Cloud computing is a potentially cost-efficient model for provisioning processes, applications and services while making IT
management easier and more responsive to the needs of the business. Therefore, it is spreading through the IT world like wildfire,
and more-n-more established vendors trying to reach the customer attention.
In general, cloud service providers fall into three categories:
' software-as-a-service providers;
' infrastructure-as-a-service vendors that offer Web-based access to storage and computing power;
' and platform-as-a-service vendors that give developers the tools to build and host Web applications.
Here are some companies that provide cloud services:
Amazon
Since 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has provided companies of all sizes with an infrastructure web services platform in the
cloud. With AWS consumers can requisition compute power, storage, and other services'gaining access to a suite of elastic IT
infrastructure services as the business demands. The company provides more than six services including the Elastic Compute
Cloud, for computing capacity, and the Simple Storage Service, for on-demand storage capacity.
AWS delivers a number of benefits for IT organizations and developers alike, including:
' Cost-effective: Pay only for what you use.
' Dependable: AWS cloud is distributed, secure and resilient, giving its consumers reliability and massive scale.
' Flexible: consumer can build any application he wants using any platform or any programming model.
' Comprehensive: AWS gives you a number of services you can incorporate into your applications.
Google
The number one search engine offers various cloud based services like, Google Apps that features several Web applications with
similar functionality to traditional office suites, including: Gmail, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs and Sites; Postini, is an Email and Web
security services mostly used by companies who manage their own email servers and would like to filter email before it reaches the
destination mail server; and the Google App Engine, a platform-as-a-service offering that lets developers build applications and host
them on Google's infrastructure.
Google App Engine is free up to a certain level of used resources, after which fees are charged for additional storage, bandwidth, or
CPU cycles required by the application. The services are used by small businesses, enterprises and colleges including Arizona State
University and Northwestern University.
Microsoft
In 2008, the software giant had announced Windows Azure, codenamed 'Red Dog', which is a cloud services operating system that
serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform.
It is currently in Community Technology Preview. Commercial availability for Windows Azure will likely be at the end of calendar year
2009.
Windows Azure is an open platform that will support both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments. Developers can
use their existing Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 expertise to build applications and services on Windows Azure. It supports popular
standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, XML, and PHP. Windows Azure also welcomes third party tools and languages such
as Eclipse, Ruby, PHP, and Python.
At present, software companies like Epicor, S3Edge and Micro Focus are among the early customers using Azure to develop cloud
apps.
Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com provides a set of CRM tools for salesforce automation, analytics, marketing and social networking tools. Besides
CRM tools, it also offers Force.com, which is the fastest and easiest platform to build, buy, and run your business applications.
Delivering the power and flexibility of cloud computing to the enterprise, Force.com Cloud Computing Architecture includes
pay-per-login utility pricing model for the Force.com Platform, and Force.com Development-as-a-Service, a new set of tools and
services that will enable enterprise developers to easily harness the promise of cloud computing for application development.
At present, about fifty-five thousand customers among various industries, which include financial services, communications and
media, energy, healthcare and retail using the services.
AT&T
Last year, the largest carrier in the U.S. announced its first cloud computing service, called as Synaptic Hosting, an application
hosting service that offers pay-as-you-go access to virtual servers and storage integrated with security and networking functions.
The service is made up primarily of technology AT&T got when it acquired application hosting specialist USinternetworking (USi) for
$300 million in September 2006, and AT&T's networking services. The service is powering major Web properties such as the official
Web site of the U.S. Olympic Committee.
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