The U.S. Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board has announced that it has moved its Recovery.gov site to a cloud computing infrastructure powered by Amazon.com’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for potential benefits such as more efficient computer operations, improved security and reduced costs.
Smartronix acted as the prime contractor on the migration and selected Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) cloud technology as the foundation for the move. In a May 13 announcement, the board said Recovery.gov now becomes the first governmentwide system to move to the cloud.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Cloud-Computing/Amazon-Helps-US-Government-Move-to-the-Cloud-883856/

The U.S. Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board has announced that it has moved its Recovery.gov site to a cloud computing infrastructure powered by Amazon.com’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for potential benefits such as more efficient computer operations, improved security and reduced costs.

http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/05/amazon_working_on_changes_to_reduce_cloud_computing_outages.html

Amazon’s work on data center power systems comes as it tries to interest more large companies and government agencies in its cloud services.

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2010/05/03/story8.html?b=1272859200^3282471

In a sign of Amazon’s interest in the federal cloud market, the company last year teamed with Apptis, the Chantilly, Va.-based government IT services company, to respond to a request for quotes (RFQ) put out by the General Services Administration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/technology/19cloud.html?src=busln

In Amazon’s model, businesses pay only for the computing cycles they use. Customers eliminate the upfront cost of computer hardware and can then buy more time on Amazon’s data center as needed.

http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/cloud-computing-isnt-just-hosting-2-0/140427

Bernard Golden tells why some companies who think cloud computing is the same as Hosting 2.0 are running into problems putting apps on platforms like Amazon

Some argue that cloud computing platforms provide greater levels of security because the systems are guarded by world-class experts. Others argue that it’s only a matter of time before we have a major security breach that results in hundreds, if not thousands, of customer accounts being compromised. This debate has led the Cloud Security Alliance to identify the top seven security threats to cloud computing.

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/vizard/cloud-computing-forces-data-governance-issue/?cs=39920

Right now, says Young, there are two schools of cloud computing. One is led by relative enterprise IT newcomers such as Google and Amazon that have gained traction at the departmental and business-unit level. The other camp is led by IBM and Microsoft,

One of my favorite bloggers (and long-time cloud pundit), Simon Wardley, once wrote a short post that clarified the meanings of two words that are key to understanding the value of cloud computing
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19413_3-10454932-240.html

If cloud computing is driven to offer core capabilities (such as raw server capacity or even java application execution) to as wide a market as possible,

There’s high-level support for cloud computing in the government space so, unsurprisingly, vendors are following the money. The latest to do so is Microsoft. The company this week rolled out a federal-specific version of its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).  And you can bet Google and Amazon Web Services will be making some federal cloud moves as well. Here are some of the details and implications.

http://www.mspmentor.net/2010/02/26/microsoft-google-making-federal-cloud-moves/

While the cloud is subject to a good deal of hype these days, federal officials appear to take it seriously. We’ll see in the next few months whether more agencies adopt the cloud and which cloud competitors will nail down the business.

Last week, I wrote about the first of cloud computing’s revolutions: the revolution in IT operations. This week I want to turn to the revolution that will occur because of the changed nature of cost in a cloud computing environment. In the Berkeley RAD Lab report on cloud computing, it identifies “pay-as-you-go pricing” as a key characteristic of cloud computing. Pay-as-you-go pricing refers to the fact that computing resources in a cloud environment are typically charged for on a fine-grained usage basis.

http://www.cio.com.au/article/336602/cloud_computing_three_revolutions_part_2?fp=4&fpid=21

In the low cost fosters experimentation perspective, cloud computing is much like open source

For a lot of small-business owners, “cloud computing” is the latest IT buzzword to leave them scratching their heads. To demystify things, here’s a primer for companies looking to wade into cloud services for the first time.

What are cloud services?

Broadly speaking, any service or program sent over an Internet connection can be considered a cloud service. An outside vendor runs the servers and software, so the buyer doesn’t have to worry about the technical issues in-house and can focus on its own business.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703580904574638391318085158.html?mod=rss_Today’s_Most_Popular

Everybody’s talking about it. Here’s what you need to know.