Microsoft Aggressively Investing in Supersize Cloud Data Centers

Software giant Microsoft is fighting rival Google for a place in the clouds. The company thinks that more and more software services will take over or replace the tasks currently being handled by Microsoft applications on business and home PCs. In the past two weeks alone, Microsoft has unveiled several key products it thinks will accelerate the process of transition to cloud computing, or software services delivered over the internet. more»

Web Host to Build Massive Data Centre in Former Nuclear Facility

Web hosting giant 1&1 Internet plans to build one of Europe's largest data centers in Hanau, Germany -- a never-used former nuclear fuel facility called 'New MOX'. The company says it will build a European data centre providing space for up to 100,000 servers across an area of 10,000 square meters. The new facility is reported to use electricity only from renewable energy sources. The nuclear facility was constructed in the late 1980s, and was originally intended to produce mixed oxide rods made from enriched Uranium and Plutonium. The facility never became operational and by the end of 1995, its former owner Siemens AG decided to give up the facility. Two years ago, the premises in Hanau were finally released from nuclear control legislation. more»

Microsoft Reveals Cloud Computing Platform, Windows Azure

Microsoft today unveiled its highly anticipated "cloud-based" operating system which aims at addressing the growing competition to its core desktop operating system. At Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles today, Ray Ozzie, company's Chief Software Architect, unveiled the company's much-anticipated cloud computing platform, called Windows Azure Services Platform. "Windows Azure is a new Windows offering at the Web tier of computing," said Ozzie. "This represents a significant extension" of the Windows computing platform, he said. Using this platform, Microsoft strives to enable developers to build and deploy Web applications and services running on Microsoft's worldwide infrastructure of datacenters. more»

Photos of Google's Latest $600 Million Data Center

Earlier this month, Google officially opened its new data center in South Carolina which was first reported during April of 2007 when the company announced its plans to invest $600 million in the project. This data center is one of the four new data center projects announced by Google last year with other locations being Lenoir, North Carolina; Council Bluffs, Iowa and Pryor, Oklahoma. more»

GNU Founder Richard Stallman Warns Against Cloud Computing

Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, says cloud computing is essentially a trap that will eventually pressure more people into buying locked, proprietary systems that will continue to cost them more over time. "It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign," says Stallman. Bobbie Johnson, Guardian's technology correspondent says 'his comments echo those made last week by Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, who criticized the rash of cloud computing announcements as "fashion-driven" and "complete gibberish".' more»

Oracle's Larry Ellison Downplays Cloud Computing: But Is It Any Surprise?

At a financial analyst meeting held by Oracle yesterday, the company was asked about its plans with regards to cloud computing. Oracle's chief executive and founder, Larry Ellison had the following to say in response: "We've redefined 'cloud computing' to include everything we currently do. So it has already achieved dominance in the industry. I can't think of anything that isn't cloud computing. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Cloud Computing. I remember I was reading W and I read that orange is the new pink..." am Johnston, Strategic Consultant Specializing in Cloud Computing, however wonders if it is any surprise that Oracle would be out badmouthing cloud computing when it has the potential to disrupt their entire business? more»

Google Considering Open Sea Data Centers Powered by Wave Energy

Google has filed a patent for "water-based data centers" that would use wave energy to power and cool their computers, reducing Google's costs. Additionally it would also mean that the company would no longer have to pay property taxes on its data centers due to their offshore status. Google's patent application says: "Computing centers are located on a ship or ships, anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away." more»

Cloud Computing: A Hot Debate Among Policy Makers

During a recent Google forum on the policy implications of hosted applications and services, experts anticipate great challenges facing policy makers in the next few years as cloud computing is becoming increasingly popular. Issues include: "Who owns the data that consumers store on the network? Should law enforcement agencies have easier access to personal information in the cloud than data on a personal computer? Do government procurement regulations need to change to allow agencies to embrace cloud computing?" more»

Survey Indicates 69% of Internet Users Already Making Use of Cloud Computing

According to a recent survey by Pew Research Center's Internet Project, 69% of all Internet users in U.S. have either stored data online or used a web-based software application. "These users are making use of 'cloud computing,' an emerging architecture by which data and applications reside in cyberspace, allowing users to access them through any web-connected device." At the same time, most of these users are still unfamiliar with the term "cloud computing." more»

Dell Loses "Cloud Computing" Trademark Application

In follow to an earlier report this month about Dell seeking a "cloud computing" trademark, latest updates indicate that the company has been denied a trademark because of the generic nature of the term which describes services offered by numerous other companies. In an initial ruling, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), included dozens of news stories and other material supporting its contention that cloud computing is a widely-used term of art for the technology industry. Dell is given six months to file a response or the USPTO will abandon the application. more»

Fury Over Dell Seeking "Cloud Computing" Trademark

Like the term Web 2.0, "cloud computing" is quickly becoming a meme without borders. And like the old one, the new phrase with the fuzzy definition has someone making a claim on its trademark, as Dell filed for a trademark on the term last year. The trademark application was recently noted by cloud computing consultant Sam Johnston, posting on a Google Groups cloud computing forum. Dell has also snatched up the Web sites cloudcomputing.com, cloud-computing.com, and cloud-computing.net as well as cloudcomputers.com. Cloudcomputing.com re-routes visitors to Dell's Cloud Computing Solutions Web site. more»

AT&T Joins Cloud Computing Bandwagon, Will Host U.S. Olympic Committee Website

AT&T is launching its own cloud computing services that will put the phone carrier in direct competition with the likes of IBM, Google and Amazon. The AT&T Synaptic Hosting is part of a $1 billion initiative that will see the carrier build five large-scale Internet data centers in the United States, Europe and Asia that will form the backbone of a new cloud computing service. The first test of this new cloud network will start when AT&T hosts the U.S. Olympic Committee's Web site during the upcoming Summer Games in Beijing. more»

HP, Intel and Yahoo Team Up In Cloud Computing Research

HP, Intel Corporation and Yahoo have announced today the creation of a global, multi-data center, open source test bed for the advancement of cloud computing research and education. The goal of the initiative is to promote open collaboration among industry, academia and governments by removing the financial and logistical barriers to research in data-intensive, Internet-scale computing. The HP, Intel and Yahoo Cloud Computing Test Bed aims to provide a globally distributed, Internet-scale testing environment designed to encourage research on the software, data center management and hardware issues associated with cloud computing at a larger scale than ever before. The initiative will also support research of cloud applications and services. more»

Amazon's S3 Cloud Service Goes Down for Several Hours

Amazon's S3 system, which provides a pay-as-you-use processing service, died briefly at the weekend, and with it went many services that had hung their hat on it -- such as the organize-your-business company 37Signals, image caching by Twitter, and many iPhone apps, reports Charles Arthur of the Guardian. One of the things that makes the online storage service, Amazon S3, particularly useful for start-ups and heavy users is that it ties in with other Amazon Web Services like the elastic computing cloud and its SimpleDB service. Using all three services relieves start-ups from some of the tasks that generally would require significant time and money up front. more»

U.S. Department of Defense to Deply Cloud Computing Infrastructure

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has thrown its weight behind cloud computing, signing a deal with HP to build out an ambitious cloud infrastructure, which will include storage and server capacity. The Web-based cloud model will enable U.S. armed forces personnel to configure and access a server on the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) network within 24 hours, according to the Agency, which oversees the U.S. military's battlefield command and control systems. more»