'''Pros and cons of cloud computing'''
[[Image:pros n cons.jpg|thumb|center|500px|[http://blogs.znet.com/Hinchcliffe Source: blogs.znet.com]]]
==Cloud computing comparison of different vendors==
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|align = "center"|
|align = "center"|'''Amazon.com Inc.'''
|align = "center"|'''GoGrid (ServePath LLC)'''
|align = "center"|'''Google'''
|align = "center"|'''Joyent Inc.'''
|align = "center"|'''Layered Technologies Inc. (3tera Inc. Partner)'''
|align = "center"|'''Mosso (Rackspace US Inc.)'''
|align = "center"|'''Terremark Worldwide Inc.'''
|align = "center"|'''Xcalibre Communications Ltd.'''
|-
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|'''Offerings'''
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) plus S3 (Simple Storage Service)
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|GoGrid
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|Google App Engine
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|Accelerator
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|GridLayer
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|The Hosting Cloud
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|Enterprise Cloud
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"| FlexiScale
|-
|align = "center"|'''Provider<nowiki>’</nowiki>s Infrastructure'''
|Runs on Amazon.com<nowiki>’</nowiki>s infrastructure. Each availability zone runs on its own physically distinct, independent infrastructure and is engineered to be highly reliable
|GoGrid uses the ServePath network, including OC‐12 and GB connections from UUNet, Level 3 Communications Inc., NTT Communications/Verio Inc. and AboveNet Inc
|Google<nowiki>’</nowiki>s infrastructure
|AMD Opteron x64 multicore servers with 4GB RAM per core. Joyent operates two carriergrade datacenters
|Uses other providers<nowiki>’</nowiki> networks, including SAVVIS Inc.<nowiki>’</nowiki>s backbone IP network, which is based on Juniper core routers and Cisco Communications Inc. carrier‐class equipment and has OC‐48/OC‐192 backbone trunks; the DataBank IP network. Runs 3tera<nowiki>’</nowiki>s AppLogic grid OS
|Built on Rackspace<nowiki>’</nowiki>s Superstructure, including its T1, SAS70‐certified datacenters
|Powered by Terremark<nowiki>’</nowiki>s Infinistructure utility‐computing platform and runs on the multinational hosting provider<nowiki>’</nowiki>s network; includes plug‐and‐play access to 160 glob carriers
|High‐end x86‐based servers, high‐speed multi‐GB network, high‐end storage back end
|-
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|'''Provider<nowiki>’</nowiki>s Data‐Storage System'''
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Amazon S3 Web service
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Storage is part of the server image; vendor plans to offer additional storage options
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Persistent storage with queries, sorting and transactions
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Sun Microsystems Sun Fire X4500 NAS storage
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Storage is built into the Grid; data is stored on multiple hard drives across multiple machines for redundancy
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Uses network‐attached storage devices
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Undisclosed
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Persistent storage based on a fully virtualized SAN/NAS back end
|-
|align = "center"|'''Supported Operating Systems'''
|Linux
|Linux, Microsoft Windows, CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise
|Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X
|OpenSolaris
|Linux and Solaris; plans to support Windows
|Linux and Microsoft Windows
|Linux, Microsoft Windows and Solaris
|Linux and Microsoft Windows
|-
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|'''Supported Languages'''
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Linux and Red Hat Enterprise
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Java, .NET, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails and most shell‐scripting languages
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Python
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Java, PHP, Python and Ruby on Rails
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Grid nodes will run any software that runs on a normal dedicated compute
|bgcolor = "#000000"|.NET, Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby on Rails
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Undisclosed
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Linux and Microsoft Windows
|-
|align = "center"|'''Supported Applications/'''<br>'''Framework'''
|MySQL Enterprise and OpenSolaris
|Apache, Facebook applications, IIS, MySQL Enterprise, PostgreSQL and Windows Serve
|Django. Services include URL Fetch, Memcache and image manipulation
|Ruby on Rails
|Apache, Jboss, MySQL Enterprise; anything that runs under a supported OS
|Apache, Microsoft SQL and MySQL Enterprise
|Undisclosed
|Through partnership with CohesvieFT, customers can access a large number of preconfigured application stacks
|-
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|'''Scalability'''
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Limited to 20 virtual computer instances during beta period; additional instances are allowed
|bgcolor = "#000000"|No limits on scalability
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Up to 5 million page views per month with preview release
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Contact vendor
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Up to 43 nodes. Bandwidth, RAM and CPU are changed on‐the‐fly. Process can be resized<br>(2 minutes per 1GB of data)
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Unlimited. Current users are pushing hundreds of millions of requests on single domains
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Undisclosed
|bgcolor = "#000000"|5 VDSes (Virtual Dedicated Servers) per account; more machines are available on request
|-
|align = "center"|'''Security'''
|Provides Web‐service interfaces to configure firewall settings that control network access to and between groups of instances
|Provided via ServePath<nowiki>’</nowiki>s secure infrastructure and telecom facility
|Service runs on Google<nowiki>’</nowiki>s secure infrastructure. App Engine provides a secure sandbox environment
|Spam protection; advanced traffic security, SSL acceleration and Advanced DNS available as add‐ons
|All grid nodes are locked down to maintain access only when firewalls and other security features are put in place. Also, a front‐end DDoS (distributed denial of service) mitigation service is available
|Enterprise firewalls; email accounts include anti‐virus and spam protection. SSL capabilities available as an add‐on service
|Infrastructure is SAS 70 Type II certified. Network includes Integrated firewalls and private VLAN architecture; connections to the Infinicenter management console are secured by SSL
|Each customer has a VLAN; VDSes are separated by a Xen implementation; and customer data is stored in a T1 storage back end
|-
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|'''Virtualization Technology'''
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Xen
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Xen
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Undisclosed
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Solaris Zones
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Based on 3tera AppLogic
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Undisclosed
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Undisclosed
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Xen
|-
|align = "center"|'''Redundancy Features'''
| Ability to place server instances in multiple locations and elastic IP addresses
|RAID servers; plans to offer server snapshots and cloning
|Fault‐tolerant servers
| Undisclosed
|Backup and snapshot feature for customer<nowiki>’</nowiki>s data
|Clusters
|Automated resource balancing for monitoring and optimization
|A failed server is automatically removed from the cluster; VDSes running on it are automatically and transparently restarted on other servers
|-
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|'''Load Balancing'''
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Undisclosed
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Yes; F5 Network BigIP load balancers.
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Yes
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Yes; F5 Network BigIP load balancers
|bgcolor = "#000000"|No. Customers can set up their own load balancing
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Yes; load‐balancing layer includes logic for multiple IP addresses for each customer site
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Undisclosed
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Yes; as optional add‐on
|-
|align = "center"|'''Control Panel'''
|Web‐service interface
|Yes; proprietary multiserver hosting control panel lets you manage servers and scale Web applications and networks
|Proprietary, the Administration Console
|Undisclosed
|all servers, storage, applications and users are managed from a single, browser‐based management console
|Proprietary to Mosso
|Infinicenter console for deploying, configuring and managing server and network infrastructure
|Yes; API (application programming interface) also available. Control panel includes usage‐tracking tool
|-
|align = "center" bgcolor = "#000000"|'''Development Tools'''
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Command‐line tools for building AMIs
|bgcolor = "#000000"|No, not necessary; plans to release public API with the same control as the Web interface
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Python runtime environment,
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Sandbox accelerators, central development and deployment, version control, unit test site and staging site available as add‐ons
|bgcolor = "#000000"|AppLogic has a scriptable command‐line interface for provisioning and scaling applications
|bgcolor = "#000000"|None
|bgcolor = "#000000"|Undisclosed
|bgcolor = "#000000"|No
|-
|align = "center"|'''Additional Cloud‐Storage Service'''
|Included in cloud service
|No
|Datastore, a distributed data‐storage service
|Additional storage available for $.15 per GiB
|DynaVol; ranges from $15/month to $1,300/month
| Limited; CloudFS is in private beta
|No
|No
|-
|}
==Technical overview==