GoGrid Blog

“Don’t Panic!” These are two words (made popular by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) that every day become more appropriate and valid. Credit has dried up as has funding by Venture Capitalists, Angel Funders and the like. If you are a bootstrapped company, a startup or a company in “stealth mode,” right now you might be wishing that you had taken a more stable job at a large corporation (hopefully not in the Financial sector) or that you had planned better for another bubble to burst. Well fear not…there is always a way to survive, through careful planning and management.

I would like to offer the following “Guide” of my own to those small companies or startups that are struggling now, on the verge of closing shop or just ready to give up. First, let me restate Adams’ words: “Don’t Panic!” There are methods to keep your company and vision moving forward, maybe in a different direction or perhaps a bit more slowly.

Here are a few things that you may want to consider as you re-architect your survival strategy:

1. Start Now – don’t take a “wait and see” attitude. If you have a great idea, keep moving forward, but DO start your cash conservation immediately. The mere fact that you are searching for information and reading this post is a great sign that you are being active!
2. Outsource – sure, doing things in-house can save you some cash, but only part of the time. Truly evaluate what makes sense (cents) in your day-to-day operations. If it takes your developer a week to do something and an outside “specialist” a day or two, evaluate the costs of both actions. If you aren’t paying your employees and they are doing work in their free time, try to factor in the time-to-market of that approach. While you may save money in up-front costs, you may lose it in terms of beating your competitors to market. Here are a couple factors within “outsourcing” to consider:
   • Human Capital – frequently small boutiques who are experts in a particular field can do things faster and better than you can in-house. They, too, might be effected by the economic downturn and may be willing to cut some of their costs just to have your business.
   • Operations – this can be both on the technical or just the basic company operations side. If you are providing healthcare benefits, see if you can change your plans or even ask your employees if they have other means to get healthcare (e.g., through a spouse).
3. Avoid Capital Expenditures (CapEx) – hardware costs money, lots of it. Of course this all depends on what stage your company is at. If you are just starting, you may be able to get away with repurposing old computers and sharing bandwidth, but as you grow and get closer to having to “prove your value proposition” to investors or even end-users, you do need some sort of infrastructure. Consider using Cloud Computing (e.g., GoGrid) to host your infrastructure, whether it be a development environment or eventually your production infrastructure. By using “the Cloud” you have zero CapEx, no monthly/yearly contracts and are billed by your usage. This is a great way to control your costs and scale only on-demand. You can easily control your capacity, and avoid having your infrastructure sitting around unused or idle.
4. Simplify/Set Realistic Goals – The more complex you make things, the harder they are to undo. Figure out what you really want to do with your business. Is it a hobby or your life work? Do you want to be the next Google? If so, you probably want to rethink that. While it is good to have lofty goals, keep them closer to earth. Did you hire someone who sold you on reaching something unattainable? You may want to reconsider that, hard as it may be, and let those people go. Re-architect your strategies. Clearly identify the most fundamental and basic goals you want to achieve. Sometimes through simplification, you can find a niche that others haven’t. That makes you more viable and attractive. If you are doing something that everyone else is gunning for, and you are struggling, it probably isn’t worth it. You don’t need to throw it all away, but you might want to evaluate what you want to do and choose 1-2 things that are (somewhat) unique. Remember K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple, Stupid).
5. Remain Flexible – the worst thing that you can do in these trying times is not move or be rigid. Being a startup or small company has definite advantages. You have the ability to move much more quickly than larger companies. Look to be flexibility in many areas: strategic direction, product or service feature set, tools and infrastructures and even work ethic. Keep your employees happy by finding out what works best for them. I’m reminded of a story I heard about a hair dresser who was looking for a change. After some soul searching and help from some personality profiles, they became a landscape architect: similar ideas of grooming but in a completely different field (literally). So stay flexible in your own thinking as well.
6. Network & Socialize – as you start to panic, the worst thing you can do is do it alone. Trust me, there are many people and business who are sharing your same concerns. Some may be further down the process of recovery or re-architecting and may be willing to share with you their experiences and what to or not to do. There are so many ways to connect with people nowadays. There is the obvious Social Media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, etc.) and I’m a big proponent of these methods. However, in this case, you may really need to just “get out” and talk to people face-to-face. If you live near a big metropolitan area, there is most likely some sort of meetup (check MeetUp.com for example – their video really is great!) or event that meets your needs. Go to them. Start talking to people. (If you are in San Francisco, check out an event I host called StartUpSF.) You may be surprised as to how many great ideas you may get and even how many people really want to help. New strategic partnerships are frequently started at events like this. It’s important to listen to new ideas and see how they apply to your own. Some of the things you hear may influence how you attack other points on this list. Remember too that you can socialize your Public Relations very easily now. Read some experts’ tips and you may save costs and time there too.
7. Conserve Expenses – this is obvious enough. Watch your energy expenditure especially. I mentioned the Cloud before; by outsourcing your IT infrastructure, you can save tremendous costs, especially if you are doing it yourself through your own server rack in your closet. Don’t travel if you don’t need to. With large bandwidth pipes, it’s easy to have video conferencing with almost the same result as a face-to-face. Save the face-to-face for closing the deal. Oh, and pack your own lunch.
8. Don’t Ignore the Rest of the World – the US economy may be seeing some hard times, but there are other markets out there that may want to spend their money with you. Invest some time in reviewing these other markets. Their currency may be a lot stronger than the US dollar, so they may be more willing to pay for your product or service, or even invest in your business. Don’t ignore the fact that with advances in technologies, the world is a much smaller place than we actually realize.
9. Cash Flow Management - this is true on both billables and receivables. If you have existing vendor contracts and they are part of your lifeblood, see if you can renegotiate them. As I mentioned before, you are not alone in this economic crunch and many vendors (and even lenders) would rather renegotiate than lose your business. If your own business model is not getting the traction that you desired, you might want to try to tweak it a bit. Consider offering pre-payment discounts (e.g., have people commit for a longer amount of time but discount it against a monthly or smaller cycle rate). ServePath does this type of thing with managed hosting, by offering “server specials” at a lower cost. Old inventory may be sitting around so leverage it through discounts as well.
10. Keep your Day Job – I had to end with some humor. If your startup is your life-long passion, it is your day job so take these tips to heart. If it isn’t, remember you have to pay your bills somehow.

Do you have any other ideas, tips or suggestions? If so, I would love to hear them. And remember, “Don’t Panic!”

Today (Wednesday) there were a flurry of announcements about Microsoft Windows suddenly being available in the Cloud, first by Amazon Web Services and then by 3tera. (Oh, and now since the writing of the first draft of this post, Steve Ballmer just revealed the “Windows Cloud.”) It made me scratch my head a bit. If you are a regular reader of this blog or are familiar with GoGrid in general, you would know by now that GoGrid has been offering Windows Server 2003 (and more recently Windows Server 2008) in the Cloud since the public launch at the beginning of 2008. So why is this suddenly “breaking news” in the industry? Probably because the Goliath in the Cloud industry, Amazon, has thrown its weight behind this.

Being the “David” though has its definite advantages. Having the ability to introduce new and different Operating Systems and features quickly (weeks as opposed to quarters or years) is a clear plus. And being able to offer a “complete” package is another. One thing that Amazon EC2 users are used to is using a command line to control their EC2 server instances. Many of those users are Linux programmers and developers - those who are well versed “in the command line.” Windows users are a very different breed. For them, the GUI is very important. Users want to see icons, click on them, use menus, etc. to “make things happen.”

When we started developing GoGrid over 3 years ago, the user experience was a huge factor in determining the feature set. We settled on using Google’s Web Toolkit (GWT) because it provided the structure to create a rich experience without compromising performance. We won awards (Linux World 2008’s Best of Show) for our implementation. The rich web portal won the hearts of many for its ease of use and the eye candy.

GoGrid users wanted to also control their infrastructure programmatically as well. We responded with a public API for full “control in the cloud.” The GoGrid API is a huge untapped resource for any developer. Add the rich experience of a graphical web interface with the programmatic power of an API; GoGrid provides the full control spectrum for all types of users. 

So, before you run off spawning a bunch of EC2 Windows servers (oh wait, you can’t yet), remember that GoGrid has already almost a year of proven experience providing Windows Server 2003/2008 to end users… we are also a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.

Regardless, it is important for Cloud Users to have a choice. Making the proper one is the challenge however, which means that (as I have mentioned before) one has to look beyond the Cloud itself and also at the ancillary services (SLA, Support, Industry knowledge, etc.) when making the choice.

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
  • 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 100 GB for FREE (that’s right, the first 100 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 100 GB
  • Billing for Cloud Storage is done monthly (not hourly)
  • Billing occurs for peak usage during a month. For example, if you start with 100 GB, scale up to 110 GB at some point during that same month and then scale back down to 100 GB, you are charged for that peak. (In this example, that would be $1.50 for the 10 GB over your free 100 GBs)
  • If you are about to go over your 100 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 100 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 100 GB) and Total Storage Utilization (after going over the 100 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, current GoGrid users will automatically and instantly have Cloud Storage available for use as well as the other features mentioned above. 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.

Perhaps that subject was not strong enough. The Financial Sector is currently weathering a hurricane, recently suffering the largest drop since 9/11. Merrill Lynch fell into the hands of Bank of America. Lehman Brothers is in bankruptcy and looking for a buyer with Barclays buying some of their assets. The Airline industry is failing. AIG and other financial companies are looking for some sort of an economic bailout. HP is eliminating 24,600 jobs. And this was all over just a few days. If one extends the look a bit further, the perspective is just a grim: gas prices going up, the dollar losing value and housing going down. One simply cannot be surprised by any of this.

The Tech Sector is getting hammered as well, but this time, it isn’t “our fault.” The Dot Com bust managed to drag down the other sectors last time, but we learned our lesson. Long gone are unproven businesses and their associated models. Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors are taking long looks at business, not just getting in the car for a drive but doing a full check under the hood, looking at the road both ahead and behind and fully vetting the drivers and passengers. To get money as a start-up is truly an accomplishment nowadays. You have to have a proven business model, installed user base, and a clear direction of where your company and your industry will go.

I recently attended TechCrunch 50 which showcases 50 startups and allows them to present their business or service to a panel of experts. I saw about 1/2 of the companies’ presentations and I noticed that the companies where they couldn’t articulate or prove their monetization strategy, these companies got an earful of criticism from the experts. Similarly, at a meetup in San Francisco, the question asked every presenter is “How are you making or going to make money?” It’s a very simple question, but one that must be answered or the company loses credibility.

Perhaps we should apply these same simple questions to the Financial, Housing and Airline Industries? I guess the markets are already doing that.

It will take a long time before all of these markets start to recover, and corporations and businesses are currently challenged to prevent the hemorrhage of money and capital expenditures within their IT infrastructure. I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal called “Cutting Tech’s Energy Bill” by William M. Bulkeley that discusses how large companies are looking at ways to cut electricity usage within the Enterprise. With energy costs directly and indirectly rising, it’s critical for the embattled IT manager or director to make fiscally sound and environmentally responsible decisions to keep their business moving forward will simultaneously ensuring that their technology progresses.

Bulkeley gives several examples:

• IBM has launched a “Green Data-Center Services” business line to help customer redesign their datacenters
• HP purchased a company that specializes in designing datacenters with a focus on energy-efficiency
• EMC has worked to eliminate unneeded equipment and use their cooling infrastructure more efficiently
• Hartford Financial Services Group has shut down 6 of 7 datacenters and host within a “green” IBM facility
• IBM and HP has introduced water-cooled servers and others are hard-selling blade computers that use significantly less power than traditional servers

Outsourcing one’s infrastructure is a core way to tighten your belt of your IT Budget. If you can allow for a managed hosting provider to run your IT infrastructure, you save on capital expenditures as well as human capital running it. Colocation and dedicated hosting were all the rage a few years ago and, while it may be losing its sex appeal nowadays, there are still plenty of IT traditionalists who demand it.

Towards the end of the WSJ article, Bulkeley starts to discuss virtualization as a Green technology that can help cut costs. This is where I pick up the thread and run with it. Virtualization is a key component to helping Corporations reduce their IT expenditures significantly. The ability to consolidate multiple low-end servers onto one or handful of higher-end servers is an obvious and logical cost and energy-savings option. The heavier adoption of virtualization technologies such as Xen or VMware or even Hyper-V is giving corporations or even those self-same outsourced data center and dedicated hosting providers a way to stretch their money and efficiencies even further. To over simplify, reduce the number of servers through virtualization and your datacenter space demands go down, your dependency on IT staff to manage those locations reduces and your CapEx shrinks, giving you efficiencies immediately.

This is where the Technology Sector is starting to get “Cloudy.” I’ve used this metric before to illustrate my point, simply look at the Google (Insights for Search) chart comparing “cloud computing” against “dedicated hosting” keyword searches:

Dedicated hosting will not go away. It’s a viable outsourced technology option that companies depend on. It makes fare more sense (cents?) than doing it yourself within your corporation. There are only a niche of companies that can afford to make the technology and capital investment to support large-scale IT infrastructures, and even those (as exemplified in the WSJ article) are looking to re-architect their infrastructure.

Could “Cloud Computing” be the silver bullet to help corporations survive the financial hurricane? I think so. But there are challenges ahead for both the providers of the Clouds (and even traditional dedicated hosting providers) as well as corporations.

• For Cloud Providers, education of the “Cloud” concept and overcoming the “this technology is only for early adopters” status will be critical. However this can be achieved through collaboration with other Cloud Providers and Enablers as well as standardization of protocols and APIs, for starters.
• For the Enterprise to view the Cloud as a viable alternative to traditional or even self-hosted infrastructures and datacenters, the challenge is larger. While Cloud Computing may be obvious to many  in terms of “green-ness” and cost savings through zero CapEx, IT managers of the Enterprise tend to not quickly jump on board with the latest technology. Some might say they are a bit gun-shy and would rather someone else test the waters and learn from their mistakes. This wait-and-see attitude will be the end of many. Given the current financial weather and outlook, the Enterprise should be looking at the non-traditional and emerging technologies just as hard as within traditional practices.

While I may be sticking my head in the sand by saying that this financial storm will pass soon, I also  have my head in the “clouds” by stating that dedicated/outsourced hosting and Cloud Computing are viable alternatives to “doing it yourself” that all businesses should seriously consider and get on their short term strategic plans. To jump back into the car metaphor, it’s time to dump the old 1970’s gas-guzzler and get the 2008 Hybrid!

The High Scalability blog today posted a great list of various Cloud Computing blogs currently available. If you are looking for a single source of Cloud Computing information, I definitely recommend looking at Todd Huff’s solid list.

The post is located here.

His post is broken down into specific Categories: Meta Sources and Specific Blogs. I’m sure that these will grow over time. Currently there are 5 Meta Source listings (obvious ones there include the Google Groups on Cloud Computing) and a good group of Specific blogs. Some of the Specific Blog highlights that I think are important ones to look at are:

• Randy Bias’s Neo Tactics: State of the Art for Startups.
• Nicholas Carr’s Roughtype : Author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World From Edison to Google.
• John Willis’ IT Management and Cloud Blog: Personal comments and podcasts.
• Reuven Cohen’s ElasticVapor Blog. The ramblings of Reuven Cohen, co-Founder & CTO Enomaly Inc.
• http://Blog.RightScale.com: Cloud Computing. Delivered.

The GoGrid blog was included in the list (Thanks Todd).

I would like to add a few more that I personally read that others may find as useful resources:

• Nati Shalom’s Blog: Discussions about middleware and distributed technologies
• ZDNet.com Virtually Speaking: about virtualization with Dan Kusnetzky & Paula Rooney
• Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds: Real-time market analysis & research on Cloud Computing
• Appistry Blogs: At the convergence of Grid Computing, Virtualization and SOA

Feel free to post some comments with any other good Cloud Computing blogs out there. For those that want to cheat, you can always do a quick “Cloud Computing” blog search on Google or Technorati.

Laura Sydell, of NPR’s All Things Considered, yesterday covered Cloud Computing in her piece “Computing in The Clouds: Who Owns Your Files?“. It’s good to see NPR making an attempt to cover critical technologies. I have found, however, than much of the time, NPR does stories that are more science related (e.g., thermo-power, developments in genetics, etc.) and less so on technology that affect computing. I guess, for one, they have a much different demographic than the one I am used to. But of course, working in San Francisco, we exist in a technology bubble. Travel slightly outside of that bubble and people don’t know what the “cutting edge” of technology is (with some geographic exceptions, of course).

So, when NPR starts to mention “the Cloud,” I get intrigued. They briefly covered it in this interesting piece on cloud computing as a “pay-as-you-go” enterprise. I understand that it will take time for others to hear about Cloud technology and even longer to understand and adopt it. But the interesting thing is, many people have been using it for some time, albeit named differently. For several years, the term “ASP” (Application Service Provider) was kicked around and equated to providing an application over the Internet. This recently evolved into Software as a Service (SaaS) which has strong adoption within the tech arena with providers of SaaS products growing daily. Now, the Cloud rolls in and we see companies working to position themselves within it.

Sydell’s story focuses on data ownership and User Agreements as they relate to Cloud Applications. What is a Cloud Application? Well, if you have read through some of my previous posts, I introduced my concept of the “Cloud Pyramid” which segments different Cloud offerings into various categories: Applications, Platforms and Infrastructure. Recently, I expanded that image to include Cloud Aggregators and Cloud Extenders (details here).

But getting back to the NPR piece, I think what is important here is that they are showing their readers/listeners that they are already using the Cloud in one form or another, through Gmail or Flickr for example. What is unfortunate is that they stop there and almost introduce a paranoia into the mix. However, the points that are made are good ones to think about, that of data ownership, security and SLAs (Service Level Agreements).

I would like to step through a few points that Sydell makes as well as some made by Harry Lewis (who contributed to the article). Specifically:

• “…Cloud Computing is very convenient. But it’s also creating a whole new set of worries.”
  My response: “Convenience” only starts to address the advantages of the Cloud. First, let’s step back and look at what the article is about, namely looking at User Agreements and understanding data ownership. Gmail is a free Cloud Application service. Flickr is free with paid upgrades available. When was the last time you could get something for “free” that lets you do so much? Trust me, if you pay for an email server or manage one yourself, you have PLENTY of worries, from security to redundancy to availability. I’m hard pressed to see why using the Cloud would present more worries. I will agree that the set is a bit different, but in the end, I would say a bit lower in intensity.
• “He tried to reach someone at Google, but couldn’t.”
  My response: This goes back to my previous point. If something is free, don’t expect support to be stellar nor easily accessible. However, Cloud providers can choose to change that. GoGrid, for example, while a paid-for Cloud Infrastructure service, does offer free 24×7 support. We believe that as with anything new, users will have questions and will want to get things answered. In order to facilitate adoption, the experience should be positive.
• “…there aren’t any rules governing life on the cloud.”
  My response: Harry Lewis, computer science professor at Harvard, states this in the article. This is a rather broad statement and is somewhat haphazardly applied across the board. As with any evolving technology, it does take time to develop standard practices. But, the Internet and privacy therein is fairly tightly governed. When selecting a particular Cloud, you should do some due diligence in your selection. You would do that with any physical vendor you may want to use at your work or home, so the same practice should apply with the Cloud. A good provider will be stable and make it clear what their policies and practices are as well as offer some guarantees.
• Shutting off your phone vs. shutting down your cloud service
  My response: In my opinion, this is an apples to oranges comparison. There are laws that govern the Internet as well. If you are using your phone for something illegal, you will be shut down immediately. The same applies to the Internet: if you host or transmit something illegal, the provider has the right to shut you down immediately. If you want to compare bill paying scenarios, that is fine. Gmail is free so how does that work? If you don’t pay your hosting bill, you are given some leeway with some providers. Regardless, this is a self-governing marketplace with standards emerging, as I said.
• “Life on the cloud can be wonderful — except when it’s not.”
  My response: You could actually say the same thing about anything. “Life with electricity can be wonderful — except when it’s not.” A power outage makes us understand the value of it more when we are without it. I dare say that as Cloud Computing becomes more adopted and mainstream, we will wonder how we lived without it. It’s just a matter of time (think TV, cell phones, broadband access, etc.) before it is simply another extension of computing. Again, when you choose a Cloud provider, look to their experience and longevity and presence.  Take a hard look at startups when choosing where to “put your stuff.” GoGrid’s parent company, ServePath, for example, has been around for over 7 years in the traditional Internet hosting space.

I didn’t really want this article to be a rebuttal to the NPR piece, but it seems to have gone in that direction. Here is what I would want people to take away from my commentary. The “Cloud” has been here for a while (in one form or another) and is here to stay. As with any “vendor” or “provider” that you use with ANYTHING, do pay some attention and apply some scrutiny to their direct and peripheral offerings. You would do that in the physical world, so why not in the Cloud as well? Lastly, try to be accepting of things “new.” Technology evolves faster than ever now. Users are vetting it real-time and knocking out what isn’t worthwhile and showcasing that which is noteworthy. Lastly, I know that NPR will continue to cover technologies that are important ; I can only hope that they do it with more breadth and depth so that their audiences can truly understand the importance of these technological evolutions.

I have been working on a Cloud Computing presentation that provides a basic overview of the technology and how it (and GoGrid) fits into the marketplace. While this presentation  continues to evolve (as does the Cloud) and will subsequently undergo other iterations, I felt that many readers might find the content to be useful and informative so I’m publishing it for commentary, compliments and criticism. It also further develops the concept of the “Cloud Pyramid” and offers additional segmentation of the Cloud Computing space.

GoGrid CEO John Keagy has been presenting this at various conferences and meetings. If you are interested in having John present to your organization, please let us know. The presentation continues to evolve, representing our current thinking on Cloud Computing. We hope you enjoy it. Send us your comments!