View full sizeScienceDaily (Apr. 6, 2009) — The advantages of cloud computing were dramatically illustrated last week by researchers working on the STAR nuclear physics experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider. New simulation results were needed for presentation at the Quark Matter physics conference; but all the computational resources were either committed to other tasks or did not support the environment needed for STAR computations.
Gartner Says Worldwide SaaS Revenue to Grow 18 Percent in 2009 – HostedFTP.com
Worldwide software as a service (SaaS) revenue is forecast to reach $7.5 billion in 2009, a 17.7 percent increase from 2008 revenue of $6.4 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. The market will show consistent growth through 2013 when worldwide SaaS revenue will total over $14 billion for the enterprise application markets.
“The adoption of SaaS continues to grow and evolve within the enterprise application markets,” said Sharon Mertz, research director at Gartner. “The composition of the worldwide SaaS landscape is evolving as vendors continue to extend regionally, increase penetration within existing accounts and ‘greenfield’ opportunities, and offer more-vertical-specific solutions as part of their service portfolio or through partners.”
“Adoption of the on-demand deployment model has continued to grow as on-demand vendors have extended their services through alliances, partner offerings, and more recently, by offering and promoting user application development through platform as a service (PaaS) capabilities,” Ms. Mertz said. “Although usage and adoption is still evolving, deployment of SaaS still varies between the enterprise application markets and within specific market segments because of buyer demand and applicability of the solution.”
The content, communications and collaboration (CCC) market and the customer relationship management (CRM) market continue to have the largest amount of SaaS revenue across market segments, with the CCC market generating $2.6 billion in 2009, up from $2.14 billion in 2008 and the CRM segment generating $2.3 billion in 2009, up from $1.9 billion in 2008. (see Table 1).
Table 1
Worldwide Software Revenue for SaaS Delivery Within the Enterprise Application Software Markets
(Millions of Dollars)
| 2009 | 2008 | |
| Content, Communications and Collaboration (CCC) | 2,573 | 2,143 |
| Office Suites | 68 | 56 |
| Digital Content Creation (DCC) | 62 | 44 |
| Customer Relationship Management (CRM) | 2,281 | 1,872 |
| Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) | 1,239 | 1,176 |
| Supply Chain Management (SCM) | 826 | 710 |
| Other Application Software | 472 | 387 |
| Total Enterprise Software | 7,521 | 6,388 |
Cloud Computing List of 85 Cloud Vendor Players
Cloud Computing Vendors
1) Amazon Web Services
Leading cloud pioneer Amazon offers several different in-the-cloud services. The best known is Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, or Amazon EC2, which allows customers to set up and access virtual servers via a simple Web interface. Fees are assessed hourly based on the number and size of virtual machines you have ($.10 -$.80 per hour), with an additional fee for data transfer.
EC2 is designed to work in conjunction with Amazon’s other cloud services, which include Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Simple DB, Cloudfront, Simple Queue Service (SQS), and Elastic MapReduce.
Notable: The Amazon Web Services list of partners is high profile, including the likes of Citrix, Facebook, IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, and others.
2) Google
Yes, they own search – and are working on owning the cloud. With Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Picasa in its lineup, Google offers some of the best known cloud computing services available. They also offer some lesser known cloud services targeted primarily at enterprises, such as Google Sites, Google Gadgets, Google Video, and most notably, the Google Apps Engine. The Apps Engine allows developers to write applications to run on Google’s servers while accessing data that resides in the Google cloud as well as data that resides behind the corporate firewall. While it has been criticized for limited programming language support, the Apps Engine debuted Java and Ajax support in April, which may make it more appealing to developers.
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Notable: Google recently revealed its philosophy of cloud computing in this Enterprise Blog post written by senior project manager Rajen Sheth: “As companies weigh private data centers vs. scalable clouds, they should ask a simple question: can I find the same economics, ease of maintenance, and pace of innovation that is inherent in the cloud?”
3) IBM
Although it was somewhat late to the cloud computing party, IBM launched its “Smart Business” lineup of cloud-based products and services in June. For now, the company is focusing on two key areas: software development and testing, and virtual desktops. But the company makes it clear that the cloud model has much wider-reaching implications, noting that “cloud computing represents a true paradigm shift in the way IT and IT-enabled services are delivered and consumed by businesses.” The company has also made noises about partnering with Google – the two companies would be a potent duo in the cloud sector.
Notable: A big part of IBM’s advantage in the cloud is the remarkable reach of its international presence. Early customers of IBM’s cloud computing offerings include South Africa’s Nedbank and China’s Sinochem.
4) Microsoft
It’s a critical question facing the tech industry: Can Microsoft, the king of the traditional world of packaged software, leverage its hulking muscle to grab a similar position in the cloud world? The answer is unclear but Microsoft is certainly trying. The software giant’s ambitious Azure initiative has a solution for every Microsoft constituency, from ISVs to Web developers to enterprise clients to consumers. Formally unveiled in 2008, Azure is still very much a work in progress. If it succeeds as Microsoft hopes, in future years we’ll be talking about “Windows Azure,” a cloud-based OS that offers remote computing power, storage and management services. To make the dream come true, Microsoft is investing a king’s fortune in a network of $500 million, 500,000-square-feet datacenters around the country. The facilities will presumably form the physical backbone of the cloud network. If all goes according to plan, Microsoft will not only control the software but also the physical infrastructure that delivers that software. In other words, the company is attempting to be even bigger than it is now. (No one ever accused Redmond of being modest.) Perhaps the company’s ace in the hole: it understands enterprise management – a critical building block – more than its top competitors.
Notable: In a March 2009 interview with the New York Times, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer jumped up and drew a diagram on a white board of the company’s cloud computing plans. It’s a squiggly, complicated drawing, leading the reporter to ask if the plan wasn’t overly complex. Not at all, Ballmer explained, detailing how current flagship Windows Server will be replaced by Windows Azure. In a quote that suggests that Microsoft is very attuned to the cloud trend, he told the Times: ““Anything that has been a server needs to be a service.”
Amazon S3 Service – Getting Started Tutorial
Here is a good tutorial on Amazon S3 web service getting started.
Google’s Cloud – Read The Key Questions
Google’s Cloud: 8 Key Questions
The GDrive and cloud computing sound great, but let’s get some practical considerations out of the way first.
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and virtually every other technology company are racing up to the sky and into the clouds. This is, for the most part, a good thing: Think lightweight clients and server-based data that we can access from anywhere in the world. All we need is a Web browser.
But if you spend anytime flying or have traveled up to some of the higher mountain regions in the U.S. or around the world, you also know that up in the clouds, there’s a pronounced lack of oxygen. That thin air makes people stupid. So much so, that they begin to say things like, “Cloud computing will mark the end of the PC.”
Read the Rest at: PCMAG
Zeus Partners With Joyent – Cloud Computing
Zeus Technology, the only software-based application delivery company, and Joyent, one of the premier cloud computing vendors, today announced a partnership that will provide a more flexible and cost-effective cloud computing infrastructure to their customers. Zeus now provides its advanced ZXTM traffic management software within Joyent Accelerators – virtualized servers that deliver a highly scalable and fast on-demand infrastructure for websites and web applications.
Zeus’ software solution enables Joyent to not only provide their customers dedicated application delivery services, but also allows customers the opportunity to purchase these services from Joyent on flexible contracts without the need to pay up-front for licenses. Zeus’ solutions will be offered for free for application developers. This pay-as-you-go model removes a significant business risk which has been traditionally associated with hardware solutions in cloud computing.
Google Offers Contacts and Calendar Sync for iPhone and Windows Mobile!
Google have just announced the launch of “Google Sync” for the iPhone and Windows Mobile phones, this follows last years Calendar and Contact Sync for the Blackberry.
Cloud Computing, The Future Takes Shape
Cloud Computing, The Future Takes Nebulous Shape
You’ve probably heard the buzz-word “Cloud Computing” tossed around recently. Cloud Computing is the next big thing in remote and distributed computing and is very much in fashion now for many industry bellwethers like IBM, Sun, Amazon, Google and storage giants like EMC. You don’t have to have a degree in IT to see it coming together. If you’ve played around with Gmail or Google Docs, even as an end user, you’ve already seen the beginings of something big, really big. As with any budding new market however, there are a lot more questions than answers these days, perhaps because the possibilities are seemingly infinite. Let’s take a quick gander at a basic high level understanding of how the cloud works and what the building blocks are.
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Amazon WS Tools – Setup Amazon Cloud Services – Easy to use GUI.
Here is an excellent list that I have come across that includes some useful tools…
Amazon WS Tools allows IT administrations and developers to configure Amazon Cloud services through an easy to use GUI.
Plugged directly into Eclipse or Aptana, developers can access the “Amazon WebService Perspective”
Currently there are few tools to deal with the Amazon Cloud Environment. The ones that do exist consist of command line interfaces and developer APIs, or standalone application, making management of Amazon Services available to only the most skilled and it administrators. jsLex’s set of Eclipse views will give everyone the ability to work with the cloud environment by providing a set of professional tools that make managing the cloud simple; minimizing mistakes and speeding up use.
Services
Amazon Services that can be configured using the Amazon Services Management Tools are the following:
- CloudFront
- Simple DB
- Simple Storage Service (S3)
- Simple Queue Service (SQS)
- Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
Developers will be able to manage all of their Amazon Web Services accounts in a single location and be able to quickly change between them in any Service Management View.
CloudFront
“Amazon CloudFront is a web service for content delivery. It integrates with other Amazon Web Services to give developers and businesses an easy way to distribute content to end users with low latency, high data transfer speeds, and no commitments.” Click to read more about CloudFront on Amazon.com
Configuration of all aspects of CloudFront as well as tools that help debug or troubleshoot CloudFront usage are available through either a menu or toolbar action. All CloudFront Distributions are available through a sortable list that makes finding/adding/changing/deleting them simple.
Actions to test distributions by accessing resources online and to go directly to the S3 bucket that this distribution is providing via the CDN will be possible.
Simple Storage Service
“Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.” Click to read more about S3 on Amazon.com
S3’s Service Management View provides the ability to easily navigate S3 buckets and resources using a table of all the resources and a breadcrumb so that users can navigate both up and down the fold structure easily. Actions are provided as both menus and toolbars.
Google + Twitter = Twoogling? Google has entered the Twitter Game!
Google is now on Twitter. As insane as it may seem, it has taken Google years to start using their Google account, which is located at twitter.com/Google
Google + Twitter = Twoogling?
Their first post, a Twoogle if you will, was a binary message (way to geek it up Google) :
“I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010”
Roughly translated to : I’m F E E L I N G L U C K Y
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a sign. No, it’s not a sign of a Google acquisition, although John Battelle did start off my morning with an excellent post on how Twitter is the new YouTube :
“So why did Google really buy YouTube? My answer, which of course looks brilliant given it’s 20/20 hindsight: YouTube was a massive search asset.
After all, YouTube now gets more searches than Yahoo, Google’s closest search rival.“
Battelle argues that Twitters main asset may not be its userbase or its buzz, but its “Real time. Converational Search”
So, does Google opening up it’s Twitter account with binary riddles spell the ultimate acquisition of Twitter by Google. Not really. Instead it more or less signifies that Google has accepted Twitter as a form of mass communication in the same way that Google was interested in Blogger and Blogging. Remember when the Official Google Blog was first launched in 2004? Before that, Google relied on Google Groups and various webmaster forums to communicate with its users, webmasters, publishers and other target audiences.
Now, Google has a blog for everything. The Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. The Official GMail Blog. Google LatLong. The Google Analytics Blog …etc. Noticing a trend here?
One problem with blogging however. Remember that GMail outage we had on Monday night? Where was the Official GMail Blog then?
Bangalore, India – The New Silicon Valley?
The Shifting of Clouds
by Rich on February 26, 2009
I was doing some research on Google Trends for “Cloud Computing” and I found it quite interesting that India makes up 3 of the top 5 spots in the world searching this term. I’ve also come across the fact that there are more searches for “Cloud Computing” from Bangalore, India than San Jose and New York combined.
Bangalore is called the Silicon Valley of India
Bangalore is a growing Metropolis with over 6,200,000 people. Making it the 3rd largest city in India.
(Bangalore is called the Silicon Valley of India because of the large number of Information Technology companies located in the city which contributed 33% of India’s Rs. 144,214 crore (US$ 29 billion) IT exports in 2006-07.[44] Bangalore’s IT industry is divided into three main “clusters” — Software Technology Parks of India, Bangalore (STPI); International Technology Park Bangalore (ITPB), formerly International Technology Park Ltd. (ITPL); and Electronics City. UB City, the headquarters of the United Breweries Group, is a high-end commercial zone.[45] Infosys and Wipro, India’s second and third largest software companies are headquartered in Bangalore as are many of the global SEI-CMM Level 5 Companies.
The growth of Information Technology has presented the city with unique challenges. Ideological clashes sometimes occur between the city’s IT moguls, who demand an improvement in the city’s infrastructure and the state government, whose electoral base is primarily the people in rural Karnataka.[46] Bangalore is a hub for biotechnology related industry in India and in the year 2005, around 47% of the 265 biotechnology companies in India were located here; including Biocon, India’s largest biotechnology company.)
Source: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore)
Also you may have read recently that Salesforce.com’s Force.com is making a big play for the market in India as there is a lot of potential for future growth.
Here is a snapshot below showcasing the explosive interest level for ‘Cloud Computing’ in India. Is this just a temporary trend or something the ‘cloud computing’ providers should take a closer look at? We will soon find out soon enough….
Cloud Vendors A to Z – List of The Large Cloud Computing Players
Fantastic vendor list provided by: JohnWillis.com
Cloud Vendors A to Z (Revised)
This list contains most of the vendors that have a presence in the cloud:
| Cloud Vendor | Level | Type | Status | Cloud Provider | Notes |
| 3Tera | 3 | Server | Provider | Backbone | 3Teras host solutions and provides software for other host providers |
| Adobe Air | 1 | Application | Not a Provider | Backbone | Desktop play |
| Akamai | 0 | Server | Not a Provider | Software Based | CDN |
| Amazon EC2 | 2 | Server | Provider | Backbone | |
| Amazon S3 | 2 | Storage | Provider | Backbone | |
| Amazon SimpleDB | 2 | Database | Provider | Backbone | |
| Apache CouchDB | 2 | Database | Not a Provider | Software Based | IBM is involved |
| Apache Hadoop | 2 | Database | Not a Provider | Software Based | Hadoop is white-hot OSS enterprise search technology. |
| Areti Internet | 0 | Application | Provider | 3Tera | |
| Box-Net | 1 | Storage | Provider | Backbone | |
| Cassatt | 0 | Server | Not a Provider | Software Based | Utility based computing. Provides a very strong provisioning play along with robust power management. Utility providers can worth within clouds or outside of clouds (e.g., enterprise infrastructures). |
| Citrix (XenSource) | 0 | Utility | Not a Provider | Software Based | |
| CohesiveFT/ESOD | 1 | Utility | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 | Sort of like of like a cloud factory. ESOD is Elastic Server on Demand that can be used to create EC2 running images along with other platform images (e.g., Zen, VMWare, Parallels). |
| Dell DCS | 2 | Server | Provider | Backbone | |
| EC2onRails | 1 | Utility | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 | A project offering that claims to allow deployment of a Ruby on Rails app on EC2 in five minutes |
| Elastra | 1 | Server | Provider | Amazon EC2 | Primarily a MySQL/PostGreSQL play right now. |
| EMC Mozy | 1 | Storage | Provider | Backbone | Cloud Services Play |
| Enki | 1 | Server | Not a Provider | 3Tera | Heavier as a services player |
| Enomaly | 1 | Server | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 | Heavier as a services player. Also creates other platform images (e.g., Xen,KVM,Qemu,OpenVZ,VMware, EC2 and Hyper-v) |
| Enomoly ElastcDrive | 1 | Storage | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 | |
| EnterpriseDB | 1 | Database | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 | Have a cloud offering |
| Flexiscale | 2 | Server | Provider | Backbone | UK Based cloud provider |
| Fortress ITX | 1 | Server | Not a Provider | 3Tera | |
| Google App Engine | 2 | Server | Provider | Backbone | Closed framework cloud. Is based on Python, Django and others. The primary point is that it does not support frameworks based on PHP or Rails. |
| Google Apps | 1 | Application | Provider | Backbone | Desktop play |
| Heroku | 1 | Utility | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 | Ruby on Rails cloud |
| HP AiaaS | 2 | Server | Provider | Backbone | |
| IBM Blue Cloud | 0 | Server | Provider | Backbone | Provisioning play |
| iCloud | 1 | Application | Provider | Backbone | Desktop Cloud |
| Intridea/Scalr | 1 | Utility | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 | Scalr is an open source project designed to offer true elasticity and recovery for EC2. |
| Joyent | 2 | Server | Provider | Backbone | Solaris based cloud |
| JungleDisk | 1 | Storage | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 | Low cost utility for S3 |
| Layered Technology | 1 | Server | Provider | 3Tera | A 3Tera mega partner |
| LongJump | 1 | Database | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 | |
| Microsoft SSDS | 1 | Database | Provider | Backbone | Competes w/Amazon SimpleDB |
| MorphExchange | 1 | Utility | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 | Ruby on Rails cloud |
| Mosso | 2 | Server | Provider | Rackspace | Owned by by Rackspce |
| Nirvanix | 1 | Storage | Provider | Backbone | Interesting hybrid of Cloud and CDN |
| Rackspace | 0 | Server | Provider | Amazon EC2 | |
| Rightscale | 1 | Server | Provider | Amazon EC2 | |
| Rpath/Rbuilder | 1 | Utility | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 | Similar to ESOD and Enomoly. Creates stack images. |
| Salesforce.com | 0 | Application | Provider | SaaS | |
| Sun Caroline | 2 | Server | Provider | Backbone | |
| Sun MySQL | 1 | Database | Provider | Backbone | Not sure of plans |
| Terremark | 0 | Server | Provider | Backbone | |
| VMWare | 0 | Utility | Not a Provider | Software Based | |
| Weoceo | 1 | Utility | Not a Provider | Amazon EC2 |
————————————-
| Level | Description |
| 0 | Cloud Look-Alike |
| 1 | Cloud Guests |
| 2 | Cloud Hosts |
| 3 | Cloud Disruptor |
Appistry and GoGrid Announce Cloud Computing Solution
Cloud Computing Infrastructure provider GoGrid and Cloud Application Platform provider Appistry announce the release of Appistry EAF Community Edition within the GoGrid cloudcenter.
GoGrid, the Cloud Computing division of ServePath, LLC and Appistry today released new tools for developers, architects and administrators designed to ease the pain associated with developing, deploying and managing applications in the Cloud. Appistry’s Cloud application platform, named Appistry EAF, helps businesses and enterprises efficiently manage and scale their applications within the GoGrid infrastructure. With this joint solution, larger companies are able to take full advantage of the Cloud’s unique value proposition of elastic scalability, solid reliability, automated management and CapEx economies.
Appistry EAF Community Edition 3.9 is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 users. Additional EAF-enabled GoGrid images will be rolling out in the near future. Appistry EAF Community Edition allows developers, system architects and administrators to take advantage of Appistry’s Cloud application platform for free on up to five GoGrid Cloud Server instances. Appistry EAF functionality and benefits include: Continue Reading at SaaSdir
Amazon S3 and EC2 Performance Report – How fast is S3?
A frequently asked question regarding the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform is how well their storage system (S3) performs with their computing platform (EC2).
As a file sharing solution that runs entirely within the AWS cloud, HostedFTP.com has, based on our internal performance data, created this report to discuss the performance you can expect when storing and retrieving files between an EC2 instance and S3.
We will also be reporting on how the AWS infrastructure performs over time. Each month we will publish updates to the data to give you an insider’s view on how well AWS scales as they continue to add capacity and customers.
A quick summary of the results reveal:
10 to 12 MB/second when storing and receiving files
140 ms per file stored as a fixed overhead cost
To read the full report click here
To subscribe to future reports click here
Report provided by HostedFTP.com
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New! Microsoft’s Office 14 – Online Document Sharing and Editing
Microsoft Office is headed online with its new edition
One of Microsoft’s most dominant products is its Office suite. For over a decade Microsoft has enjoyed a virtual monopoly on office processing software. Yet today, it finds itself facing surprising new competition from new competitors, some of whom are offering free software like Google’s free online Office Suite. Google predicted that online clients were the future of office software, not Microsoft’s traditional desktop installations.
Apparently, Microsoft agrees; Chris Capossela, senior VP of the company’s information worker group, the group in charge of developing Office 2007’s successor, Office 14, reveals in a new interview that Microsoft Office is headed online in a big way. While Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote will still be available in desktop client form, the key to the new Office suite will be Office Web Applications, lightweight web client version of each of these projects.
Users will be able to go online to edit and view their documents, as well as collaborating with others on common documents. Microsoft claims that it will maintain an edge over Google by offering no loss of fidelity between its offline and online offerings. States Mr. Capossela, “Unlike Google and Zoho, we won’t crush stuff the Word user created in the first place.”
Microsoft is offering up its APIs, called the REST APIs, to web developers, so that Microsoft Word and Excel may soon be incorporated into web pages. Mr. Capossela comments, “We have a big focus on developers. Part of that focus is around new APIs, part of that is around interoperability documentation, so people can make their solutions work with Office more easily than they did in the past.”
The ‘Pre’ Smart Phone- Will it be the end of Palm?
The Pre will be Palm’s downfall
Palm said yesterday that sales will be well below expectations because customers are waiting for the company’s fabled Pre to launch.
The wait may be the company’s downfall.
I recall the electricity in the air as Palm revealed its Pre smartphone at International CES 2009. You could hear the camera shutters clacking and people just couldn’t help but murmur while offering hearty applause. Techies have fond memories of Palm. People want them to succeed. So it was no surprise that there was such an outpouring of excitement, and kudos to Palm for the deft decision to stage the company comeback and debut a smartphone at a trade show known for everything but mobile consumer electronics.
It was a wasted opportunity. Read Full Story at ZDNet.com
Desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) – What is it? Read more…
Here is a very good illustration that I’ve come across that will help those understanding the difference between: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and DaaS.
Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) are all the required components for desktop-as-a-service (DaaS).
Techsmith jing – Free ScreenCasting with Techsmith’s Jing (Windows or Mac)
Jing – Art of the Quick Screen Capture
Techsmith, the makers of Camtasia, have created a fascinating tool: Jing.
The fact that Jing exists fascinates me almost as much as the product itself.
Jing is a desktop app for Windows or Mac that lets you capture, manage and share images (.png) or five-minute videos (.swf). Image management includes some very useful mod tools for adding annotations and such. Once you got your image or video captured, you can upload it to your own ftp server or Jing’s and in your clipboard you’ll find either embed code or just the URL to the file. This all works very well.
Click on the image directly below to see a great video explaining the Jing project, how it got started and how it helps you tell a story in video quickly and easily using your Mac or PC.
Read Full Article Here
Finally! Fileshare Full DVD’s through the Cloud – Up to 5 GB files
HostedFTP Announcement!
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NPPA Announces Deal With HostedFTP.com
NPPA Announces Deal With HostedFTP.com
DURHAM, NC (March 3, 2009) – The National Press Photographers association is pleased to announce a partnership with HostedFTP.com to provide NPPA members with access to HostedFTP.com’s file sharing solution through NPPA’s discounted special offers.
Built to replace FTP servers and remove the need to burn and courier DVDs, HostedFTP.com is a file sharing solution that is secure, reliable, and easy to use. Hosted entirely within the cloud computing infrastructure that Amazon.com uses, HostedFTP.com says that they offer unparalleled security for your files.
“The move to digital photography has created both opportunities and challenges for photographers,” says Ken Davies, director of business development for HostedFTP.com. “While there is now the possibility to present clients with greater choice and selection due to the reduced cost of shooting digital, photographers must grapple with how to deliver and manage ever increasing numbers of large files. This is where HostedFTP.com comes in.”
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“HostedFTP.com provides free, no risk trial accounts so users can see for themselves why it is the right file sharing solution for your business,” Davies says. “Please visit our Web site for further details.
Top 100 Most Popular Technology Blogs Online
Top 100 Most Popular Technology Blogs Online For The Month Of March 2009
Source is: Wikio
Google Voice – Opening up GrandCentral
Google Voice
Google today finally announced its plans for GrandCentral, the telephony service it acquired in July 2007. GrandCentral will be reborn as Google Voice, a comprehensive suite of telephony services, including all of GrandCentral’s features. In addition, Google Voice will also include an automated voicemail transcription service, the ability to send and receive text messages, and integration with your Gmail contacts. Users can now also call any number in the the U.S. for free.
Opening up GrandCentral
After acquiring GrandCentral, Google continued to operate the old service, but didn’t allow new users to sign up. Now, Google has announced that it will first port existing users over to Google Voice in the next couple of days, and will then open up Google Voice to new users.
Interface
The new interface will look a lot like Gmail, with your inbox, SMS messages, access to voicemail and other features in a sidebar on the left.
Making Calls
You can make calls directly from the Google Voice web interface. After you initiate the call, the service will actually first call your mobile phone or landline, and after that your call will be placed over Google’s network.
Read Full Story at: ReadWriteWeb
Google’s Behavior-Based Ads a New Privacy Concern?
Are Google’s Behavior-Based Ads a New Privacy Concern?
( Page 1 of 2 )
Google’s new interest-based advertising may lead to increased revenues for the search company, but privacy advocates have a list of new concerns for Google. Yahoo and other search-engine companies already use a variant of this sort of advertising, called “behavioral targeting,” in order to increase their advertisers’ chances of success. However, now that Google has entered the mix, privacy advocates fear they have more to worry about.Google has raised privacy concerns with its newly launched interest-based advertising, which displays ads based on users’ previous searches and page views. Also known as “behavioral targeting” or “online behavioral targeting,” the method has privacy advocates up in arms over Google collecting massive amounts of user data.
While search engines use this type of technology, the fact that Google is now testing it has raised additional privacy concerns from those that see the search engine giant as already collecting too much personal information on its users. However, some others are defending Google, saying the company already has controls in place to control how personal data is used and collected.
The new Google advertising system, currently in beta, links “categories of interest” to the user’s browser, allowing targeted ads to appear even when the user is looking at a page totally unrelated to the ad’s subject matter. For example, someone who has spent months looking at pages about mini-notebooks will find ads for mini-notebooks appearing even when they’re on a site unrelated to PCs.
Google’s search rival Yahoo has already introduced its own application based on behavioral targeting, called Search Retargeting, which focuses display advertising based on users’ search histories. Search Retargeting, announced on Feb. 24, was anticipated by analysts as having the potential to draw massive privacy protests, but pushback from privacy advocates so far seems minimal.
iphone 3.0 – OS 3.0 to Be Revealed March 17
iphone 3.0
iPhone OS 3.0 is going to be revealed on March 17 in an Apple event. I wonder if the new OS will be ready for the rumored 10-inch touchscreen iPhoneish tablet.
St Patrick s day 2009 PhotoSharing – Send photos and images to friends and family
St patrick s day 2009 Photos
Send your photo galleries and images online using our FTP solution. Files can be up to 5GB in size and you may send whole photo galleries to friends, family and clients.
Internet explorer 8 – Microsoft Announces Availability of Internet Explorer 8
Internet explorer 8
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AIAP is pleased to announce a partnership with HostedFTP.com
Dear AIAP Members,
The AIAP is pleased to announce a partnership with HostedFTP.com to provide you with access to HostedFTP.com’s file sharing solutions at a 20% discount. HostedFTP.com offers photographers a cloud file sharing solution that is secure, reliable and easy to use. HostedFTP is now offering AIAP members a 20% discount on all fees for their service for as long as you have an account. Hosted entirely within the cloud computing infrastructure that Amazon.com uses, HostedFTP.com offers unparalleled security for your image files.
“The move to digital photography has created both opportunities and challenges for photographers. While there is now the possibility to present clients with greater choice and selection due to the reduced cost of shooting digital, photographers must grapple with how to deliver and manage ever increasing numbers of large files. This is where HostedFTP.com comes in,” says Ken Davies, Director of Business Development for HostedFTP.com.
HostedFTP.com provides FREE, no risk trial accounts so you can see for yourself if their service is the right file sharing solution for your business. Please visit the HostedFTP website for further details on their service: http://www.hostedftp.com
Alan Blakely,
Director The Association of Independent Architectural Photographers
www.aiap.net
eyeOS – Cloud Computing Operating System – Web Desktop – Web OS …
Here is a Cloud Based Operating system that I’ve come across.
What is eyeOS?
eyeOS is the Cloud Computing Operating System. Work online -personally or collaboratively- with your files, office, calendar, contacts and much more. Your data is safe and always available –eyeOS is Free Software!
Why is eyeOS Free Software?
The idea of eyeOS is to create a free, open source (AGPLv3) product easy to install on a web server so you will have your own cloud system under your control. You can also participate in a great community of users and developers, able to create your own apps. Welcome to the eyeOS project.
And what if I just want to use eyeOS now?
If you do not want to install eyeOS in your own server, you can create an account in our free public server and start using eyeOS right now. Just go to eyeos.info and discover the power of eyeOS.
Visit eyeOS site.
SAS is planning to spend US $70 million
SAS preps cloud computing facility
SAS is planning to spend US$70 million on a cloud computing facility at its Cary, N.C. headquarters as it expands its on-demand offerings. SAS seems to be making a big bet on business intelligence software in the cloud, a concept that isn’t expected to get a lot of traction.
SAS is the largest independent business intelligence software company and remains privately held. It also flies under the radar a bit relative to its formerly publicly traded rivals, which have been gobbled up by the likes of IBM, SAP and Oracle.
In a statement, SAS chief Jim Goodnight detailed the companys plans for a 38,000-square foot cloud computing facility.
The details:
- The facility will have two 10,000 square foot server farms with the first one completed in mid-2010. The second will be built when the first reaches 80 percent capacity.
- The facility will be built under Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards for water and energy conservation.
But what’s really interesting is that SAS sees a hosted business intelligence market developing.
Analysis of the cloud computing market – downloadable chart
A very handy analysis chart I’ve come across..
Analysis of the cloud computing market in an easy-to-use, downloadable format.
OnLive – New Cloud Computing Gaming Service
OnLive to start Cloud Gaming Service
Onlive game distribution network announced a Cloud Computing Gaming service , which will enable users to play games without the need of gaming hardware or consoles. The games can be played on Windows and Macintosh Computers or High Definition Televisions. This new venture will revolutionize the gaming world by removing the need of buying new generation consoles or updating PCs continuously in order to play new gaming titles.
The new technology uses Cloud Computing to render and compute audio and video on Super powered Cloud Servers and streaming the data to the user over a broadband connection, while maintaining real-time gaming experience.
The Cloud Servers will be able to run games available on any console or PC and will be able to deliver high performance and high graphics quality, all while needing no extra hardware other than a TV or a simple computer.
Cloud Computing Job growth – 27,500% job growth since Oct 06
Massive “Cloud Computing” Job growth – 27,500% since Oct 06
I’ve come across some very interesting set of trends in the area of “Cloud computing, PaaS, SaaS and Visualization.” As you can see below from the charts there has been some incredible momentum in these areas.
These charts have been provided by indeed.com
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Visit: HostedFTP for Information on our SaaS Opportunity
Open Cloud Manifesto – Cloud Computing
This past Friday, I posted a Manifesto on “the” Manifesto (those of you who know me and read my posts or follow me on Twitter know which manifesto I’m talking about; if you don’t, you can read it here).
Yesterday the Open Cloud Manifesto was *officially* made public. We think it represents a great opportunity for the industry and we’re proud to support it.
The making of the manifesto (a made-for-DVD extra if there ever was one) generated a lot of discussion. Good. As an industry we should be talking. Together, we’re at the very heart of where the IT industry is heading. We’re building the foundation for the future of IT (yes, that sounds a bit over the top, but I do believe that the cloud — in its many forms — will drive computing for many years to come).
Yes, we are going to compete…and compete aggressively. But history has shown that customers win when competition is conducted on a level playing field — a field based on openness and industry standards. We’ve seen it with the Internet. We’re seeing it again with cloud computing.
Celebrating S3’s Third Birthday With Special Anniversary Pricing
Celebrating S3’s Third Birthday With Special Anniversary Pricing
Amazon S3 is now three years old and busier than ever. Just a year ago, there were 18 billion objects in S3. As of today there are 52 billion, a near three-fold increase.
To celebrate S3’s third birthday, we have some special pricing for you. From now until the end of June 2009, uploads to S3 will be charged at the promotional price of just $0.030 per Gigabyte (details here).
Amazon S3 and EC2 Performance Report #2- How fast is S3?
A frequently asked question regarding the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform is how well their storage system (S3) performs with their computing platform (EC2).
As a file sharing solution that runs entirely within the AWS cloud, HostedFTP.com has, based on our internal performance data, created this report to discuss the performance you can expect when storing and retrieving files between an EC2 instance and S3.
We will also be reporting on how the AWS infrastructure performs over time. Each month we will publish updates to the data to give you an insider’s view on how well AWS scales as they continue to add capacity and customers.
A quick summary of the results reveal:
10 to 12 MB/second when storing and receiving files
140 ms per file stored as a fixed overhead cost
To read the 1st full report click here
To subscribe to future reports click here
Saas And Cloud Computing for the Public Sector
I’ve come across a good sideshow related to SaaS and Cloud computing.
Future for Cloud Computing Looks Good, Report Says
iSuppli expects that the adoption of cloud computing will continue to grow despite concerns over security and availability. However, the future for cloud storage is less sure as the number of external storage devices proliferates. Research companies such as Forrester and IDC predict a healthy cloud services market by 2012, and vendor SAP recently speculated that sales of cloud computing services could move to a model like that of the airline industry.
Cloud computing will continue to gain acceptance, despite concerns around such issues as security, availability and functionality, according to research company iSuppli.
iSuppli analysts, in a report issued April 3, said as dynamic, user-generated content becomes more commonplace on the Internet, the acceptance of cloud computing will grow along with it.
To iSuppli, cloud computing describes an environment where applications and services can be accessed via the Web from multiple devices—such as PCs, mobile phones and video game consoles—anywhere in the world. More…
New Amazon AWS S3 Performance Report – March 2009 – Cloud Speeds
A frequently asked question regarding the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform is how well their storage system (S3) performs with their computing platform (EC2).
As a file sharing solution that runs entirely within the AWS cloud, HostedFTP.com has, based on our internal performance data, created this report to discuss the performance you can expect when storing and retrieving files between an EC2 instance and S3.
We will also be reporting on how the AWS infrastructure performs over time. Each month we will publish updates to the data to give you an insider’s view on how well AWS scales as they continue to add capacity and customers.
Oracle sun – Oracle Agrees to Acquire Sun Microsystems
The Oracle Corporation, the technology information company, announced Monday that it would acquire a rival, Sun Microsystems, for $9.50 a share, or about $7.4 billion. View…
Cryptographers say cloud computing can be secured
SAN FRANCISCO — The move toward cloud computing may be inevitable, but that doesn’t mean the related security challenges aren’t avoidable.
According to a panel of cryptographers at the 2009 RSA Conference, cloud computing security issues are similar to those that come with any new technology, and in time security researchers will discover ways to better protect sensitive data in the cloud. More…
Announcing Amazon EC2 with IBM Pay by the Hour – News
On Amazon EC2 you can run many of the proven IBM platform technologies with which you’re already familiar, including IBM DB2, IBM Informix, IBM WebSphere sMash, IBM Lotus Web Content Management, and IBM WebSphere Portal Server. By choosing Amazon EC2, you can get started in either of two ways. You can pay by the hour only for what you use, through Amazon EC2 running IBM. Alternatively, you can bring many of your own IBM licenses to run on Amazon EC2. Either way, you can leverage Amazon EC2’s flexible and reliable environment to seamlessly integrate with features like Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) and Elastic IPs in both the US and EU Regions.
Cloud Computing Bootcamp May 18-19 in Prague, Czech Republic
Full-Day Cloud Computing Bootcamp will take place during SYS-CON’s Cloud Computing Conference & Expo Europe, May 18-19, in Prague.
New Partnership – The Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario
We are please to announce our partnership with The Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario.
HostedFTP.com 20% Member Discount
HostedFTP.com offers designers a cloud file transfer solution for both sending and receiving files that is secure, reliable and easy to use. Built to replace FTP servers, which are expensive to maintain and support, HostedFTP.com will save your business money while improving your network security.
HostedFTP.com – Amazon AWS Performance Report April 2009
As an FTP service that runs entirely within the AWS cloud, HostedFTP.com has, based on our internal performance data, created this report to discuss the performance you can expect when storing and retrieving files between an EC2 instance and S3.
We will also be reporting on how the AWS infrastructure performs over time. Each month we will publish updates to the data to give you an insider’s view on how well AWS scales as they continue to add capacity and customers.
HostedFTP – Amazon AWS S3 Performance Report – How fast is the cloud?
HostedFTP – Amazon AWS S3 Performance Report – Here is last months Amazon AWS S3 Performance report.
Since early 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has provided companies of all sizes with an infrastructure web services platform in the cloud. With AWS you can requisition compute power, storage, and other services–gaining access to a suite of elastic IT infrastructure services as your business demands them. With AWS you have the flexibility to choose whichever development platform or programming model makes the most sense for the problems you’re trying to solve. You pay only for what you use, with no up-front expenses or long-term commitments, making AWS the most cost-effective way to deliver your application to your customers and clients. HostedFTP has put together a performance report that will give you the actual speeds of EC2 and S3.
Announcing HostedFTP Partnership with: North American Nature Photography
HostedFTP is please to announce our new partnership with the: North American Nature Photography Association.
All members of: www.nanpa.org will receive a 20% discount of our HostedFTP file transfer services in the cloud.
Visit: nanpa.org
3 debates that will benefit cloud computing
Cloud computing is one of those operations models that has already started to disrupt the way in which everyone consumes software.
It is also starting to have an effect (albeit tiny right now) on the way in which people and organizations consume (or don’t consume) hardware. Cloud computing has become a part of the core information technology “fabric” of many.
Cloud computing does, however, generate more than its fair share of disagreement and debate. Vendors, customers, bloggers, twitterers, and even consumers have spend many thousands of hours, hundreds of thousands of words, and millions of dollars trying to convince the world that their view of cloud computing is “the one.” Meanwhile, thousands of other very smart people are questioning the core assumptions on which cloud computing’s value proposition rests.
The web designers’ guide to cloud hosting – Read the rest
Cloud computing is quietly taking over the world and changing the way we use our computers forever. Whether you’re storing your photo collection on Flickr or logging on to Gmail, everyone’s now using the cloud, even if they don’t realise it. But how does it work and how can we as web designers and developers make it work for us?
Cloud computing runs on virtual servers. Rather than being a single physical box, a virtual server runs as part of a physical box. This type of virtualisation is nothing new and has long been a cost-effective entry-level solution. Virtual machines on the cloud run on clusters of servers. Again, this is nothing new: most medium-to-large server set-ups involve clustering.
Hardware as a service
The big difference with cloud hosting is that it packages all of this up so that it’s ‘Hardware as a Service’ – the clustering, virtualisation and resilience are all a given. The virtual server on the cloud runs across many thousands of servers, in different data centres in different locations: an entire ‘cloud’ of servers.
In terms of server architecture, this looks like an obvious progression. In terms of users, developers and business, the implications are as big as the cloud itself.
The move to cloud hosting requires a shift in mindset similar to that when stepping away from apps stored on your own machine to those managed on the web. In the same way that Google Docs means you no longer have to install Microsoft Word, and Spotify means you can listen to music without downloading it from iTunes, with cloud hosting there’s no longer a need to lease a server: you can use as much or as little as you need.
