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.

Today the Internet was abuzz with the latest Steve Jobs’ Keynote address at the Apple World Wide Developers Conference, so much so that Twitter was brought to its knees and other blogging sites were overwhelmed with repeated traffic requests. I watch the action on a variety of sources (pictures and text from Engadget and Audio being streamed through uStream). It was a bit painful having to manual refresh or have audio drop during the keynote speech, but the announcements were eventually heard world-wide.

This post is not about the iPhone though but rather about a new GoGrid customer who was recently written up on TechCrunch, ScribbleLive. ScribbleLive is an Ajax-based, Live Blogging platform that enables authors to cover live events in a real-time manner. Billed as a “media rich conference call” ScribbleLive provides audiences an immersive experience on browsers and mobile devices alike, pushing text, links, pictures and videos instantly without the need to constantly reload the browser page.

What makes this story noteworthy is that ScribbleLive is a true, bootstrapped startup. The company, founded by Jonathan Keebler and Michael De Monte, was put together for about $1500. They are only 2 employees but have set up an infrastructure of a well-established company, with GoGrid powering their Application and Database servers and Akamai providing the CDN (content delivery network).

During the WWDC event, they ran their own “System Status” LiveBlog to keep users up to date on the systems powering other users live-blogging. Some highlights:

• The day before the event they were getting 181,000+ page views
• Throughput before, during and after the event ranged between 1.3 to 4.6 Mbits/sec
• Front-end servers maintained 2% CPU utilization
• Database server peaked at 7% CPU utilization
• 1.5 hours before the event, 1+ unique visitors/sec were accessing the site

I asked Jonathan Keebler some questions about how GoGrid was used so successfully with ScribbleLive and here is what he said:

Question: How many GoGrid Servers were you using?
Answer: Two web servers and one database server all with 1GB RAM each

Q: What were the configurations of the servers?
A: All were running Windows Server 2003 and the Database Server was SQL Server 2005

Q: How was your system architecture set up?
A: Akamai took all of the traffic on the edge, using GoGrid as the “origin server”

Q: How many Live Blogs covered the event?
A: There were seven blogs running simultaneously with over 40 writers

Q: What is the anticipated cost for the event?
A: Whatever GoGrid costs for the day [author’s note: 3 – 1 GB servers running for 24 hours = approx. $15 for the day, not including SQL Server or Bandwidth charges)

From Jonathan:

“Being a startup with extremely spiky traffic around large live events, we were looking for a dedicated hosting option that could scale with us. Working with GoGrid, we were able to bring online as many servers as we needed to cover our big events. By being able to manage our own load-balancers with fault-tolerance, we were able to ensure that we maintained high availability under large traffic volume.”

Note: you can follow some of Jonathan’s GoGrid comments on his blog here and here.

Congratulations to ScribbleLive their success with WWDC as well as handling a potentially network crippling event with ease using GoGrid!

NetworkWorld today ran a review of GoGrid in their Web Applications Alert newsletter. Mark Gibbs, consultant, author, journalist, columnist and blogger, provides a candid analysis of GoGrid’s current offering in the review titled “Cloud Computing for the Middle Market.” However, it’s his sub-title provides the best summary: “With GoGrid you can provision a server in less than five minutes,” a fact that he experienced first hand.

For several months now, I have been touting the strengths of GoGrid through articles, blog responses, social networks and other media channels. Gibbs echoes many of GoGrid’s strengths (and a few weaknesses even) in his careful analysis. Some highlights:

“A new entrant in this market is GoGrid, currently in its Public Beta phase. I’ve tested the service and what GoGrid claims is true – you can provision a server in less than five minutes. A few minutes more and you can have more servers as well as load balancers and databases.”

Later Gibbs continues:

“GoGrid is very easy to expand and contract as needed and there’s a choice of operating systems to use (Windows as well as several Linux distros with different services configurations). Add to that 24/7 support and GoGrid is a very interesting platform for a variety of markets.”

It is Gibbs’ conclusion that contains the most resounding comment:

“GoGrid is somewhat ahead of the market with this service – maybe six months at present – and if it can get all its enhancements and improvements in place on the schedule it has discussed then GoGrid could become a market leader.”

I had several conversations with Mark during the review process and we heartily agreed about several things. Most importantly, there is potentially a huge market initiative for SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses) and small enterprises to really take advantage of these emerging technologies like GoGrid. As cloud computing becomes much more mainstream, the solutions available within that arena become financial and technologically more viable to all sizes of companies.

IT budgets are tighter (or even barely existent) now. Gone are the requirements to have month-long contracts for servers or even have huge capital expenditures to simply “trial” your product within the marketplace. I have said this before and continue to restate it: business should spend their time working on their business applications and not worrying as much about the infrastructure driving it. Assuming these business applications are built well, let the technology experts worry about the infrastructure. GoGrid is leading the way with providing “control in the cloud” in a way that is simple from a usability standpoint yet extremely powerful from a technological perspective.

Tomorrow is SF New Tech and GoGrid will be there handing out “free servers!” The theme of tomorrow night’s event is “Wine, Women and a Whole Lot More!” Companies doing the 5 Minute Demos are: Nirvino, Zivity, Razz, MyMeemz/Skollar and Ribbit.

The event is at Mighty (119 Utah Street @ 15th) from 6:30pm to 11:00 pm PT. Tickets are $15 in advance or $20 at the door. The schedule of events is as follows:

6:30 pm – Doors open
6:30 -7:30 pm – Schmooze
7:30 – 9:00 pm – Demos
9:00 – 11:00 pm Schmooze

GoGrid will have a table at this event so be sure to come by and ask us questions about GoGrid. You will walk away pleasantly surprised!

Attendees of the inaugural meeting of StartUp SF, a new meetup for technologists, developers, entrepreneurs and startups in the San Francisco Bay Area, were given a great GoGrid gift, $100 off their first GoGrid account. But the value went further than just that including a valuable CD-ROM from Orrick containing helpful document templates useful in launching your own startup. Attendees also learned some important tips on how move their company “from concept to company” as delivered in a presentation by Jonathan Cobb, CTO and Founder of Kiptronic.

StartUp SF is an event that is co-hosted by Orrick and ServePath designed to help “kick-start your startup” by providing a venue, topics and experts, as well as food and drink to facilitate the process.

More details on yesterday’s event can be found here and here. We were even lucky enough to get Pete Cashmore (of Mashable) to pose with Paul Lancaster (of ServePath) in one of our stylish GoGrid hats.

More photos can be found on our Flickr photostream and the StartUp SF Facebook group. Don’t forget that GoGrid now really helps you get your Facebook app up and running FAST with the Facebook QuickStart Server Images for Windows and Linux!