James Urquhart

Man, I hope the data in this survey holds, but May was *such* a different time than October. I expect to see some blood on the pavement next year. Hopefully not your and mine, though. - James Urquhart

This is truly excellent news. Kevin's SOA-R and CloudCamp are joining forces to present CloudCamp:Federal, with a very high expected turnout. For an in depth discussion about cloud computing in the federal space, this is a must do. Sign up early, though... - James Urquhart

Tarry Singh (one of my favorite cloud bloggers) is your host at this years CloudCamp Brussels. If you are in the area, this one is very much worth your time. - James Urquhart

I'm not sure, but I am beginning to feel like 2009 will be the years of adapting the network to cloud computing. Concepts like network management automation, WAN optimization (with cloud computing in mind), and wide-area server fluidity will be discussed more and more by the early adopters. Big opportunity for both startups and the established players alike. - James Urquhart

This could be interesting for those concerned with identity in the cloud. Symplified is apparently targeting SaaS, but could it be expanded to handle, say, Google AppEngine logins, or even custom applications running on EC2? - James Urquhart

That cow stole my haircut!!! - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)

Emoooo hairy coooo ;-) - BeeLing

ridiculously funny! - Chieze Okoye

Interesting arguments about the "red flags" enterprises should look at with respect to virtualization, and CohesiveFT CEO Patrick Kerpan's response. What the $#@$ is Zero-footprint-to-virtual (Z2V)? - James Urquhart

A good podcast from John and Cote this week, so I thought I would call it out. The predictive analytics stuff is interesting, especially how the market is responding to IBM's offering in the space. John's review of "Real ITSM" is fun as well. - James Urquhart

The Appistry guys are sharp, and this should be a good series. If I can't attend live, I'm hoping there is a recording to be viewed later. - James Urquhart

Hi James. I'm checking with Sam and the gang to see if it's being recorded. Good stuff happening in St. Louis. - Mike

Interesting coverage of the state of SaaS market awareness in the UK, and the challenges one SaaS vendor sees as a result. Those of us breathing the "cloud-o-sphere" can quickly forget the untapped market opportunity out there, both in terms of customers and solutions. If the economy will allow us, I believe the market will shock us all with the new efficiencies it finds for corporate IT. - James Urquhart

A very interesting warning from a EU IT security company, this time regarding the legal issues around storing your data in the cloud. We've covered all of this before, but it is very interesting to see the concept reinforced in this way. - James Urquhart

F'ing brilliant! There is no better description of what the hell is going on right now in cloud computing than this. Required reading for all. Originally from Sam at Appistry--bravo! [James wipes tears of laughter--and a little discomfort of self awareness--from his eyes.] - James Urquhart

Thanks to Geva Perry: This IDC survey is the first good, in depth survey of cloud computing plans in the enterprise that I've seen. Enterprises are beginning to embrace cloud-based applications. "To accelerate the adoption of platforms, then, vendors must clothe them in applications clothing. That is, they must tie them directly to an application in order to gain the end-user sponsorship necessary to secure a beachhead.” Doesn't bode well for the pure cloud infrastructure plays like Cassatt, 3TERA and Enomaly, does it? Which is why I doubt it's strictly true. - James Urquhart

I am estatic to see Cassatt put together such a solid video, clearly demonstrating what they can do both in terms of energy optimization and cloud infrastructure. Steve Oberlin, referenced here, is incredibly smart and innovative, and makes the perfect evengalist for this often overlooked private cloud player--who also happens to be my alma mater. - James Urquhart

The new Federal Cloud Computing Wiki could be a valuable resource for both public and private sector cloud fanatics. I want to do some investigation, but I think it is quite possible that the federal government is much more enthusiastic about cloud computing that most private enteprises are--though that may change after this week according to some. - James Urquhart

6 properties of cloud computing from Google's Kai-Fu Lee's perspective. - James Urquhart

Awesome post by someone I am quickly coming to respect in the "cloud-o-sphere". I like his three dimensional diagram (though I am not convinced that "Rapid, chunky" is not a possibility--Yahoo dnamically adds capacity 60 servers at a time.) Worth a read and a thought. - James Urquhart

Via Cote: Great rundown of the excellent success and remaining challenges for one of the more successful cloud infrastructure vendors (at least in the provider space), 3TERA. I really like the concept of AppLogic, though I haven't used it. I also totally agree that selling into the enterprise means stepping out of 3TERA's sweet spot of x64/Xen, though that can be addressed over time as customers needs dictate. - James Urquhart

Craig Blanding gets more press than most cloud vendors, and probably deservedly so. The subject he covers in his excellent Cloud Security blog is the biggest objection to the cloud today. His observations about how the cloud might actually *increase* security in larger organizations is spot on, and I've long believed that dynamic capacity allocation enhances the story that much more. - James Urquhart

A very, very cool analysis of the lessons that bot nets teach us about cloud computing infrastructure architectures, specifically with respect to DNS and resiliancy. This post really has my mind racing. - James Urquhart

Wow. Sounds like another player has entered the Service Level Automation space. This former grid vendor dropped the grid middleware to focus on "application awareness [and] closed loop orchestration". Sounds a lot like other policy-based approaches, like Cassatt. - James Urquhart

Congratulations to Kevin. Nobody is more qualified to host the public sector cloud computing discussion. I look forward to hearing from the larger industry via Cloud Musings. - James Urquhart

Oh, good lord. Dell is really stretching on this one. Secure remote access is cloud computing? So, CIFS is cloud computing? In that case, let me announce Alfresco is the industries leading open source cloud computing solution... Geez... - James Urquhart

Kevin would love more input to this national security/public sector cloud computing survey. Please, if this relates to you and you haven't yet participated, get on it! This may be one of the most important surveys of its type for ascertaining the value of cloud computing to the public/security sector. - James Urquhart

"an entry" - James Urquhart

Microsoft's messaging seems to be shifting just a bit. - James Urquhart

There is no doubt that Appistry is slowly making waves in the enterprise cloud space...an increasingly crowded space, by the way. Enomaly (see announcement today), Cassatt, VMWare, Citrix, etc. are fighting for what will prove to be very fertile turf. - James Urquhart

Enomaly officially announces ECP. Again, what I find exciting about this is its open source implementation. I'm seeing some positive traffic on Twitter about the team, as well. I kind of wish I had a data center on which to try this stuff. I'd love feedback at http://friendfeed.com/jamesurq... - James Urquhart

I **LOVE** this way of thinking about the cloud computing space...sort of a negative relief (or some such term). Like sculpting a horse out of marble, just take away all of the bits that aren't horse. Very susinctly put, as well. A quick and worthwhile read. - James Urquhart