Cloud Computing Strategies for the CIO
Old schoolers rejoice: FTP to your cloud
New Swiss cloud provider Cloud Sigma has unveiled a new service feature than some will rejoice in and others will pooh-pooh as obsolete: FTP to your cloud.
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File Transfer Protocol (FTP), the origins of which date back to the time of the dinosaurs, can be used to move and launch KVM-compatible virtual images directly on Cloud Sigma's cloud, according to the company.
That will be nice for some, since FTP is built into everything, but worrisome to others, since FTP has security holes you could drive a virtual truck through if not implemented properly. Cloud Sigma is new on the provider scene, a little pricey compared to Rackspace and Amazon Web Services (AWS), but it does have many pleasant marketing slogans like "100% service-level agreements with 50 times the credit" and "unique 256-bit AES-XTS key" that may interest some.
If FTP in the cloud is a success, AWS is expected to immediately copy the feature and release a beta version by Tuesday.
Microsoft snags big names for cloud services
Microsoft announced today that Dow Chemical, Hyatt Hotels and the University of Georgia have all decided to go with its Microsoft Online hosted email and portal software. Hyatt chose Microsoft over competitors IBM and Google because the company's cloud computing technologies are more stable, with regularly scheduled updates -- unlike Google's constant innovations, said Mike Blake, CIO of the hotel chain. Blake was also won over by Microsoft's email services, which Hyatt plans to offer not only to its computer-savvy workers, but also employees like housekeepers and porters.
Familiarity built on many years dominating the operating system market has helped Microsoft win this battle with Google. A representative from Dow Chemical said the company made the switch from Exchange servers to hosted exchange, in part, because most of its employees were already used to working with the components of Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite, such as Outlook and Live Meeting. Both Hyatt and Dow plan to complete the migration early next year.
While it has lost a battle here, Google's cloud war with Microsoft continues. The search engine leader has stumbled recently over security concerns. Dow executive David Day said his company did not even consider Google (or other public cloud options) because of security and privacy concerns. This comes after a week of mixed news. On July 23, Google ran into trouble with its Los Angeles "government cloud" deal over security problems. Four days later, the company earned a government security certification for its Google Apps suite.
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