Vendors are now predicting the advent of what’s been dubbed the private cloud, a set-up whereby a company can link up every datacentre it owns into a single virtualised computer that could potentially span the globe.

http://www.silicon.com/technology/networks/2010/06/07/private-cloud-turning-corporate-datacentres-into-a-global-virtual-machine-39745894/

Is it set to take cloud computing by storm? Or just a storm in a teacup?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sc-biz-0309-cloud-pizza–20100308,0,2814528.story

Domino’s was an early partner win for Microsoft when the pizza chain said in November that it would put its online pizza-ordering system on the Microsoft cloud. Twenty percent of Domino’s pizzas are ordered through the Web, and the company just hit a $1 billion milestone in online sales in February.

Google seems to be prepping up its online collaboration and cloud computing tools – Google Docs for the big league. Just recently, Google Docs supported uploading fo files from your computer and sharing that files with people you collaborate with via Google Docs. Now, something good is about to happen with Google’s cloud computing service – that is interoperability with Microsoft Office files. To make this happen, Google just bought DocVerse.

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-buys-online-collaboration-operator-docverse/18527/

DocVerse will be bringing in plug-ins that will add standard Microsoft Office operation including real-time editing and online saving.

Predictions are a dangerous game. Bill Gates once forecast: “Two years from now, spam will be solved.” That was in 2004, and unfortunately spam still makes up more than 90 per cent of business email.
However, as we head for the second decade of the 21st century, are there any solid trends emerging? What is the future shape of IT security? Will we still be swamped in malware and spam or will newer, more potent threats emerge? Will the infosecurity vendor community be able to innovate to meet the security challenges of the coming decade?

http://www.scmagazineuk.com/analysis-what-will-the-next-decade-bring-in-the-information-security-world/article/164741/

The move from desktop and internal data storage towards cloud-based systems is also likely to meld with the rise of the mobile world.

iStore launched on Thursday Digital Oilfield Online, a cloud-based hosting service for its PetroTrek software suite. The company unveiled its online cloud computing capability at the Microsoft Global Energy Forum, where it announced the immediate availability of cloud-hosted PetroTrek solutions in addition to its existing on-premises offerings.

iStore, which helps oil and gas companies access, organize and visualize exploration and production (E&P) data, has adopted the Microsoft Windows Azure Services platform for delivering Digital Oilfield solutions in the cloud.

http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8216:istore-brings-cloud-computing-to-the-digital-oilfield&catid=230:cloud-computing&Itemid=2701186

The new service supports the Public Petroleum Data Model (PPDM), an open standard widely accepted by the industry for business-oriented data storage. This gives companies a roadmap for moving capital-intensive on-premises data management to the cloud.

The internet, our relationship with it, and our culture are about to undergo a change as profound and unsettling as the development of web 2.0 in the last decade, which made social media and search – Google and YouTube, Facebook and Twitter – mass, global phenomena. The rise of “cloud computing” will trigger a battle for control over a digital landscape that is only just coming into view.

The internet we have grown up with is a decentralised network of separate computers, with their own software and data. Cloud computing may look like an extension of this network-centric logic but, in fact, it is quite different.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/22/protect-open-cloud-computing

Before our digital lives disappear too far into ‘the cloud’, we must wrest it from corporate and governmental control

Cloud computing has the potential to transform how government agencies tap into IT services, and open source is an underlying technology in several of the early government clouds that have been developed.

We have yet to see the federal government issue a position on open source clouds, but it’s clear that agencies have a green light to move ahead with open source and cloud computing. It’s only a matter of time before these two trends come together in the form of open source clouds

http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/cloud-saas/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=222301010&subSection=All+Stories

The U.S. government is an early adopter of cloud computing and a proponent of open source, two trends that are about to intersect.

Every year analysts run surveys capturing the apprehensions CIOs have about the ‘real’ benefits that cloud computing promises. If you look at all the surveys conducted in the last three years, you will find that the same points top these lists of apprehensions:

Is it safe to have sensitive company data floating on a cloud?

Does the cloud have any real cost advantage?

Will the cloud provide the same or better quality and continuity of service?

How will the hosted applications work in tandem with the other in-premise applications?

http://networkcomputing.in/No-the-Cloud-Wont-Evaporate-001Jan010.aspx

Apprehensive about moving to the cloud? Satish Joshi presents a case for cloud computing—why the cloud need not be the bête noire it is often made out to be

Many technology experts believe that 2010 will usher in a new era in computing. In the beginning of PC computing, all applications were run from (and data was stored on) each individual system’s local hard drive. As time went on, companies recognized the benefits of centralized management and control and moved to a model where data is stored on, and many apps are run from, servers on the local network. The next step will move apps and data storage even farther away from the end user, into the “cloud,” with everything residing on remote servers accessed via the Internet. This will allow users to access those programs and data anywhere, from any Internet-connected machine, including low-powered (and low-cost) netbooks.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1282

Cloud platforms are available from various vendors, including Amazon, IBM, and Google. But Deb Shinder thinks Microsoft Azure might be the best choice.

With the New Year’s festivities behind us, it is time for me to offer some of my views about cloud computing trends in the coming year. Although I remain a firm believer and full-time proponent of the fundamental value of cloud computing, I think cloud computing vendors and their customers will face significant challenges in 2010 and beyond.

Here are the key challenges which I think must be addressed to clearly demonstrate that cloud computing is a viable alternative or adjunct to traditional, on-premise applications and data center operations.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/180606-6-key-challenges-facing-cloud-computing-in-2010-and-beyond

While strong technical skills will be essential to address the security and integration issues, solid business management skills will be far more important in the other areas.