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One of the most important factors to consider when using cloud storage is the cost of transport. Most cloud storage providers charge you not only for data storage, but also for transporting the data (upload/download) as well. It is these charges which often form the vast majority of cloud storage cost.

To minimize these costs, it is vital to remember the three techniques of data reduction; compression, incrementalization, and deduplication. Let's take a brief look at all three of these valuable techniques.

Does size really matter?

This age-old question has been applied to many topics, but in this case I am talking about Cloud Providers. Everyone knows the usual suspects; Amazon, Microsoft, Google and SalesForce head the lists of Iaas, PaaS and SaaS providers. As in the golden days of the Internet, the idea of First Market Move still seems valid. Once your name is established as the “leader” in any activity, there is a clear advantage in being thought of first when it comes to evaluating solutions.

Last week, the Network Centric Operations Consortium (NCOIC) Cloud Computing Working Group (CCWG) started it's work on cloud interoperability in earnest. The first step in their process is the completion of a Systems, Capabilities, Operations, Programs and Enterprises (SCOPE) model. As an analysis tool, SCOPE is used to characterize interoperability-relevant aspects of a system or capability in terms of a set of dimensions.

Court order help Microsoft tear down Waledoc botnet

In this case, Microsoft used a legal take down order for 277 .com domains. These domains were managing a peculiar form of Application-As-A-Service, or if you prefer, SPAM-As-A-Service. Believe me, I think this is wonderful, but it points out a particular weakness in cloud-based services ...

One of the most interesting aspects of Cloud Computing I have noticed over the past couple of years is the dichotomy that exists between Cloud USERS and Cloud PROVIDERS.

From the user perspective Cloud Computing is a means of abstracting all (or most of) the complexities inherent in the delivery of IT. From the provider’s perspective it is entirely the opposite.

Where the end user is no longer concerned with Real Estate, Power and Cooling, Depreciation of Capital Equipment, High Availability, OS patching and maintenance etc., the provider needs to consider these aspects in spades.

With all the recent attention to the Kneber bot net, I am reminded that we must consider how we would detect bot infections in the cloud. Most bot infections are well-hidden from local security tools and like Kneber only reveal themselves via detection of suspicious network activity. Most cloud providers do not allow tenants to monitor the network. How will cloud tenants detect when their cloud based systems are compromised?

A lot of us in the cloud community enjoy reading what I refer to as "cloud trivia." Cloud trivia encompasses metrics of measured speed or throughput, potentially across cloud providers. A special favorite of mine is the Rackspace post [1] showing how much faster their 1.5c/hr server is than ec2's 8.5c/hr m1.small. There must be a way to use this data to make cloud offerings more relevant to application or budget requirements.

This blog presents a status update of 5 popular open source projects supporting compute cloud portability.

I have recently seen several blog posts bemoaning the prominence of Cloud Computing on the “hype-o-meter.” More than a few times, I have read suggestions that the very term “Cloud” be replaced with “Internet” to mitigate the cheapening effect of over-use (or inappropriate use by those looking to profit by the association.)

Whenever the discussion of “defining” Cloud Computing arises, I turn to the canonical source, the NIST v15 (currently.) I was surprised, but not shocked, that the word “Internet” did not appear among the 790 that comprise the document.

There is certainly a lot of articles being published nowadays on flash memory, its impact on data storage and the way we compute. However, there is not much being written (or talked about) on its impact on cloud storage. While it's clear to most how flash memory and other solid state storage impact us as individuals for compute - in fact I am using a laptop with a flash SSD as I type - it's not clear at all on how users of cloud storage would or could utilize flash memory effectively.