2008: “A Year in the Clouds”

Barring some incredible news in the next two days, this will be my second to last post of the year. And my final enterprise-related post. Naturally, it’s got to be about cloud computing–the story, the trend, for 2008. (My final post will be a round-up of the best top ten lists.) Now onwards, upwards to the clouds. Here’s a summary based on a recent InfoWorld article.

To start go back and check out InfoWorld’s first salvo in what became a barrage of articles, reports, and opinions on cloud computing. It really kicked things off nicely. Ultimately, there were three categories: “infrastructure services such as Amazon EC2; software as a service à la Salesforce; and development platforms as a service” (e.g. Microsoft’s Azure).

Then there’s the debate out the external and internal cloud. Basically, the difference between services and apps that you can get outside your company (say from Salesforce.com), than from your internal IT department, which “aggregates other IT trends, such as SOA (service-oriented architecture), virtualization, datacenter automation, and EDA (event-driven architecture) into one harmonious internal cloud.”

Two arcticles, each from different points in the year, highlighted how companies were taking advantage of external clouds: “Early experiments in cloud computing” and “Cloud computing to the max“.

The InfoWorld crew also spent a lot of time “playing” in the clouds and they reported back on their experiences. Google App Engine “was best for dynamic Web sites that act as a relatively thin layer of business logic sitting on top of a data store.” Other platforms were tried such as JotForm, FormAssembly, Wufoo, and Zoho Creator. A separate review was done on Coghead and it’s competitor Caspio Bridge.

Then in October, inevitably, Microsoft got into the mix big time with the launch of Azure. A review followed that stated Azure “reveals a thoughtfully designed cloud computing architecture where seasoned .Net developers will feel at home.” Another review was done comparing Amazon, Google, AppNexus, and GoGrid. Then, a much more comprehensive  study looked at Amazon’s offerings and it’s still well worth reading.

Less space was given to reviewing SaaS applications, but there were a couple of articles to look at again: Zoho CRM and a shootout between Microsoft Office and Google Docs and Zoho.

So 2008 was the break-out year for cloud computing. As I’ve written before, we’re entering a perfect storm that should see more adoption, more creativity, and more controversy. Personally, I can’t wait….