Computers-Plus

One approach to smoothing out application demand is a load-balanced server farm. Another is virtualisation to bring extra resources to bear when needed.

But what about public cloud services? Surely they could be used to mop up excess demand?

More disk space, more bandwidth? Certainly, how would you like to pay?

The answer is yes, in theory, with a plethora of public cloud services to choose from, many offering scalable processing power, storage and other resources on a pay-as-you-go or utility basis.

Want more cores? Click a button. More disk space, more bandwidth?

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Ah, the cloud. The wonderful, wonderful cloud. It’s so big, so mysterious. And these days, it’s a bandwagon that’s worth jumping on. Google Music, iCloud, and now, SkyDrive. Granted, SkyDrive as a name has been around longer than those other two, but Microsoft is clearly upping their game in order to keep up with the Joneses. The company’s SkyDrive cloud service will allow users to collaborate on Office docs, and share photos, while also allowing folks to access content from anywhere.

But the new SkyDrive is bigger, better, and faster, just as you’d expect. Browser modernization has really opened up the window for us to rethink and re-architect how we build our websites. Read more…

The cloud is clearly where it’s at when it comes to apps, data storage, and even productivity software. Google Apps has been in on this game for some time, and now the traditional business software giant Microsoft is ready to get into the market.

At long last, Office 365, now emerged from private beta, migrates the old familiar Microsoft Office applications to the web. The software juggernaut expects to leverage the legion of office workers already accustomed to the MS Office environment. For example, users of Office 365 can create, edit, and share web-based apps for Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. I

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EMC is developing technology to track and verify the location of virtual machines in cloud networks, potentially solving one of the key sticking points preventing customers from using the cloud.

Because of FISMA, the Federal Information Security Management Act, customers who put sensitive data in cloud services need guarantees that VMs stay within the country, says Chad Sakac, vice president of the VMware technology alliance at EMC. This is a problem for a cloud provider like Terremark, an EMC partner, which operates data centers in multiple continents and uses live migration technology to move virtual machines, potentially from one country to another, he says.

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