Ynema Mangum: The Human Cloud

~John M. Willis does a nice interview with a man from Cloud Camp Toronto about his exploration of different cloud providers for his Web video service startup.  There are pros and cons with RightScale, 3tera, Elastra, Mosso, Amazon Cloudfront, etc.  I think he said his name is Mark Bobson, but Willis doesn't tag it.  Hope I got the spelling right!

(By the way, John, I enjoyed this interview, but I think your Science Logic You're on my Fedora video was a riot... )

~Another interesting one is on the up and coming whurley cloud computing blog on Infoworld has him discussing the costs of downtime for the cloud.  Will this be a barrier to adoption?  I wondered why all the research I've been reading misses availability as a top barrier, and whurley nails it.

~Is the relational database doomed?  You tell me.

~IBM is tapping AWS. 

~Here's something to stimulate the cloud economy.  Mark Cuban's offering funding for startups, as long as you're totally open.

Happy Valentine's Day and President's Day to everyone!

~Y

A few months ago, on http://www.ObamaCTO.org, I saw this question:

Barack Obama is going to appoint the nation's first CTO. What are the top priorities?

One of it's answers:

Build a nation-wide smart grid

Embed intelligence throughout a nation-wide electrical grid, on both sides of the meter to enhance the efficiency of distribution and use. This will (A) accelerate the penetration of sources like solar & wind that
are diurnal or intermittent; (B) take advantage of smart meters and distributed storage as plug-in cars become available; (C) permit power to be wheeled from where resources are rich to where electricity is needed; (D) provide tens of thousands of jobs and train workers to replace the baby boomers who will retire from utilities over the next 5-10 years. Start with the government-owned Bonneville Power Administration in the Northwest, learn what works, and extend the network across the country.

Neato.

On another note, whurley is calling for President Obama to build out a national computing cloud specifically for higher education.   Of course, this will benefit open source peeps (beyond students).  Maybe this is ala Eucalyptus?  Hi, Rich!

Looks like cloud computing is going down the thought path of the traditional computing model, so the analysts are right on.  At some point in time, someone might even suggest a government built and regulated cloud computing model.  We live in interesting times.

whurley called yesterday, letting me know about his new InfoWorld blog on cloud computing.  He's my friend, so I felt comfortable chiding him a bit.  "Aren't you the one who told me last year that cloud computing was bull&!@*?", I asked him.  Of course he was.  But, he explained he is taking a contrarian approach.  That makes sense to me.

His first entry "Romanticizing Cloud Computing Will Destroy It" is a bit dramatic.  Cloud computing won't be destroyed by romanticizing it.  His point is that he believes cloud computing is ill-defined and that it is practically the same thing and holds the same promise as grid computing, utility computing, and SaaS.  Will it help the economy or decrease global warming?  His questions are simply intended to make us all think.

whurley invites everyone to participate in cloud computing's definition.  Jump on the cloud and give your two cents.  The fact that whurley has joined the fray makes me happy.  It's going to make the journey not only much more enlightening, but a lot more fun. 

(Disclaimer: whurley makes me write his name with no caps, even when it's at the beginning of a sentence...)