Today, GoGrid and Appistry announced a new partnership initiative. The full press release is below:

Appistry Extends Cloud Computing Reach

New Partnerships and Pricing Simplify the Delivery of Critical Applications Via Third-Party Clouds

ST. LOUIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Appistry, a provider of cloud application platform software, today announced a new partnership initiative and pricing that makes it easier for enterprises to deliver highly scalable and reliable applications via third-party “public clouds.” The announcement extends the reach of the company’s flagship product, Appistry Enterprise Application Fabric (EAF), which powers cloud-based applications for Global 2000 companies, high-profile government agencies and software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers.

The announcement is part of the company’s strategy to address the complex challenges enterprises face developing, deploying and managing applications in both public and private clouds. Appistry’s cloud application platform simplifies cloud computing and allows enterprises to more easily realize its full promise — elastic scalability, solid reliability and automated management.

Leading analyst firms and industry experts have said better tools are required to help enterprises successfully make the move to the cloud-based architectures popularized by firms such as Yahoo and eBay.

According to Forrester Research vice president and principal analyst Frank Gillett, “Vendors such as Appistry… offer various versions of software tools and architecture to enable firms to build cloud IT architectures without the handcrafting that Web giants resort to.” (December 2007, “There are Three IT Architectures, Not One”)

As part of a new partnership initiative, Appistry is extending the availability of its application platform to a number of leading cloud infrastructure providers. Through the program, these providers will allow customers to:

• Access pre-configured versions of its Appistry EAF Community Edition on Microsoft Windows or Linux;
• Create new Appistry-powered virtual machines on-demand, to scale-out applications with a simple mouse click;
• Purchase full Appistry EAF licenses directly through each partner via direct end-user billing, when and where available.

Initial cloud provider partners include GoGrid and SkyTap.

Using Appistry’s cloud application platform to manage the elastic scalability of the GoGrid Cloud gives our enterprise customers a distinct technology advantage,” said John Keagy, CEO of GoGrid. “Our alliance with Appistry is yet another example of the power of enterprise cloud computing.

“We’re excited to add the Appistry Enterprise Application Fabric (EAF) as a pre-configured virtual machine in our SkyTap Library,” said Scott Roza, chief executive officer of SkyTap. “Our customers are building cutting-edge applications in our cloud-based Virtual Lab environment, and adding Appistry’s cloud application platform provides them with powerful new capabilities to rapidly develop, test and deploy applications designed to be highly scalable and resilient.”

“End-users are demanding a platform which sits above the infrastructure and simplifies the development of cloud-enabled applications,” said Kevin Haar, CEO, Appistry. “By making our platform more widely available through some of the leading cloud providers, we enable customers to build, deploy and manage applications that scale in both public and private cloud environments.”

The company‘s new pricing model moves from a per-CPU, per-year subscription model to core-based subscriptions for public and private clouds. Appistry will make hourly, on-demand pricing available via direct billing as its cloud partners offer support for that capability

Appistry will host the first in a series of webinars on the importance of cloud computing for the enterprise on Tuesday, October 14, at 11:00 PST / 2:00 EST. Attendees can register at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/119183270.

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The press release can also be viewed here.

Cloud Computing has entered mainstream media…but if you ask people what it is, many can’t really tell you. My job as the Technology Evangelist at GoGrid is to try to help people understand it, whether they be technical or not. We have several channels that we have been trying to communicate what cloud computing is, and each method talks to a different audience. However, I sometimes forget that not everybody is technical or loves technology as much as I do and when I start talking to those people, their eyes glaze over.

Here are some of the current ways we, here at GoGrid, are talking about Cloud Computing:

• The GoGrid product site – for general product information
• This GoGrid blog – industry and GoGrid specific topics
• The GoGrid Wiki – for technical documentation
• The GoGrid Forums – where GoGrid users can ask questions or post tips
• NoHardware.com – showing Cloud Computing in a different light

Well, a few months ago, we realized that we needed something even simpler and more understandable, generalized enough for anyone to understand. What Tim (GoGrid UI Designer) and I came up with is below (also hosted on YouTube here):

It truly is hard to boil something this complex down, but someone has to try! Let us know what you think, offer suggestions and give us ideas for the next one. We hope you can share this with others to make the term more understandable and commonplace.

I don’t typically write about vaporware, but in this case, I will make an exception not only to finally get to use the phrase “cloud computing is truly vaporware” but also to seriously introduce this new GoGrid feature. Contrary to the definition of “vaporware,” Cloud Storage on GoGrid will be coming soon, so I wanted highlight many of the items in this upcoming release.

First, a picture is worth a thousand words. Below are a few screenshots of what is our vision of GoGrid’s Cloud Storage. Please note that these screenshots represent current ideas and may not actually represent the first implementation or subsequent updates.

Now for the juicy details:

• Technical
  • You will have to request that GoGrid Cloud Storage be added to your GoGrid account. (Details to come)
  • Can be mounted as a drive (e.g., a “D:” drive, “slash mount” or shared mount) on all servers within a GoGrid Account
  • It is shared across all servers
  • You DO have to configure it in order to have it available on your GoGrid servers by using a Private IP. Instructions will be on the GoGrid Wiki.
  • Initial size is 10 GB for FREE (that’s right, the first 10 GB’s are free)
  • Your Cloud Storage will automatically scale as you add more data to it through “thin provisioning”
  • You cannot partition the Cloud Storage
  • With the first release, the GoGrid API will not be able to control Cloud Storage, however, you will be able to control your Cloud Storage via the GoGrid API in subsequent releases
• Billing
  • Each additional GB of storage is $0.15 per GB per month over your free 10 GB
  • Billing for Cloud Storage is done monthly (not hourly)
  • Billing occurs for peak usage during a month. For example, if you start with 10 GB, scale up to 20 GB at some point during that same month and then scale back down to 10 GB, you are charged for that peak. (In this example, that would be $1.50 for the 10 GB over your free 10 GBs)
  • If you are about to go over your 10 GB free allocation, you will be visually notified within the GoGrid portal (e.g., your meter will turn red). You can then simply click ADD > Cloud Storage to initiate billing per GB over your initial 10 GB.
  • In the left-hand column of the GoGrid portal, a new widget will inform you of your total storage utilization and total cost for any overages
• Security
  • Any data stored within the Cloud Storage will be automatically replicated to a Disaster Recovery (DR) infrastructure. Should a failure of the primary storage occur, a backup to within 24 hours of the incident will become automatically available. It is your responsibility, however, to back up any data added to your Cloud Storage within 24 hours or less by some other means.
  • The Cloud Storage tied to your GoGrid Account will not be accessible to other GoGrid users

Other enhancements planned for this exciting release are:

• “On-Hovers” for all objects within the GoGrid Portal UI
  • Cloud Storage will show a meter for storage space used (prior to going over 10 GB) and Total Storage Utilization (after going over the 10 GB threshold)
  • Web/App/DB Servers will show Public IP addresses, Operating System, and RAM allocation
  • Load Balancers will show the real IP addresses and real IP ports, Virtual IPs (VIPs) and Virtual IP ports as well as the load balancing configuration type and persistence type

When this upgrade is released, GoGrid users will have to request to have have Cloud Storage enabled for use, however, the other features mentioned above will auotmatically appear. Do note that the features mentioned above are subject to change. We hope you enjoy this exciting release! Oh, and this should all be available in November 2008!

Today, GoGrid and RightScale announced a major new strategic product partnership. The full press release is below:

RightScale First to Deliver Integrated Management for Multi-Cloud Environments

Cloud Computing Momentum Builds with RightScale Support for FlexiScale, GoGrid and Rackspace

Interop New York Conference Expo (PRWEB) September 17, 2008 — RightScale, Inc., the leader in cloud computing management, today announced a major new strategic product and partnership initiative as it broadens its cloud management platform to support emerging clouds from new vendors, including FlexiScale and GoGrid, while continuing its long-standing support for Amazon’s EC2. RightScale is also working with Rackspace to assure compatibility with their cloud offerings, including Mosso and CloudFS. RightScale will be the first in the industry to offer an integrated management dashboard, where applications can be deployed once and managed across these and other clouds.

Businesses can take advantage of the nearly infinite scalability of cloud computing by using RightScale to deploy their applications on a supported cloud provider. They gain the capabilities of built-in redundancy, fault tolerance, and geographical distribution of resources – key enterprise demands for cloud providers. With RightScale, customers can leverage the leading cloud management platform to automatically deploy and manage their web applications – scaling up when traffic demands, and scaling back as appropriate – allowing them to focus on their core business objectives. RightScale’s automated system management, pre-packaged and re-usable components, leading service expertise and best practices have been proven as best-of-breed, with customers deploying hundreds of thousands of instances on Amazon’s EC2.

“Cloud computing is a disruptive force in the business world because it provides pay-as-you-go, on-demand, virtually infinite compute and storage resources that can expand or contract as needed,” said Michael Crandell, CEO of RightScale, Inc. “A number of public providers are already adopting cloud architectures – and we also see private enterprise clouds coming on the horizon. Today’s announcement of RightScale’s partnerships with FlexiScale and GoGrid is an exciting indication of how mid-market and enterprise organizations can really take advantage of multi-cloud architectures. There will be huge opportunities for application design and deployment — we are at the beginning of a tidal shift in IT infrastructure.”

FlexiScale is the only UK-based cloud computing provider and offers a unique infrastructure on demand with 99.99% SLA and many special features. For example, each customer gets their own virtual disk so that data is segregated and they can do their own low level encryption, while virtual network traffic is also segregated to deliver added security. FlexiScale uniquely offers permanent on demand storage and was the first cloud provider to support Windows. With a strong reputation for customer service, it also enables the creation of custom packages such as golden images.

Tony Lucas, CEO of XCalibre and creator of FlexiScale commented: “Without this new ability to move swiftly and easily between platforms, customers could feel locked in and much more hesitant to try and use cloud computing. RightScale’s partnership initiative is a great example of how having near interoperability between systems will enable customers to be less hesitant of moving to a new technology, which is great for everyone. It means the industry can and will grow quicker than if it was only a handful of individual companies providing distinct services that weren’t compatible with each other.”

GoGrid offers hosted cloud computing infrastructure that enables system administrators, developers and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control load balanced cloud servers and complex hosted virtual server networks. GoGrid also delivers portal controlled servers for Windows 2003 and 2008, multiple Linux operating systems and supports application environments like Ruby on Rails. GoGrid is unique in cloud computing with the availability of 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Server 2008; and was named winner of LinuxWorld 2008 “Best of Show” in August. Together, GoGrid and RightScale will provide joint cloud solutions that are elegant and bring power, control and scalability to business customers.

Cloud computing for the enterprise has arrived with the GoGrid and RightScale partnership. Corporations now have few excuses not to, and multiple reasons to deploy and manage complex and redundant cloud infrastructures in real-time using the GoGrid, RightScale, and FlexiScale technologies.
- GoGrid CEO, John Keagy

Rackspace Hosting provides IT systems and computing-as-a-service to more than 33,000 customers worldwide. Combining RightScale’s technologies with Rackspace’s focus on Fanatical Support™will allow companies to focus on their business and not a disproportionate amount of resources on IT demands.

Deploying scalable, reliable applications from scratch in a multi-cloud world is a time consuming and expensive task. As a result, most organizations do not have the expertise or resources to deploy and manage cloud computing applications cost effectively and according to best practices. With RightScale’s platform, any organization can easily tap the enormous power of cloud computing for a virtually infinite, affordable, “pay-as-you-go” IT infrastructure. RightScale’s offerings provide rapid deployment, a dynamically scalable infrastructure to meet varying traffic and loads, and require minimal resources using automated tools and a centralized web dashboard for easy management backed by best practices and professional services.

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The full press release can be viewed here.

John Willis just produced an Interesting podcast with Michael Crandell (CEO of RightScale). In this podcast, John interviews Michael about RightScale’s recent announcement of the GoGrid/RightScale partnership as well as other partnerships and ideas.

More info on the GoGrid/RightScale partnership can be seen here.

If I could sum up the podcast, it would be how RightScale (with a partnership with GoGrid and others) are delivering the “on-ramp” to allow companies to migrate to the Cloud and provide portability to the cloud by providing a multi-hosted cloud infrastructure.

The podcast can be heard here. Highlights, according to John are:

• Services is key to the clouds
• No Windows support at this time (ed. note: Windows Server 2003/2008 in the Cloud is currently available on GoGrid)
• Infrastructure cloud partners
• Clarification on Rackspace/Mosso
• RightScale and Eucalyptus Wasup?
• Changes to the RightScale Business Model

This is yet another clear example of how all Cloud Providers and Enablers are working towards a common good and breaking down potential barriers to entry, especially for the Enterprise. As the Cloud continues to crystallize, individual providers and aggregators will become more prevalent and the on-ramp to enablement even more accessible.