Cloud computing is growing in popularity, thanks in large part to the availability of Web-based services that take some of the pain out of IT.
But when things break, it isn't always easy to know why: Is the problem in the application or in the cloud?
Hyperic, a San Francisco-based company specializing in Web management tools, has one answer. It's launching a new service, called CloudStatus, that reports on the health and performance of Amazon Web Services.
The free service, in beta testing now, works with Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud, Simple Storage Service, SimpleDB, Simple Queue Service, and Flexible Payment Service.
The company says that CloudStatus will report on service availability, latency, and data throughput.
Hyperic says it plans to add the capability to monitor other cloud computing services later this summer.