Under CIO Vivek Kundra, the federal government has launched Apps.gov, an online marketplace of software where federal agencies can find what they need, sometimes at bargain prices. But behind the scenes, it's made a much bigger bet on cloud computing. It's NASA's Nebula cloud at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.

Google has removed what for many CIOs and IT professionals has been one of the last remaining hurdles to their adoption of Google Apps for business documents, spreadsheets, presentations and probably most importantly: email. Yesterday, the biggest of the cloud-based challengers to Microsoft and IBM-Lotus announced it now has a range of Blackberry-esque mobile device management features (including the ability to remotely wipe a smartphone) for iPhones as well as Windows Mobile and Nokia-based devices.

There is a case of piling on going on right now as it relates to cloud storage. While I agree that the term has been hijacked, stretched and bent by more than a few storage vendors, that does not mean that the whole concept is bad. While the name is as poorly chosen as “social media”, the concept is dead on.

On the cusp of launching its Azure cloud computing service, Microsoft is also making a savvy bid to lock up a patent for one of the main worries--vendor lock-in--of cloud users. (The other big concern is security.) The folks from Redmond have filed a patent application for migrating data to a new cloud, which is what you'd have to do when leave your first vendor.

If you're a cloud computing startup, innovator, or just a developer who is tinkering with that pet cloud project in your "garage" and you're looking for some prime time exposure (including free exhibit space at Cloud Connect), then you should be thinking about putting yourself in the running for Launch Pad at Cloud Connect. I, along with fellow InformationWeek editors John Foley and Fritz Nelson, are among the 10 jury members and you only need know how to work Twitter to get started.

Two weeks ago, HP and Microsoft announced they would jointly spend $250 million to better integrate their hardware and software systems. That's one of the first reactions to Oracle's expected acquisition of Sun Microsystems and its entry into the hardware business. More such alliances are likely to spring out of the ranks of Oracle's competitors.

Ads by Pheedo

As the Cloud Compute and Cloud Storage markets continue to mature, some of those vendors are going to go out of business. It is the natural order of things. The strong (or well funded) survive. You either need to be very sure that the cloud vendor is not going to be one of those that does or you need to make sure you are getting your data out of the cloud on a regular basis.

After carrying-on for many years an on-again, off-again email-only relationship with Free Software Foundation president and founder Richard Stallman (or "Chief GNU-isance" according to the FSF staff), I finally met him today for a face-to-face interview. While the interview was actually for a larger project we're working on here at InformationWeek, we spent a considerable amount of time talking about the issues he wrestles with every day. One of them is GNU and the highly misguided usage of the term Linux to describe what is really GNU/Linux. Stallman, GNU, and the FSF deserve some credit and we (including distributors such as Red Hat and Novell) should all pay it to them.

Had Novell's director of public releations Ian Bruce not responded to my blog post about Google's choice to change Gmail's default transmission mode from the less secure HTTP (Web) to the more secure and encrypted HTTPS (Secure Web), I would have never seen his own blog post on Novell's Web site entitled On Google, e-mail security, and cloud. But I'm glad I saw it. It's evidence of how some vendors might be too quick to throw fuel on the fire of misinformation in order to draw positive attention to themselves.

Cloud storage may end up being the great storage repository in the sky. The destination that holds all our data and gets it off of our local storage. Whether you use this as a fourth tier of storage that your internal archive spills over too or as your sole archive, someday you are going to need to find data in it. Should we be indexing cloud storage to find the needle in the haystack?

InformationWeek readers were the first to learn about Intel’s efforts to pack a data center onto a single chip, via my recent interview with Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner. (See Intel CTO Envisions On-Chip Data Centers.) Now, the chip behemoth has taken things one step further, formally announcing its single-chip cloud research project.

Kudos to the folks at Gmail who, in defaulting to a secure browser setting (as opposed to the previous insecure default) for sending and retrieving email, have decided to help users who may not know enough to help themselves. The new default (see screenshot below) tells the browser to access the Gmail service over HTTPS instead of the prior default, HTTP. This significant shift by Google is a reminder that there's probably more you can do to secure your organization's data and communications.

As the use of cloud storage becomes more prevalent this year one of the key challenges is what data should go to cloud storage, when that data should be moved there and how should that data be moved there?

The U.S. government is increasingly using open source software in its IT infrastructure. Separately, the feds are adopting cloud computing. Those two trends are about to merge, putting federal IT pros on the forefront of what will likely become an industry-wide phenomenon.

Yeah, I know, this is another one of those "everything changes" moments where we're prodded into frenzied activity--as opposed to effective action--because an emerging technology has surged ahead of our ability to properly manage it. I'm talking about cloud computing, and the attendant fears not just of data theft, but of breaches of SaaS computing resources themselves. Fortunately, there are a bunch of below-the-radar efforts attempting to address these worries.

After carrying-on for many years an on-again, off-again email-only relationship with Free Software Foundation president and founder Richard Stallman (or "Chief GNU-isuance" according to the FSF staff), I finally met him today for a face-to-face interview. While the interview was actually for a larger project we're working on here at InformationWeek, we spent a considerable amount of time talking about the issues he wrestles with every day. One of them is GNU and the highly misguided usage of the term Linux to describe what is really GNU/Linux. Stallman, GNU, and the FSF deserve some credit and we (including distributors such as Red Hat and Novell) should all pay it to them.

Much has been recorded about the rise of Salesforce.com and how Marc Benioff's clever marketing brought the company to the forefront. Today, with its stock reaching new highs, I wanted to pay tribute to a giant of cloud computing, Parker Harris, the technology magician behind the marketing who made Benioff's story possible.

In 2010 cloud storage will continue to grow in use but like my other 2010 entries, next year won’t be the “year” of cloud storage. As we discussed in our article “What is Cloud Storage”, people and organizations will use cloud storage differently. What is important is that they will use the architectures they are developing from cloud storage requirements more so than they had previously.

InformationWeek readers were the first to learn about Intel’s efforts to pack a data center onto a single chip, via my recent interview with Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner. (See Intel CTO Envisions On-Chip Data Centers.) Now, the chip behemoth has taken things one step further, formally announcing its single-chip cloud research project.

When data center managers are looking at cloud storage solutions the primary focus is on the monthly cloud storage capacity cost. One of the hidden charges is the transfer or bandwidth costs. This is the cost essentially for the amount of data you access over the cloud. We have seen cases where this cost can be as much or more than the cost of the capacity!