Sometimes I forget that cloud computing is still fairly new. There are still thousands of companies runnings their own servers and software. A couple weeks ago, in San Francisco, I saw something that caught my eye. Seeing a SalesForce ad didn’t surprise me. What amazed me was it was on a bus stop. Not a big billboard (although I am sure they have those too), but a dingy little bus stop. »
Moving into the cloud is a big paradigm shift. Its hard to imagine what such a big change might look like, so start small. Don’t try to offload your whole system at once. Offload the small stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. One interesting use case for using the cloud is backup integrity checks for databases. Here is the scenario. You are doing backups regularly of your databases. You need to restore them every once and a while and verify they aren’t corrupt. »
Today I gave a talk about Cloud Computing, and was posed with an interesting question. How can we sell cloud computing to the non-technical decision makers? I wasn’t really prepared for the question, because I was trying to sell it to technical people. But it is a very valid question, because the IT department of many businesses must go through others to get decisions approved. The first thing that came to mind wasn’t cost, or ease of use, it was who else is using it? »
Lately, I have been doing a lot of thinking, and talking, about Cloud Computing. Describing it to technical and non-technical people alike can be hard. One great resource I have used is Graham Weston’s post on Cloud Confusion, which gives a great analogy to help clarify the definition of cloud computing. Today, few of us generate our own power. Instead, we buy it from power companies. These companies generate and distribute electricity from massive centralized power plants that can cost over $1bl to build. »
Elasticfox was good while it lasted, but I definitely think Amazon took a step in the right direction with their console. Now almost anyone can play with EC2 without much of a commitment. »
I started playing around Amazon EC2 today. After hearing cloud this and cloud that all day long for the past few months, I decided to get some experience with cloud computing myself. Unfortunately, Amazon Web Services aren’t as casual user friendly as I had hoped. Here are just a few thoughts on EC2 after 24 hours of use. Elasticfox to the rescue. Elasticfox is a must have for the trial EC2 user. »
Watching it now. You should too. I’ll blog more on it later. »