Cloudup 8-12-2011
If you’re an ISV, you should strongly consider becoming a Force.com partner and building your cloud application or business on their platform. “Force.com’s applicability has as much to do with your company’s goals and circumstances as with the application or technology you want to build.” Moreover, working your relationship with salesforce.com, a credible cloud provider, could prove to be an advantage for your business. Force.com is on its way to becoming the cloud platform of choice, and ISV’s could take advantage of this opportunity to grow on the platform too.
This article is interesting because it shows that cloud computing is helping in a non conventional way- to help fight counterfeit drugs and save lives. According to International Policy Network, counterfeit and stolen drugs claim 700,000 lives every year, and mPedigree is taking steps to stop this. They’ve teamed up with pharmaceutical companies and HP to “offer a way for patients to check the authenticity of their medicines free of charge, with a basic mobile phone.” Basically, the user can text the drug’s code found on the packaging to a designated number, which then is checked against a database stored securely in the cloud to determine if it is real or counterfeit. The patient can then report the fake drugs by calling a phone number. As the article states, “rest assured that the great minds of cloud will continue to leverage technology to solve the toughest challenges and make the world a better place.”
Earlier this week, lightning struck Ireland’s EC2 and knocked out Amazon’s servers for up to two days. Even though Amazon had a backup in place, the explosion and fire harmed the backup generator plant as well. What is unfortunate about this event is that, like last time Amazon had an outage, Amazon’s customers have been complaining about insufficient information regarding the incident and when it will recover. Unfortunately, you think they would have learned from the last outage earlier this year in the US, but apprently Dublin did not get the memo.
EbizQ is hosting a strong discussion around the question, “What do companies still not get about cloud computing?” Some contributers think that companies genuinely don’t “get” what it is, while others are just worried about the risks involved- safety, security, and access. What is interesting though is that even the companies that do not “get” the cloud are still probably using it. Even Gmail counts as a cloud system, where you can access your email from any device as long as there is an internet connection. More companies are probably using the cloud than they think, but are just now on their way to understanding what it is and how much it can benefit them. Please contribute your thoughts to the link below.
In order to cut costs, police in the UK are considering a switch to cloud computing. Their main setback is safety and security of their data. The Metropolitan Police is planning on using the cloud for a variety of systems: “managing patrols, operations, incidents and investigations, managing evidence and forensics, and collating information- in the cloud.” As we all know, the cloud is just as safe and secure as any other service, and oftentimes more reliable. If the UK police join the cloud, this will be yet another step towards growth, and hopefully catch the eye of more possible users.
