Comments on: Inside the Cloud: 9 Sectors to Watch

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 18 May 2010 04:38:11 +0000

Well it’s been almost two years since this post and it looks like “The Cloud” is now a common everyday phrase. I’m still a little “cloudy” on it’s exact meaning although Surge seems to help clear it up a little…

I like how Surge defines the cloud…

In the software industry, “The Cloud” is used as a metaphor to represent the Internet. Any computing resource, software, or service that can be shared over the Internet is considered to be in the Cloud. This sharing of resources and anytime/anywhere accessibility makes Internet-based software more efficient and cost effective than traditional on-premise software.

http://www.surgeforward.com/InternetCloud.aspx

Does anyone else have a good description they can share?
Thanks

By: andy.edmonds.be › links for 2009-02-22

andy.edmonds.be › links for 2009-02-22 — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:33:50 +0000

[...] Inside the Cloud: 9 Sectors to Watch (tags: cloud cloudcomputing services watch) [...]

By: HP Not So Sure About EC2

HP Not So Sure About EC2 — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:21:51 +0000

[...] Someone should tell Amazon, as EC2 is one of the IaaS providers given as an example of services whose costs will still increase with demand, meaning they can’t deliver the service profitably. I’m pretty sure others will have another opinion on this, seeing value in offering different layers of the cloud. [...]

By: Understanding Cloud Computing 101 | Aleyda Solis Blog | Web Enthusiast, Developer and Promoter

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 23:04:44 +0000

[...] Inside the Cloud: 9 Sectors to Watch [...]

By: ophirk

ophirk — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 07:17:27 +0000

I’m not sure that “stack based clouds” and “Cloud-based development platforms” are two separate categories.
I imagine that writing on google apps one has access to a great set of Google API’s and not just writing Python code.
In this sense it is similar to Force.Com where one can write Java applications and gain access to SalesForce API’s.

Its true that salesforce has much richer Data driven model, but google is picking up and will probably buy salesforce soon :)

By: What is the cloud? | Ben Cherian's blog

What is the cloud? | Ben Cherian's blog — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:23:52 +0000

[...] resource is Alistair Croll’s GigaOm article where he divides the cloud space. If you want a more in-depth resource, Reuven Cohen, a smart Canadian bloke and one of the best [...]

By: Tom Lounibos

Tom Lounibos — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:40:00 +0000

Alistar, Good Stuff!

For those companies that may be looking for more then just a Test “SandBox”…..they might be interested in a recent test done in the Cloud using SOASTA CloudTest Test Solution. Qtrax, a Free Music Download Service provider, was able see what would happen to there application and network if 100,000 simultaneous users hit there site….The Cloud provided about (125) servers for a few hours of testing at a very affordable price.

By: VCs Have Their Heads in the Clouds - GigaOM

VCs Have Their Heads in the Clouds - GigaOM — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:43:25 +0000

[...] services are generally referred to as cloud computing, and the game-changing potential of those services has venture firms sitting up and taking notice. Indeed, after spending the past [...]

By: Naresh Sehgal

Naresh Sehgal — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:38:30 +0000

Bert, another question is how do such massive number of servers in a single data-center get managed, in terms of monitoring, alerts, error resolution etc.

thanks,

naresh

By: Alistair Croll Defines 9 Cloud Computing Sectors

Alistair Croll Defines 9 Cloud Computing Sectors — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:28:37 +0000

[...] Croll recently posted an excellent writeup on Gigaom that attempts to segment our somewhat noisy market into 9 vendor sectors that IMHO many prospective [...]

By: Bert Armijo

Bert Armijo — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:58:20 +0000

Naresh,

You’ve raised a good point. These efforts are just beginning and will take some time, as at the moment folks have a tough enough time just defining cloud computing. However, yes a few of us have committed ourselves to working on open standards.

Bert Armijo
3tera

By: Naresh Sehgal

Naresh Sehgal — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:50:04 +0000

These are excellent trends to know of, a couple of observations:

1) Current cloud operators tend to lock in their customers, is any industry group working to standardize data-representation and APIs for applications?

2) Internet reliability is an issue, before SMB customers especially in emerging markets will move their critical business apps and data to cloud. One solution is to have a local copy that is remotely updated/managed from the cloud.

thanks,

naresh

By: Jengates Blog » Blog Archive » links for 2008-07-21

Jengates Blog » Blog Archive » links for 2008-07-21 — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:30:58 +0000

[...] Inside the Cloud: 9 Sectors to Watch – GigaOM [...]

By: alphadog

alphadog — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:32:32 +0000

There’s a lot more to watch:
http://saaslink.googlepages.com/SaaSMap_LairdDickson_May08.png

Also, I’d add other I have heard of:
Mosso
Mor.ph

This is a burgeoning area. Tracking it is a nightmare right now.

By: Geva Perry

Geva Perry — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:30:34 +0000

Alistair – I really like that you named GigaSpaces’ category “Scalability Frameworks”. You hit the nail on the head. Cloud providers, such as Amazon, Flexiscale, GoGrid and others provide the basic infrastructure to scale applications on-demand, which is great. But for a wide range of applications there is still a gap of how to make the application itself scale on-demand on this infrastructure. It doesn’t work with traditional middleware and platforms. As more companies get on the cloud this issue will grow in importance.

I also think the comment on billing and payments is a good one. We’re facing some challenges in that area with our cloud offering. One interesting start-up in this category is Zuora (http://www.zuora.com).

Geva Perry
GigaSpaces

By: Alistair Croll

Alistair Croll — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:49:21 +0000

@Ian/Phil – thanks for the clarification. I’ve always been confused about the Cohesive/Skytap/Flexiscale relationship.

@Ranjit – licensing and billing is indeed an important component if clouds are to make money. I’m not sure that it’s going to be a motivator for people to embrace the cloud (although comfort with an incumbent licensing model gives folks like Microsoft an advantage.) Kiril Sheynkman of Elastra cited licensing as a major obstacle to cloud adoption.

@Sean: Virtual appliances are indeed a way to take chunks of the enterprise and move them into a cloud. One of the things I like about Gigaspaces’ model is the ability to spin up new, self-contained components wherever it makes sense, and virtual appliances share this advantage. JumpBox and rpath are definitely interesting players in this sector.

When we initially started working on this piece, we were going to point to companies to watch. But as these comments make clear, it’s still early days for that. Billing and virtual appliances are certainly two additional sectors worth watching. Thanks for the feedback.