Cloud Computing Digest

Busy news week, so prepare for some rapid fire items.

My first link is to an editorial on Toolbox.com about transforming the enterprise for cloud. What I like about this article is that its recommend they in for opportunities instead of just hoping that bringing something new in will make things better.

Microsoft fired a major volley in their battle with Google over office productivity with the announcement of Office 2013. The newest version is fully cloud enables and rumors are that since it can be streamed to a workstation, that we may see the ability to buy a “subscription” card similar to Xbox Live point cards that can be used to download the newest Office suite. And according to CNet’s Don Reisinger, this is only part of a strategy to stop the defection to Google Apps.

As if this wasn’t enough, Microsoft has also offered up a beta/preview of their Windows Azure Service Bus product for on-premises deployment and a new app model for Office 365. And if that wasn’t enough, they announced an option that will allow hosting providers to host their own version Windows Azure. It seems like initial this is a flavor of Windows Azure Web Sites, but can the rest be too far behind?

I found a great article on lesson’s learned by Dropbox from Rajiv Eranki. This insight into how they went from 4,000 to 40,000,000 users is incredible! Not only does he explain some great practices, but also some of the technology they use. If you’re looking to build a scalable system, be sure to read this post.

Ben Kepes is back this week with an article on preparing developers for the cloud future. I often joke about the next generation of COBOL programmers (keep in mind I’ve written my share). It looks like Ben shares my sentiment.

And if you’re in the mood or listen rather than read, I found a panel recording from QCon London 2012 discussing what cloud architectures could look like in years. We could be in for a really wild ride!

And I’ll close out this edition with something I rarely include here. Humor. The Onion, the satirical news site, discusses HP doing ‘that cloud thing’. Reportedly, the engineers at HP find it pretty funny as well. J So enjoy.

Until next time!