NIST issues government cloud-computing roadmap and architecture

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published two new documents on cloud computing: the first edition of a cloud computing standards roadmap, and a cloud computing reference architecture and taxonomy. The documents provide guidance to help understand cloud computing standards and categories of cloud services that can be used government-wide.

Cloud Computing Could Cut Data Center Energy Consumption by Nearly One-Third by 2020, According to Pike Research

Though the inner workings of the global communications network are so complex that they remain opaque even to those who operate it, the redundancy and fail-over capabilities of the system have made it so reliable that the internet-based cloud has become a trusted place to store and transmit critical data. The rapid spread of cloud computing has enabled enterprises to outsource many information technology capabilities, including and especially data centers, leading to savings on manpower, money, and energy. According to a recent report from Pike Research, the energy-efficiency benefits of cloud computing are substantial, and growth in the market will have important implications for both energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The cleantech market intelligence firm forecasts that the continued adoption of cloud computing will lead to a reduction of data center energy consumption of 31% from 2010 to 2020.                            

Gmail Now Credible Rival to Microsoft Exchange: Gartner

Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Gmail application commands only 1 percent market email market share in the enterprise, but that's enough for Gartner to proclaim the application has become a credible competitor to Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Exchange Online and other Web-based email services, proclaimed Gartner.

Though well behind the hundreds of millions of users Yahoo Mail and Microsoft Hotmail enjoy, Gmail has a hardy, loyal user base. Google doesn't reveal how many Gmail users it has, though experts estimate somewhere between 150 million to 200 million users access the application for personal and/or professional communications.

xHowever, it might be easier to pinpoint how many people use Gmail for business. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt revealed Sept. 1 that Google Apps has 40 million users, with 5,000 joining per day. Gmail is the flagship messaging application for Google Apps.

Amazon Web Services receives critical government certification

Amazon on Thursday said that many of its Web services now have a crucial certification that allows federal government agencies with strict security requirements to use the services.

Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud, Simple Storage Service, and Virtual Private Cloud have all received Federal Information Security Management Act Moderate Authorization and Accreditation.

Some federal agencies are required to only use services from companies that have certification under FISMA. More than 100 government agencies are already using Amazon's offerings, including the Department of the Treasury's Treasury.gov, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA, and the Federal Register 2.0 at the National Archives. But the new certification opens the door for Amazon to extend its offerings to additional agencies and applications.   

Joyent Cloud takes on kingpin Amazon

Joyent is pitching its Joyent Cloud as a faster, cheaper platform that will give customers more insight into their cloud-based operations than the incumbent leader Amazon.

The new-and-improved Joyent Cloud, announced Thursday, builds atop the company’s rethought SmartDataCenter 6 management technology and adds more business analytics to help corporate customers get a better handle on what’s actually going on in their cloud-based infrastructure.

One criticism of Amazon is that its cloud services are something of a black box; the company doesn’t make it easy for customers to see what’s happening in its cloud. Many rely on third parties like RightScale for dashboard views into the inner workings of their EC2 operations.                    

Cloud Computing Standards – is it time?  Rick Blaisdell /

There are quite a few organizations working on standards – and these are only some of them, the entire list is much longer. As new “standards” arise instead of making for a stronger industry will we create more problems?

The best way forward would be to start a discussion and get everybody to agree, starting with the most urgent issues. And I believe the most urgent would be to agree on standardization at platform level, which would allow for greater flexibility if a company wants to move from one cloud provider to the other.

However, a balance needs to be achieved, as over-standardization could be as dangerous for the industry as no standards at all. Since cloud computing is still in its infancy, defining how things should work in too much detail could result in rigidity and not leaving much room for innovation, without which cloud computing could never evolve.

                                                          Salesforce's Benioff: VMware Not In Cloud Computing Biz

Salesforce Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff pulled no punches on the competition in a roundtable Q&A session at Dreamforce 2011 last week in which he said VMware and virtualization are important, but don't fit into his and Salesforce's vision of the cloud.

"I watched the VMware keynote this week," Benioff added, referring to VMware CEO Paul Maritz's keynote address at VMworld in Las Vegas. "They talked about how they have like 50 percent now of the total market of servers that they are on, if I got the number right, and that they have loaded their software onto 50 percent of all servers and that they're that much more efficient and then they said 'and now they're all clouds.' That's now where you got my attention, because putting virtual machines on servers is great and I understand they call it private clouds, but our vision of cloud computing is not that."

Department Seeks Balanced ‘Cloud’ Computing Solution

Defense Department officials are looking to balance efficiency, effectiveness and security while moving away from its decentralized network of computer servers and data centers and into “cloud” computing, DOD’s deputy chief information officer said today.

“We must balance all three,” said Robert J. Carey, who is also the deputy assistant secretary of defense for information management, integration and technology. “We have to serve the information needs of our warfighters, as well as the people back here in the ivory towers.”

Carey, who is also a Naval Reserve captain, spoke at Defense Systems Summit 2011, an information technology conference held here. He told the audience, made up largely of defense contractors, that budget restrictions and the need for better efficiency is driving the department and military services to move toward cloud computing, which provides an Internet-based forum for information to be pooled among many users.

Amazon cloud SDKs for Android, iOS exit beta testing

                                                    Amazon's SDKs (software development kits) for Android and Apple's iOS have exited the beta testing phase, the company said on Wednesday.

The company wants make it easier for developers to build mobile applications that take advantage of its cloud-based services. Previously, developers had to do more of the work themselves, according to Amazon.

Using the SDKs developers can make API (application programming interface) requests directly from a mobile application to Amazon's Web Services. Developers can integrate their applications with a long list of services, including Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Simple Storage Service (S3), and the SimpleDB database, and send messages using Simple Notification Service (SNS) and Simple Queue Service (SQS).