Introducing the key cloud computing platforms

Those who develop for, or deploy applications on, cloud computing resources both public and private may have to make a decision on which specific cloud computing platform to use. The wrong choice could negatively impact everyone involved, so it's important to look at the choices carefully and consider short- and long-term issues in your decision.

Here are the key cloud architectures available today:

• Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud, or EC2, is probably the most generalized and best-known of the cloud computing service offerings.
• IBM Computing on Demand or Blue Cloud is a highly enterprise-focused cloud computing offering that, because it is related to and built with the same technology sold to enterprises, can cross over between public and private cloud applications.
• Microsoft's Azure cloud computing, based on Microsoft Vista and .NET technology, includes both cloud computing and cloud-hosted extension services. It also supports public and private cloud computing plans.
• Sun Cloud, like IBM's offering, is available both in public and private cloud forms. Since Oracle is acquiring Sun, this offering may change over time.
• Salesforce.com's Force.com cloud is easily integrated with Salesforce.com's application tools.
• Google's AppEngine cloud offering is targeted particularly to web developers and web hosting applications.

In addition, ...