Jon Brodkin of Network World pulled together a list of 10 Cloud Computing companies that they deemed important enough to watch this year. Brodkin’s list is a solid one, with each company profile containing:
Name
Founded Date
Location
Cloud Offering
Why we’re watching it
CEO
How the company got into cloud computing
Who uses the service
The 10 Cloud Computing Companies that they list (in order of appearance in the article) are:
2008 was an action-packed year for us here at GoGrid and ServePath and we have many accomplishments to be proud of. I thought it would make sense to reflect back on what major things we did over the year as well as a few other notables that happened within the industry. The easiest way for me to do this is through a blog post Chronology (not every post is highlighted):
Many of you have been waiting in anticipation for this moment…well now it is here! This week we have launched Windows Server 2008 in GoGrid. GoGrid continues to trail blaze the way in the Cloud Computing marketplace and leapfrog others in the space. Windows Server 2008 in the Cloud is something that others don’t provide to this extent, at least, not that I have found. We already have a huge unique list of Cloud Hosting features (e.g., free load balancing, free static IPs, public and private VLANs, free support – offering true “Control in the Cloud”) and the addition of Windows Server 2008 as an Operating System is just another check in the box.
Now, starting at just $0.19 per GB RAM hour and with NO up-front commitment nor capital expenditure, you can try and deploy Windows Server 2008 in the GoGrid Cloud. For just cents on the dollar, you can do a variety of things including:
Deploy a full .NET environment
Educate yourself on the latest and greatest technology from Microsoft
Set up a development or QA environment using the Microsoft framework
Just play around with Windows Server 2008
So, why is Windows Server 2008 such an important OS? Here are just a few highlights:
IIS 7.0 – it comes with the latest and greatest version of Internet Information Services (IIS 7.0) which has improved administration via the IIS Manager graphical tool, modular design and installation, and full set of diagnostic and troubleshooting tools.
New Server Manager - this is a new single MMC console that allows admins to view and manage the tools that affect server productivity. Roles and Features can be easily added or removed via the Manager and include several streamlined wizards to help with some common server management tasks. There is also an easy way to remotely manage the server over firewall-friendly ports.
Read Only Domain Controllers (RODC) – provides a replica of the database in Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and is designed to be installed in locations where physical security for the Domain Controller (DC) cannot be guaranteed. It also allows for local authentication for users in remote location and provide local and Active Directory Integrated DNS and Global Catalog (GC) services.
Network Access Protection (NAP) – this new feature prevents non-compliant computers from accessing and compromising an organization’s network and allows for admins to create “health policies” for clients (e.g., firewall-enabled virus software).
Peter Wayner, contributing editor of the InfoWorld Test Center, today posted a side-by-side comparison of 4 Cloud Computing providers: Amazon EC2, Google App Engine, GoGrid and AppNexus, titled “Cloud versus cloud: A guided tour of Amazon, Google, AppNexus, and GoGrid.” What was fairly obvious was that there isn’t a clear “winner” simply because Cloud Computing is so new and standards are still being written. What was clear, is that Wayner believes that GoGrid is “easy to use” and differentiates itself through the offering of both Windows and Linux cloud server images.
Wayner writes:
“GoGrid also has a wider variety of OS images ready to go. There is the usual collection of CentOS/Fedora and common LAMP stacks. If you need Windows, you can have Windows Server 2003 with IIS 6.0, and Microsoft SQL Server is available at extra cost. There are also images with Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, and the Facebook application server. These make it a bit easier to start up. “
Wayner also recorded a video of his analysis of GoGrid. Below he shows how a GoGrid cloud server can be easily and quickly deployed as well as some of the management features within the GoGrid control panel:
Yesterday we officially launched the new GoGrid API and I wanted to pass on a few notable mentions that recently appeared in the blogosphere. This release was a fairly significant event for us as well as for users of Cloud Computing because for the first time, users now have a choice of using either a slick and intuitive web-based interface or an Application Programming Interface (API), depending on their needs.
NetworkWorld
Technology writer, Mark Gibbs, who has been closely following GoGrid’s progress over the past few months writes:
“The GoGrid API is remarkable because of its depth – through a REST-style interface it provides access to everything that the GoGrid platform can do including configuring components, starting and stopping services, and retrieving status information as well as real time usage and billing data. “
He continues by discussing some possible options for hooking the GoGrid API into a Microsoft Visio COM object or C# to use Visio to diagram and control the service architecture. He extends this idea to incorporate the use of Business Objects’ Xcelsius to potentially create comprehensive GoGrid dashboards.
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Peter Wayner, contributing editor of the InfoWorld Test Center, today 
