the pricing under the "pay what you use" model where there is no minimum fee or long term equipment required.

According to Alyssa Henry, general manager of the Amazon Simple Storage Service, ""The growth of Amazon Web Services has allowed us to become even more efficient and further lower our operating expenses. AWS remains committed to passing savings along to our customers. Just six months ago, we announced a reduction in data transfer costs, and today we're pleased to pass new storage savings along to our customers."

But it's clear that this pricing change is more than a simple "pass the savings on to you" move by the company. Since the company formerly had a flat pricing plan, the new tiered pricing and volume discounts makes it clear that Amazon is looking to edge out their competition. The service now also looks more appealing to the enterprise who may have felt that, before, there was not enough of a savings to use cloud storage as opposed to host-your-own storage behind the firewall.

The new pricing goes into effect November 1st, 2008.

Recently, HP and research firm IDC took a look at some of the biggest trends they're seeing in the datacenter. These five hot new trends are having a big impact on computing today and the future of the cloud. But which ones are most important?

1) Blades

Blades will account for 29% of server sales by 2012. This market is growing quickly as customers are realizing the benefits of a bladed infrastructure: that is, space, time, cost and energy savings. Both enterprise and midsize customers are being impacted by this trend. (Source: IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Forecast, 2008Q1)

2) Going Green

Going green is less about being environmentally conscious and more about saving money. CIOs and IT managers are surprised to find that creating an energy-efficient, high-performance data center through power and cooling is much less expensive they they anticipated. The end result of going green is a reduction in overall costs (energy, space requirements, management, etc) which is savings businesses some serious dollars. 

3) Virtualization

By 2011 more than half of customers' workloads will be deployed in virtual machines. With every new advancement in this area, like integrated hypervisors for example, the need to intelligently control the data center is strengthened. Data center managers need to know how to build a unified infrastructure combining both the virtual and physical environments.  (Source: IDC Multiclient Study, Server Virtualization On the Move 2007)

4) Cloud Computing Means Scalability Is a Must

Data is growing at an exponential rate thanks to cloud computing. Large content-rich data, like streaming digital media (e.g. IPTV, video on demand, broadcast, etc.), static digital media (e.g. photo sharing, online music download, etc.), and web content hosting (e-mail, blogs, Web pages, etc.) are having the most impact. Cloud computing companies need solutions that can easily manage multi-petabyte scalability - without disruption.

5) Linux in the Enterprise

Worldwide Linux server shipments have increased by 35% since 2003. Currently, one out of every five servers runs on Linux and the adoption of Linux servers is expected to grow. The adoption rate will increase by almost 8% by 2012  (Source: IDC, Worldwide Quarterly Server Forecast, 2008 Q1)

If you want to learn more about these trends using a real world example, HP's Pentel Case Study makes for a good read. This company was able to reduce their datacenter footprint from 5 full racks to 1 by using a combination of blades, storage, and VMWare virtualization. They were also able to reduce their power and cooling needs. Those efforts led to a savings of over $200,000 in three years in reduced maintenance costs alone. Their I.T. department is more agile, Oracle performs up to 80% faster, and they can deploy a server in minutes. In other words, these trends are just about changing needs, they're also about saving money.

Out of all these trends, which ones are most important? We tend to think that scalability is going to be a big issue going forward, especially with the growth of web apps and their specific infrastructure needs. We've already seen what lack of scalability can do to a service - we almost lost Twitter, for example, as demand outpaced their ability to provide the service. Knowing the intelligent audience of readers we have here at RWW, we're interested in what trends you think are the most important. 

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/five_big_data_center_trends_for_2008.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/five_big_data_center_trends_for_2008.php Trends Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:31:40 -0800 Sarah Perez On July 24th, Microsoft held their annual Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM), an event where many of Microsoft's top executives come together to talk about the company's progress and achievements. At this year's meeting, Microsoft Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie hinted at Microsoft's cloud initiatives, a part of their Software + Services (S+S) strategy. While Ozzie did not reveal either codenames or ship dates during his speech, there is still some information we can piece together to help determine what Microsoft's cloud will look like.

Ozzie Said:

"We believe in a future, again, in many ways analogous to Xbox LIVE, in which Windows Live acts as a strategic extension to both Windows on the PC and Windows Mobile on the phone. You can think of this as the connected OS, Windows beyond the level of a single device or PC. How the OS connects to services and how it synchronizes with other devices are key. Your PC's config settings, your apps and their settings, your files and folders, are transparently synchronized across a mesh of PCs and other devices by Windows."

Takeaway:

This is a reference to Windows Live Mesh, a platform that currently only does file sync but is designed to also sync settings and applications. Today, many people are still confused about Mesh, thinking it's Microsoft's competitor to Apple's MobileMe service, but the hint here is that Mesh will go deeper than just a premium service for cloud storage and sync, to be a more of an overall cloud computing platform.

The Software Stack

Ozzie Said:

"Most major enterprises today find themselves in the early stages of a two-stage infrastructure transition. The first stage is the consolidation of many dedicated application servers into a fewer number of larger application servers using virtualization to combine those workloads into a single high-scale box. The second stage they're heading into is the shift toward leveraging utility computing services, a new kind of system designed for massive scale-outs, running on large redundant arrays of inexpensive commodity servers in the cloud. Both of these trends, consolidation and utility computing, are motivated by the same two things: First, to make the best use of expensive IT personnel; and second, to increase the agility of IT -- agility in deployment, agility in management, deploying and scaling IT systems in just minutes or hours that might have taken in the past weeks or months to get up and running. Earlier you heard Stephen and others talk about online services, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, CRM Online. These are the high-level service analogs to on-premises server offerings. And to power these services at scale, we're bringing some of our most capable server assets to the cloud beyond those key building blocks, like SQL Server and BizTalk."

Takeaway:

Hey, that looks familiar! Microsoft's software stack hasn't changed - it has just moved from the data center to the cloud. For IT, this means faster deployments and the power to scale up as needed. IT admins will spend less time staging servers which means they'll have more time to focus on other areas of the business. We envisioned what this will look like here, but to sum up - your company's computer guy/gal will be less of a "geek" and more of a "facilitator."

Developers, Developers, Cloud App Developers

Ozzie Said:

"The third principle that I've been talking for several years now with people in the organization is one that targets developers, and it's one that I refer to as the trend toward small pieces loosely joined in how you build programs. When I talked about my first two principles, software that spans multiple devices and software that spans from the enterprise into the cloud, you might have gathered that the nature of software development is also being transformed in moving toward a world of software plus services...Software on the back end is also being transformed from being a single program running on an enterprise server that scales in a scale-up manner to programs that are spread out across hundreds or even thousands of PCs running in a cloud-based datacenter that appears like one datacenter to the programmer, but is actually spread across the world. So, what does this principle mean for Microsoft's business perspective? Well, many business ISVs and many VARs will be looking to move their applications and solutions to the cloud just like we have. For them, like us, this technology shift towards services represents a significant opportunity, a chance for them to deliver to their enterprise customers the power of choice within their own application or solution. And so Microsoft's opportunity in this space is perfectly aligned with that of our partners to provide them with the platforms and the tools to make this transition, leveraging our experience as well as our substantial economies of scale in embracing the cloud."

And later..

Question: "How do you convince the market and the customers that you're going to be moving into the cloud, that Microsoft should be the platform play versus a Google and/or an Amazon?"

RAY OZZIE: "I think, on that front, if we solve a problem for these folks, it will prove itself out in a positive way. Web developers -- you can just look out there right now -- are extremely pragmatic. They're very, very pragmatic. If something works for them and solves a problem, they're just going to use it. And, you know, the onus is on us to prove, to show through what we deliver, that it's very, very valuable. And, you know, brand will -- if there is a brand perception, for example, within the open-source community about Microsoft, they'll be a bit perplexed when they find out -- when they see that the best way to run what they're trying to do is on our infrastructure. And I think that will improve. That will improve brand perception in that realm."

Takeaway:

Obviously, the key to a good cloud strategy is getting software developers on board, so beyond just providing the cloud itself, this sounds like he's hinting at some sort of development tool (or tools) that will provide developers a way to build apps in the cloud. In order to compete with both Google and Amazon, the Microsoft cloud has to be better - that is, it has to be richer and more well-defined than what currently exists today. This could be tough. Says Ozzie, "Amazon has done a terrific job...I think we've all learned a lot from it."

Cloud Datacenters To Run It All

Ozzie Said:

"And, yes, the datacenters that we invest in...it's the same datacenters that host Search and our MSN apps and our Windows Live apps, Office Live apps. And this platform infrastructure is also...going out there. We do careful staged investments...as you're expanding, you have to have different projects in different phases...we have to have the footprint to be able to build at the right rate when the demand emerges. You don't want to overbuild too much in advance of the demand. But we're preparing for a fairly significant transformation."

Takeaway:

In other words, the Microsoft cloud isn't just about business apps and SLAs. Along with running Exchange Online and SharePoint Online, their same datacenters will run Live Search, Windows Live Services, MSN, Office Live, and more. "Significant transformation?" Was Microsoft really blindslided by the shift to cloud computing or have they been quietly ramping up for a massive shift of their business? ZDNet recently reported that Microsoft's corporate vice president of Global Foundation Services Debra Chrapaty is on record saying Microsoft is adding 10,000 new servers a month. Put that in perspective - Facebook is estimated to have 10,000 total.

Conclusion

Although we don't have all the pieces yet nor any sort of ship dates, what we can see here is that Microsoft does indeed have a cloud computing strategy and it's huge. They're not just moving their businesses services from the data center to the cloud - they're also providing cloud services for consumers, too. And then there is Live Mesh, their cloud computing platform that will sync apps, settings, and files. How does it all tie together? We don't have all the answers today, but it looks like it's going to be a big reveal when the time comes.

Each of the DreamTeam Suite's components offer features that put them on par with other similar web apps and desktop software products. The Project Management module, for example, does Gantt charts and resource management, and the Document Collaboration piece allows for sharing, messaging, and version control. A new homepage for the suite lets you see an overview of all the activity of your current projects and allows for one-click workspace creation as well.

DreamTeam's Project Management Module

As for the pricing, DreamTeam is much more affordable than some of its competition - for comparison purposes, Basecamp starts at $24/month and goes up to $149/month, but to get unlimited projects in Basecamp, you must pay the $149/month rate. With DreamTeam however, the money the company saves on infrastructure is passed on to their customers.

For anyone in need of a business suite that's a bit easier on the wallet, DreamTeam should be added to your list. There's a free trial available from the company's homepage, if you want to try out the suite for yourself.

Google Web Security for Enterprise provides three main areas of protection: 1) web virus and spyware protection, 2) web filtering and content control, and 3) protection for roaming and remote users. Services such as these aren't anything new to I.T. administrators, but they often come in the form of expensive software suites, hardware appliances, or, more often, a combination of both. With the Google Web Security product, the goal is to provide enterprises with the same type of security and protection that they are used to, but all under the Google brand.

Controlling Web Access for End Users

How It Compares

The advantage of using a service such as this over a hardware firewall solution for example, is that with the firewall the protections offered to remote workers would only be activated when an employee is connected to the company network via VPN. With the Google Web Security for Enterprise service, which can't be disabled by the end user, workers would always be protected.

However, when comparing the Google offering to some other enterprise level software products, like Symantec's Endpoint Protection suite for example, the Google product comes up short in a few areas. Although this particular Symantec product doesn't offer web content filtering, it does provide certain fine-grained application and device controls. These are tools which let I.T. admins lock down endpoints to prevent data leakage by controlling access to specific processes, files, and folders by users and other applications as well as by controlling what peripherals can be connected to a machine.

The Google product does not address these concerns which are still very much a factor in larger organizations or those that deal with sensitive data, so I.T. administrators would still have to utilize other software suites in addition to the Web Security for Enterprise product to provide complete endpoint protection.

Web Security-as-a-Service

That being said, this new service is definitely moving Google closer to being a true competitor in the realm of enterprise security, as they already offer email security and compliance tools. Plus, the convenience of having all the services available in the cloud makes this a compelling offering if the price, yet to be announced, is right.

"CloudFS is the next step in our overall mission to provide the industry's most flexible and broadest range of hosting options -- from traditional complex managed hosting to cloud compute solutions," said Mosso co-founder Jonathan Bryce in a press release.

CloudFS launches today to a limited number of customers in free private beta. The private beta will last until the third quarter of 2008, at which time the service will open in a public beta. The target price at the time is $0.15/per gigabyte.

PaaS?

You may have heard about SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), but what is PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)? According to David Mitchell, Founder and CTO at Bungee, cloud-based services like storage-as-a-service, CRM-as-a-service, and computing-as-a-Service are just the beginning of software and computing in the cloud. In order to be a true platform, all the systems and environments comprising the end-to-end lifecycle of developing, testing, deploying, and hosting web applications must be present. And when all of those items are present in the cloud, you have a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

Bungee Connect

The Bungee Connect platform is Bungee Labs' implementation of this idea of cloud-based development. Unlike services that "dumb down" development so any user can build apps (think Yahoo Pipes, Popfly), Bungee Connect is meant for professional developers. The applications that Bungee Connect can be used to build are highly interactive, secure, and reliable desktop-like apps that can use multiple web services and databases in a single, on-demand environment.

Bungee Connect Builder Screenshot

Bungee apps can be embedded in other web applications and pages, SaaS solutions, or delivered as stand-alone web destinations. IT Managers can even securely web-enable their in-house apps on existing servers. An IT Manager who uses Bungee to bring an in-house web app to their mobile users only needs http/https enabled in their firewall, nothing more, and the only connection is to the Bungee Grid itself, not each and every end user.

Why Use Bungee's PaaS?

Since Bungee Connect is an end-to-end service, applications aren't built in one environment and deployed in another. Instead developing, debugging, testing, and deploying all occurs within the same environment, making application development faster...much faster.

WideLens

Bungee claims that their service can reduce time-to-market by as much as 80%. As a test, they developed a reference application called WideLens, an online calendaring app that connects to Microsoft Exchange calendar, Google Calendar, Salesforce.com, Facebook, MySQL and iCalendar feeds. This app represents several different types of protocols and authentication schemes including WebDav, gData, SOAP, REST, and MySQL. WideLens connects to each source in real-time and presents users with live data. And while the app itself sounds incredibly useful, what's even more incredible about it is the time it took to build:

• 3 hours to integrate Salesforce
• 1 day to integrate facebook
• 13 weeks total development time, start-to-finish

WideLens Calendar Screenshot

Bungee Connect and all applications built with it can be accessed through Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari web browsers. They do not require any software download, installation, or plug-in.

Pricing

The service Bungee offers is free to use for development, collaboration, and test deployment. Developers only need pay when an app is used by others. Depending on usage, a cost of $2-5 per user per month is expected for heavily utilized business applications and only fractions of a cent for e-commerce transactions. During the public beta, all apps will be hosted for free.

Conclusion

Bungee's extensive feature list, which includes a single, on-demand environment, automated integration of web services, built-in team collaboration & testing, built-in scalability, reliability, and security, and a utility pricing model, make Bungee Connect a robust and ambitious new offering in cloud computing and development.

The only question that remains is whether developers trust the cloud enough to make a switch from their current set of trusted tools to a web-based platform.