Want to see a quick list of the top 10 Cloud Computing players in the space? (And yes, GoGrid is obviously one of those otherwise I wouldn’t be mentioning this article.) Yesterday, Jeff Vance published an article titled “Ten Cloud Computing Leaders” on Datamation where he briefly describes his thoughts on the leaders in the Cloud Computing space.

As Vance writes about each Cloud provider, he breaks down his analysis into answering a few key questions:

1. Why they are a leader today
2. Why the could be on top in years to come
3. Who the Key Executives are
4. Who their Customers are

I have always found that doing comparisons of Cloud-related companies to be quite a difficult task since products and services can vary so dramatically. And, obviously, there are other factors and metrics that simply cannot be listed in these types of “summary” articles, things like hosting experience, feature-to-feature comparisons, breadth & depth of product and services offerings, etc. However, if you are looking for an organized snapshot of the current leaders, you might want to give Vance’s article a good read.

Companies listed in this top ten are:

1. Amazon
2. Salesforce.com
3. Google
4. Microsoft
5. CA
6. Rackspace
7. Eucalyptus Systems
8. Terremark
9. GoGrid
10. Rightscale

Jeff’s description and insightful analysis of GoGrid is as follows:

Why they’re a leader today: GoGrid (formerly ServePath) provides a “multi-tier, cloud computing platform that allows you to manage your cloud hosting infrastructure completely on demand through an intuitive, web interface.” The platform integrates storage, load balancing, hourly billing and a number of other features.

GoGrid is directly positioned against Amazon EC2. It differentiates itself through broader support of various Windows and Linux operating systems, lower pricing and a 100% uptime SLA.

I’m not sure how much of a competitive advantage that extra .01% of uptime is, but as you can probably guess, GoGrid cites its customer service quality and reliability as key differentiators.

Why they could be on top in years to come: Like other hosting companies on this list, GoGrid offers a range of other services – collocation, managed hosting, CDN services – to keep the lights on as its cloud computing services ramp up. The company is pursuing a hybrid cloud strategy, which makes perfect sense in the early days of cloud adoption.

Even more promising, GoGrid has focused on interoperability as a competitive differentiator. With others trying to throw walls around their platforms and sneak vendor-lock in through the cloud, GoGrid’s efforts to integrate with a range of operating systems and its acceptance of tools from vendors that, at first glance, could be considered competitors (RightScale, Tap in Systems) means that when GoGrid mentions “interoperability,” it’s not an empty promise.

Key Executive: John Keagy, CEO and co-founder, previously founded and sold several ISPs.

Customers: GoGrid claims nearly 10,000 customers, including Novell, Macy’s and SAP.

For the most part, the description and analysis is accurate, however I would like to quickly expand on some key differentiators:

• Hybrid Hosting – GoGrid offers the ability to mix and match two different types of hosting scenarios within the same product offering. Cloud (virtual) servers accomplish the horizontal and dynamic, on-demand scalability, complete with personal server images (MyGSIs) and partner server images (PGSIs) through the GoGrid Exchange. And Dedicated (physical) servers allow for cloud-like deployments of physical servers that are dedicated to a customer (helping with compliance concerns) and without costly long-term contracts. Within the same network/IP space, physical and virtual servers and appliances (like load balancers, firewalls & storage) can each be deployed and managed within GoGrid, enabling robust n-tiered infrastructure solutions.
• Service Teams – We pride ourselves on our consultative approach to working with our customers in achieving their success. Each and every GoGrid customer receives a dedicated Service Team comprising of individuals within various departments in our organization. This approach allows us to understand our customers better and help them with infrastructure solutions that truly meet their needs.
• Customer Support – We are available 24x7x365 to assist customers with support related questions. Our Sales Team is available 24×5 as well. And, we do not charge for customer support. However, if you have a particularly complex question or solution need, we do also have a Professional Services to take your infrastructure to the next level.
• Web-based Portal – Our web portal has been recognized as one of the easiest to use in the industry and deploying on-demand infrastructure literally takes only a few clicks of the mouse. If you contact our Sales Team, you can instantly get a $100 new user service credit (or if you actually made it all the way through this article, simply use “GGMS” for the same $100 promotional credit upon signup – new users only).
• Partner Exchange – Having a wide variety of partner solutions is paramount to the success of a Cloud provider and in turn to the end users. The GoGrid Exchange is updated frequently with a variety of Partner Server Images (PGSIs) and subsequent solutions.

These are just a few key points that help people differentiate us from the competition. I encourage you to give us a try and let us know what you think.

Today, Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb posted the question, “Do you trust the cloud?” to FriendFeed and wrote about her findings in the article “In Cloud We Trust?” The problem is, I believe the question itself was too vague. But this “finger to the air to test the wind direction” did spark quite a bit of discussion and further made me realize that the public in general doesn’t fully yet understand the full spectrum of Cloud Computing (and this was even within a social media/tech-savvy audience).

As is evident from the 90+ comments that popped up within 18 hours of posting the question, people have a lot to say about the subject. The important thing to consider here is the lack of granularity of the question and the range of responses. To really ask and analyze the question better, one must fine-tune it more to the detailed components of what makes up Cloud Computing, namely: Cloud Applications, Cloud Platforms, Cloud Aggregators, Cloud Extenders and Cloud Infrastructure. My guess is, most people responding to the question don’t truly understand the differences between these layers in the Cloud. Perhaps better, more focused questions would have been:

• “Do you trust Cloud Applications like Flickr, Facebook and Gmail?”
• “Do you trust Google or others with your critical data?”
• “Do you see yourself using the Cloud as your primary or ancillary IT strategy?”

It seemed to me that the common thread within the FriendFeed responses was that of FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. The question itself is phrased with an inherent FUD factor which can quickly skew the resulting answers. However, I do think that this question is important from a consumer standpoint, that of the everyday user of Gmail or Evernote or DropBox, for example. The biggest commonality that I saw from reading through all of the comments was that of “backups.” My read is that people are concerned that their data will be lost in some way, either by a company pulling the plug or a hard-drive crashing or just not being able to physically “touch” it.

From a consumer standpoint, this article is appropriate. As the amount of data that consumers produce in the form of emails or photos for example, continues to grow almost exponentially, they are realizing that storing this un-replaceable data in a single location is risky. Many back up this priceless data on external hard-drives or CDs/DVDs. Some seem to be venturing to the “Cloud” as a secondary redundancy, by using Cloud Storage to solve this.

There is a sliding scale at work here with consumers only starting to adopt the significantly easier side of Cloud Computing, namely Cloud Applications. Consumers have been using Cloud Applications longer than they actual realize: Gmail, Flickr, and Online Banking being some everyday examples. When you think about it, Google has been in the Cloud for some time, even before the term “Cloud Computing” was coined with their various services: Google Docs, Gmail, Picasa, and Google Notebook. Consumers are now venturing into new waters with their use of Cloud Storage and Synchronization solutions like: Microsoft’s Live Mesh, DropBox, and even Amazon’s S3.

The middle of the scale (or of the Cloud Pyramid pictured previously) is that of Cloud Platforms. Here we have a blend of both consumer and corporate adoption. Two examples of these that both consumers and business are aware of are SalesForce and Facebook. Everybody has heard of Facebook, right? They are one of the consumer leaders in the Cloud Application segment. The only way they have become so “successful” is with their Cloud Platform offering. With a little bit of programming knowledge and some information on their “proprietary” platform, developers can quickly create applications that run within the Facebook framework. Similarly, many business users know and use SalesForce (another prime example of a Cloud Application). They, too, have a Cloud Platform service called Force.com. Businesses can integrate their applications and service offerings into the SalesForce.com framework using Force.com.

On the other end of the scale are the complex and robust Cloud Infrastructure solutions offered by GoGrid (as a “cloudcenter“) and Amazon’s Web Services (as “Infrastructure Web Services”). Most consumers have not given this part of the Cloud much thought since it typically doesn’t affect their daily lives unless so directed by their work. However, Enterprise, SMBs and even Startups are seeing the increased value in tapping into ability to harness raw compute power and on-demand “disposable” IT infrastructures.

But to get back to the theme of the ReadWriteWeb article, the spin is still very consumer-oriented with little focus on business. Sarah does bring up some good points:

“For many, the cloud is no more trustworthy, than a hard drive on their own machine.”

“Companies need to show us more stability and security…”

“At the end of the day, just labeling services as “cloud computing” applications isn’t enough to change people’s mindsets about what it means to really move to the cloud.”

I agree whole-heartedly with the third statement above. Just because something is has the “cloud” moniker does not mean that it will be the end-all solution. Those of us within the Cloud Computing industry need to prove the worth of this shift, whether it be from dramatic cost savings to ease-of-use to the on-demand nature of the Cloud.

But I would like to offer some points that came out of my reading and interpretation that can be applied across the board, regardless if you are a Cloud-using or Traditional-IT Consumer or Business:

• Understand what IT solution you are choosing – do research, ask questions of the provider, ask end users, read industry publications & become an “expert”
• Individual experiences vary – Just because something works (or doesn’t work) for someone else, doesn’t mean that it will (or won’t) for you
• “Trust” is extremely subjective – people felt the same way about eCommerce and online banking – that trust level seems to have increased over time through mainstream adoption; the same will happen with Cloud Computing
• Backups are critical – be sure that you employ a multi-tiered and redundant backup strategy that works for you. For example, at GoGrid, we offer the ability to use a Cloud front-end (for web applications) and multiple solutions for data storage (persistent storage on all Cloud web servers, Cloud Storage and Cloud Connect to enable private dedicated connections to traditional managed, hosted hardware). However, with any solution you choose, ensure that you have a strategy that is multi-provider.
• Don’t just “port” to the Cloud – if you are doing your own hosting, chances are that you have over-purchased your IT and much of it is under-utilized. If you decide to move to the Cloud, don’t just mirror your current environment as you will inherit the inefficiencies that you currently have. Look to optimize your resources and program in dynamic scalability.
• Test your new IT Infrastructure Solution – if you can, experiment with any new IT technology before you fully deploy it! Obviously, this is much more expensive and difficult to do if you need to do this on bare-metal servers or other IT hardware. The Cloud, however, lets you really “try before you buy.” (Hint: talk to a GoGrid Sales Rep and they give double the initial free trial credit you get.)

Just a quick note to the media, when you ask a question, know that you may be working in a bubble. I often forget that I’m in a very tech-heavy industry. I frequently “converse” with a very vocal and extremely niche-oriented crowd. Consumers have a right to “fear” what they don’t know or understand and will do so naturally. While I do think that the trust-factor of the Cloud as presented by this article and the leading question is a bit troublesome for me, I also know that the concerns that users have are valid and must be listened to. I commend Sarah for her use of Social Networking to quickly get a pulse. I am also encouraged that the “awareness campaign” will bring more disclosure and transparency to the Cloud industry, but I also want to be sure that there is an accuracy in reporting when media outlets discuss only the pitfalls of a particular technology without carefully presenting all sides of the story.^[1].

1. See a similar themed post from 2008 on an NPR story. [↩]

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:

Wayner writes: “while GoGrid offers many of the same services as Amazon’s EC2, the Web-based control panel is much easier to use than the EC2 command line.” However, to round out the offering, it is important to mention that the GoGrid API is now available for use by all GoGrid users. GoGrid now truly offers full “Control in the Cloud.” The extensibility that the API gives moves GoGrid quickly to the top of the Cloud Computing provider list.

TechCrunchIT, the latest property of TechCrunch, released a story about GoGrid reaching its 1000th paying customer since the service entered public beta in  mid-March. TechCrunchIT “obsessively” profiles products and companies in the Enterprise Technology space, aiming to “promote an understanding of emerging and existing Enterprise technologies.”

TechCrunchIT was able to set up a quick infrastructure on GoGrid, complete with 2 Web Servers, 1 Database Server and Load Balance the entire thing in under 30 minutes from server and load balancer creation to serving web pages from a blog. The server instances only “took a few minutes” to create and were fully configured within another 10-15 minutes.

TechCrunchIT makes a particular point around the ease-of-use of GoGrid’s web interface compared to other Cloud offerings that do not offer anything similar:

“The control panel and feedback interface has a definite advantage.”

There is some discussion around the RAM GB hour, comparisons to EC2 and CPU horsepower. Users with questions around any of these topics should review the following:

• General GoGrid Pricing
• Volume Discount Pricing Plans
• GoGrid versus Amazon’s EC2
• General FAQs (regarding CPU)

Best thing that you can do is to just experience GoGrid first hand through the free $50 trial offer currently available which allows you to fully test GoGrid for a few days for free! (Note: the $50 Free GoGrid Trial is ending shortly – updated 6/15/09!)

Today, InfoWorld’s Tech Writer, Bill Snyder, brought GoGrid solidly into the race with Amazon’s EC2 with his article titled “Red Hat the latest proof that cloud computing is serious business.” Snyder, who has been following technology and the business of technology for 25 years, discusses GoGrid’s “point-and-click infrastructure” and its ease of use in this article.

While Bill mentions that cloud computing may not be ready for large-scale business or the enterprise, he does point out that it is a force to be reckoned with and that the services of GoGrid and Amazon’s EC now “will give a lot of users a chance to take cloud computing for a low-risk, real-world test drive.” I personally predict that the adoption of cloud computing and cloud infrastructure by the enterprise will be a slow uptake at first, most likely rolling out into skunkwork divisions, short-term projects or IT evaluation scenarios, but that within a few years, business not seriously considering “the cloud” will be behind in their technical and competitive advantages.

Snyder highlights a real-world GoGrid success (that I covered here) about how ScribbleLive was able to handle multiple million page view requests in a short amount of time during the Apple World Wide Developer’s Conference. He emphasized the importance of easy and quick scalability coupled with cost-effectiveness provided by GoGrid:

“ScribbleLive, a two-person operation, quickly scaled up using GoGrid, and was able to keep running with little or no loss of throughput. The price: $15 for a day of server time, plus bandwidth charges. Hmm. Maybe the folks at Mozilla, who tried to set a world’s record for downloads of the new Firefox browser but wound up crashing their site, could have done something similar.”

Simplicity is another key factor that Snyder outlines in his review, stating:

“In theory, at least, setting up servers on GoGrid seems almost too easy. Once a client signs up for the service, an IT staffer can point a browser to GoGrid’s site and choose a configuration from a variety of pull down menus. GoGrid supports Windows Server 2003, CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.”

His article also comments on pricing, the GoGrid infrastructure and plans for the future. Definitely give Snyder’s article a read as it successfully boils GoGrid down to a few nicely-crafted paragraphs of analysis.