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Amazon Beefs Up Its Cloud Ahead of MS Announcement

Posted by kdawson on from the hey-you-get-offa-my dept.

Amazon has announced several major improvements to its EC2 service for cloud computing. The service is now in production (no longer beta); it offers a service-level agreement; and Windows and SQL Server are available in beta form. ZDNet points out that all this news is intended to take some wind out of Microsoft's sails as MS is expected to introduce its own cloud services next week at its Professional Developers Conference.

3 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. The good news... by tomtomtom777 · · Score: 3, Informative

    As seen here:

    For normal instances, Windows is 25% more expensive then Linux/UNIX, and for high CPU instances 50% it is 50% more expensive.

    Desktop-computer sellers should learn something from that...

  2. Re:What is it? by nametaken · · Score: 3, Informative

    The use of internet services for tasks that are typically handled locally. There are a number of good and bad reasons to utilize these services. The big benefits are accessibility, zero maintenance and the security of a large infrastructure you couldn't provide yourself.

    In the case of Amazon, they offer processing time, storage, and a few other things.

    In the case of Google, you've got Apps... including your collaborative email/calendaring/document sharing services.

    In the case of Salesforce, NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, et al, you've got CRM, Accounting, Inventory, etc.

  3. Re:What is it? by FredFredrickson · · Score: 5, Informative

    To expand on this, because now you've made me research this, basically cloud computing refers to hosting business applications remotely- typically, but not neccessarily, on multiple servers. (Such as an application server, a sql server, and so on)

    "But I already have my business software hosted on an application server, and it utilizes a seperate SQL server... how is this any different?"

    Is it stored somewhere offsite, say, by a hosting company?

    "Why, yes.."

    Then welcome to the cloud computing club!

    But I've been doing this since the late 90s, I'm confused, what's changed?

    Nothing at all. It's just like podcasts and web 2.0, another useless name for downloading audio files and websites that are more clever than before.

    So basically, the only difference between remote hosting and cloud computing is whether or not you understand what's underneath the hood. If you're not sure how it works, but it just does, it's called "the cloud" otherwise, the rest of us call it "Shared hosting," "VPS," "Colocated," or "Dedicated" offsite hosting.

    It's kinda like using the word magic instead of the word science. Makes people feel better.

    --
    Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex