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The debate over private clouds will likely continue in the foreseeable future as public-cloud usage becomes more acceptable in the enterprise, and private-cloud vendors offer more solutions-oriented approaches to create cloud-like infrastructure.

And it's only getting more confusing as the cloud term has effectively lost any specific meaning and is thrown around in relation to everything from Internet-based storage to grid computing.

To the extent that cloud offerings can be categorized for ease of discussion, I like RedMonk analyst Michael Cote's explanation. (He also uses a burger metaphor in describing these layers.)

Most vendors focused on private clouds are targeting the IaaS layer, which for ease of discussion is similar to Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2. And while EC2 sets the tone for how most people think about clouds, it lacks (and maybe doesn't require?) the same kind of tooling enterprises need to manage their complete infrastructure.

Tooling and management is arguably the most important aspect for enterprise private clouds to be successful but may also be the most difficult to get right.

But tools may also be where the money is. And considering the cloud has yet to rain down the cash we all hope for, it seems like it's time to reset thinking a bit and focus more on enabling applications and infrastructure to make it appear more cloud-like rather than focusing on specifically making clouds. (Note: see my blog colleague James Urquhart's excellent series on DevOps to learn more about what happens after you have a cloud deployment.)

In terms of private-cloud software, its becoming less clear that enterprises want to run their own version of EC2, but perhaps that they want to make their existing infrastructure behave the same way--that is, allow for APIs and such to turn up VMs with a variety of images that are relevant to their organization.

And, perhaps more interestingly, I've recently heard from several enterprises that they are interested in programming-language and/or application-specific private clouds for Java application or other infrastructure like internal content management tools that require variability in their scaling. … Read more

Open-source cloud vendor Eucalyptus is rumored to be raising venture money at a $100 million valuation. Meanwhile, an Under The Radar conference dubbed "Commercializing the Cloud" is set for mid-April at which a host of new start-ups will talk about how they're set to shake the clouds free of billions of dollars in sales.

It can't come soon enough. For all the talk about cloud computing, the business of cloud computing is still in its infancy.

When will it grow up?

There's no shortage of exceptionally cool cloud technology. The most recent company to get … Read more

One of the more notable moments at CES this year for me wasn't a flashy new notebook announcement or a weird concept device demonstration. It was a quiet reveal at the Acer/Gateway suite of the upcoming Gateway EC14D, an 11.6-inch dual-core ULV mininotebook that has a DVD drive. It's a big deal, for several reasons.

Many readers have written in regarding laptop purchases they'd like to make, and it seems that the capability to play DVDs still ranks high on many lists. A laptop is often an entertainment purchase, and DVDs are still more widespread … Read more

Hewlett-Packard has certainly benefited from the uncertainty over Sun Microsystems' future, and now it's lined up a few partners to help win over more Sun customers.

In light of Oracle's failure thus far to seal its takeover of Sun, HP announced on Tuesday that it has teamed up with Microsoft, Novell, and Red Hat to offer further incentives to Sun customers.

HP reported that during the 12 months ending October 31, it scooped up more than 350 customers from Sun with offers of specialized services and support, and financial incentives through its HP Complete Care program. Now, the … Read more

Amazon.com is opening up its Virtual Private Cloud to all users of its EC2 cloud-computing services as part of a public beta launched Monday.

The full beta of Virtual Private Cloud follows a limited public test that began in August. At the time of that launch, Amazon said virtual private clouds were the most popular feature request from enterprise customers.

VPC is an enterprise-oriented feature that allows users to connect to Amazon's cloud-computing services via an IPsec virtual private network (VPN) link. The feature builds on other Amazon enterprise-friendly cloud efforts introduced over the past two years, such … Read more

As reported on CNET, Amazon Web Services has announced a new pricing option that lets its customers take advantage of spare capacity within the EC2 infrastructure at variable, supply-and-demand-driven pricing.

The news has taken the cloud community by storm. For some, it represents the beginning of a long-anticipated move to market pricing for core IT infrastructure services.

While there is some truth to the importance of AWS spot pricing to the history of cloud computing, let's keep things in perspective: this pricing is set by Amazon, not any market. We are a long way from a true commodity market … Read more

Amazon on Monday rolled out spot pricing for cloud computing so customers can buy capacity at any price on the open market.

The concept is an interesting one since Amazon Web Services is making computing capacity available on the market just like any other commodity (see Amazon statement, Werner Vogels, and Amazon Web Services blog).

Dubbed Spot Instances, Amazon customers can bid on unused Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) capacity and run those instances as long as their bid exceeds the spot price. The rub is that you can be outbid.

Read more of "Amazon creates cloud computing spot market … Read more

The folks who run Amazon's EC2 cloud service must be happy the week is nearly over.

The cloud-based EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) was kept jumping this past week by two incidents: a compromised internal service that triggered a botnet, and a data center power failure in Virginia.

On Wednesday, security researchers for CA found that a variant of the infamous password-stealing Zeus banking Trojan had infected client computers after hackers were able to compromise a site on EC2 and use it as their own C&C (command and control) operation.

Don DeBolt, Director of Threat Research for CA Internet Security Business Unit, told CNET that the botnet first came to light while his firm was reviewing spam and found one with a URL for a piece of malware called xmas2.exe, described in a blog. After examining the file, DeBolt discovered it was a variant of the Zeus bot that was calling home to a computer inside Amazon Web Services, which houses EC2.

As a keylogger, Zeus is known to specifically capture bank account information, noted DeBolt, and was trying to perform the same crime in this case. The bot was also attempting to report the IP addresses of any clients that were infected via spam. The cybercrooks reportedly snuck their way into EC2 by gaining access through a site hosted on Amazon's service.

Once the bot was discovered, DeBolt and his team contacted Amazon to provide all the information from their client-based analysis. Since then, the files that were serving up the botnet on Amazon's side are no longer active.… Read more

Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes and telecommunications commissioner Viviane Reding will take on new duties under a European Commission lineup announced Friday.

Kroes is designated as the digital agenda commissioner, with oversight of the European Network and Information Security Agency (Enisa) and the Information Society Directorate General, which supports IT activities. As such, she is responsible for increasing online access to content and for the digital economy. She has also been named a vice president of the European College, the group of all the commissioners.

At the start of her five years as competition commissioner, Kroes handled the EU's antitrust … Read more