I am trying to understand the space, and would welcome answers about:
- data centers
- applications
- services
- other issues

Many thanks
Karthik

Karthik,

Issue: There is currently a huge void within the Cloud Computing "clouds" and the end customers that will consume their services. It's the "on ramp" or "on boarding" process for the customer to get to the "cloud". The normal course of events for nearly every API ever published, is publish the API and some documentation and tell the customer "here ya go".

Then the API provider sits back and wonders why is taking so long for the customer to make a connection, and then when a "connection" is finally established using the API the vendor starts to get lots of service calls because performance is terrible, when the calls get escalated to development, the answer is "no wonder, look at what they are doing, why on earth would anyone do that, of course it's going to be slow". So, API/SDK version 2 appears, with more controls, better documentation, etc. and the cycle continues.

Cloud computing is no different, accessibility is the key to mass adopt-ability and more efficient usage, which means repeat usage and customers.

And I always like to point out, that most things worth doing are not necessarily "easy".

So the void is who will build the "easiest" on ramps to the "clouds" compute, storage or other and continually improve "accessibility".

Good Luck,
Peter
April 2009