Like the advent of the commercial Internet before it, cloud computing is likely to have a similar ‘bust’.  In parts 1 (Service Clouds), 2 (Commodity Clouds), and 3 (Focused Clouds), I covered the types of clouds most likely to survive.  In this post I’ll talk about those who will be...

One of the more overlooked aspects of the cloud computing market is the imminent threat to the Virtual Private Server (VPS) market.  Many look to the stardom success of Web 2.0 startups like Animoto and SmugMug, who clearly derive tremendous value from Amazon Web Services (AWS), as a measure of...

If you’re into cloud and Internet/web operations this past few weeks saw several very important conferences, including Open Source Bridge, Velocity Conference, and Structure ‘09.  I’m not going to review either of these since I wasn’t at Structure and only spent a day at Velocity, but suffice it to say...

(http://whatconsumesme.com/2009/what-im-writing/how-to-be-happy-in-business-venn-diagram/) Happiness in Business If you can’t be ‘best’ or ‘cheapest’, that only leaves being ‘first’ (see Pt. 1: Service Clouds and Pt. 2: Commodity Clouds).  Since Amazon Web Services (AWS) clinched the ‘first’ and ‘best’ titles for the general marketplace, your best bet is to pick a subset of the...

Ever wonder where the other big guys are in the cloud computing space?  If Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are general purpose service clouds set to dominate as ecosystem plays, then what about those big companies that can’t deliver an ecosystem, but have the size to play ball?  (See Pt. 1:...

Some folks think that there is no such thing as a ‘private’ cloud. By definition all clouds are public. Unfortunately, some times the confusion is around whether a cloud exists internally or externally rather than if it’s public or private. Yet, even in the case where this confusion doesn’t exist,...

Please help me make the Cloudscaling blog better.  If you would take a moment of your time to fill out the following survey I would really appreciate it.  It’s extremely short.  Just three questions.  Your input is valued highly. UPDATE:  Had a great response.  Closed the survey.  Here were the...

With cloud computing rapidly accelerating it can be hard to see the road ahead.  I hope to help with this in my own way through this short four part series where I’ll outline how I think this is all going to play out.  It’s clear that the marketplace will continue...

Interview with the ‘suave and intelligent Randy Bias’  at 2009 Interop by John M. Willis, who writes one of the more widely read cloud computing blogs and news sites. Original post is here. I’ve embedded the video below. I think it went pretty well even though I was a bit exhausted. We briefly covered...

This is something I say a lot in person, but wanted to actually say outright somewhere.  My primary defining business characteristic of ‘cloud computing’ is that it’s ‘self-service’.  And by self-service I mean: On-demand Pay-as-you-go Use-only-what-you-need Visibility and transparency Automated No humans necessary (until something breaks) That’s it.  Simple.  Straightforward,...