Cloud computing is Internet (“cloud”) based development and use of computer technology. It is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them

The concept incorporates infrastructure as as service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) as well as Web 2.0 and other recent (ca. 2007–2009) technology trends that have the common theme of reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users. Examples of SaaS vendors include Salesforce.com and Google Apps which provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams, and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.

Cloud computing is often confused with grid computing (“a form of distributed computing whereby a ‘super and virtual computer’ is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely-coupled computers, acting in concert to perform very large tasks”), utility computing (the “packaging of computing resources, such as computation and storage, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility such as electricity”) and autonomic computing (“computer systems capable of self-management”).

Indeed many cloud computing deployments as of 2009^[update] depend on grids, have autonomic characteristics and bill like utilities — but cloud computing can be seen as a natural next step from the grid-utility model Some successful cloud architectures have little or no centralised infrastructure or billing systems whatsoever, including peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent, Skype, and volunteer computing like SETI@Home.

Architecture

The majority of cloud computing infrastructure as of 2009^[update] consists of reliable services delivered through data centers and built on servers with different levels of virtualisation technologies. The services are accessible anywhere that has access to networking infrastructure. The Cloud appears as a single point of access for all the computing needs of consumers. Commercial offerings need to meet the quality of service requirements of customers and typically offer service level agreements. Open standards are critical to the growth of cloud computing and open source software has provided the foundation for many cloud computing implementations.

Characteristics

As customers generally do not own the infrastructure, they merely access or rent, they can avoid capital expenditure and consume resources as a service, paying instead for what they use. Many cloud-computing offerings have adopted the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utilities like electricity are consumed, while others are billed on a subscription basis. Sharing “perishable and intangible” computing power among multiple tenants can improve utilization rates, as servers are not left idle, which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development. A side effect of this approach is that “computer capacity rises dramatically” as customers do not have to engineer for peak loads. Adoption has been enabled by “increased high-speed bandwidth” which makes it possible to receive the same response times from centralized infrastructure at other sites.

Cloud Hosting and Gridservers are the new Buzz word for the online community. The main feature are total fail save servers with 100% uptime and total redundancy

As such VERSION-NEXT  is looking into to be the first Cloud Hosting and Grid Server provider for the Australian Market, See below what the buzz is all about

		• Run existing apps • Scale on-demand • High-availability • Self-serve interface • Metered billing • Actionable SLAs • Easy multi-tenancy
Utility Computing Utility computing is the future of our industry. The promise of being able to provision resources dynamically, pay as you go for what you actually use, and recover automatically from hardware failures have captured imaginations. For SaaS providers, utility computing means the ability to get to the market quicker, with lower capital expense. As demand increases, resources should be added incrmentally, without the need for major architecture changes. Unfortunately, utility computing has been limited to technical computing, financing schemes and managed services. AppLogic Grid OS AppLogic enables true utility computing for the first time. The AppLogic grid operating system makes it possible to remotely manage not only software, but also the infrastructure required for modern applications by running them on grids of commodity servers. AppLogic is specifically targeted to enable hosting providers to offer utility computing using the hardware and staff they already have. From simple control panels to complex N-tier applications and Internet-scale Web 2.0 services, AppLogic enables self-serve operations, including provisioning, management and scaling of applications.	A New Architecture AppLogic runs existing Web application on grids of commodity servers. No SAN, blade servers, firewalls, load balancers or other expensive hardware is required. Disposable Infrastructure AppLogic turns deployment upside-down. It replaces the complex layers of hardware and software infrastructure with “disposable infrastructure” that is assembled visually using a browser and then embedded into the application. When the application is started, the system manufactures and assembles its disposable infrastructure on the grid. Each infrastructure component runs its own copy of Linux or Windows. Using advanced virtualization, AppLogic ensures compatibility with existing OS and middleware, allowing billions of lines of code to be used unaltered. On-demand Scaling Disposable infrastructure makes applications self-contained and portable, enabling AppLogic to instantiate and scale them on demand as well as migrate them from one grid to another. This makes applications remarkably easy to manage. A single command can copy, configure, start, stop, export, backup or even migrate an entire application to another grid.	New Services Universal high-availability Building highly available applications has always been difficult. AppLogic provides affordable high-availability to all applications. With AppLogic, all storage is mirrored across the grid. Should a server fail, all data remains available, and affected application components are restarted automatically on the grid. Metered Usage AppLogic allows subscribers to chose how much CPU, memory and bandwidth to give applications at runtime. Resource usage is metered throughout the grid, including subscriber, application and component using each resource and the data is saved for billing. The resulting database can easily be integrated with existing subscriber management systems to provide metered billing. Service Level Agreements Dynamic resource assignment also makes it possible to offer fully actionable SLAs with AppLogic. Instead of simply reporting that performance isn’t meeting the objectives, AppLogic provides a simple means of actually adding resources to the application to improve performance.

To see an example of the 3Tera Cloud Hosting control panel click the image below

3TERA Cloud control panel with Firewall , Load Balancer , muliple Web Servers , redundant Data Base and NAS

Added Security Services Provide Peace of Mind for cPanel Customers

cPanel Inc., a leader in web host automation technology, has partnered with Internet security auditor ScanAlert to provide HACKER SAFE® certification and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) validation services to its web hosting clients, and their ecommerce merchants.

ScanAlert will initially provide free services to validate ecommerce merchants to the PCI DSS as well as discounted services to certify websites to the HACKER SAFE standard. The companies’ engineering teams have also started working on phase two, the integration of ScanAlert’s security auditing technology into cPanel’s web hosting and server control and automation software suite.
According to cPanel’s Operations Manager, the partnership is a great opportunity to provide more security and peace of mind to cPanel’s clients and their customers.

“cPanel has always been driven by innovation and market demand, and this partnership illustrates yet again our responsiveness to customer demand,” said Mr. Koston. “ScanAlert will provide the webhosting community with sophisticated tools merchants need to safely and effectively succeed online in an ever-changing and dangerous landscape.”

“We are very familiar with the high quality of cPanel’s service offerings through personal experience in the hosting industry, and are delighted to deliver our security services to their clients,” said ScanAlert’s Director of Channel Sales, Michael Ayers. “HACKER SAFE is a natural addition to cPanel’s outstanding services, and a proven solution to help end-user merchants become more secure and sell more online.”

ScanAlert’s PCI DSS Validation Service
ScanAlert’s PCI DSS Service provides everything ecommerce merchants need to be validated to the PCI DSS standard, including:

• Unlimited security scans of up to 6 domain names or IP addresses
• Interactive self-assessment questionnaire
• Full vulnerability remediation support from CISSP certified security specialists
• Unlimited telephone/email technical support

About HACKER SAFE
Using its patent pending technology, ScanAlert conducts daily security audits to certify clients to the HACKER SAFE standard. Websites meeting the standard can then promote their certified security to site visitors by placing the HACKER SAFE certification trustmark on their sites. As long as the standard is met, ScanAlert continues to serve a date-stamped image from its network to the site.

Availability and Pricing
cPanel customers, whether direct license holders or licensees through a hosting company or data center, that are interested in ScanAlert’s PCI DSS and HACKER SAFE certification services should contact cPanel directly at 570-443-7700 for details on availability, pricing and sign-up procedures.

About ScanAlert
ScanAlert secures organizations of all sizes against threats to their network infrastructure and then certifies them to the HACKER SAFE standard — the world’s Internet security benchmark. Offered as a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, HACKER SAFE certification is used by more than 75,000 organizations, including ESPN, The American Red Cross, Toshiba, Warner Brothers, and well over half of the 500 largest online retailers in the USA. ScanAlert also operates HACKER SAFE Labs, the industry’s only research group focused on ecommerce application security. More information is available at www.scanalert.com.

About cPanel
cPanel is a leading Web Hosting Control Panel Software provider supplying hosting automation tools to numerous data centers and customers all around the world. cPanel offers web hosting software that automates the intricate workings of web hosting servers. cPanel products are used on tens of thousands of servers worldwide to equip server administrators with the tools they need to provide top notch hosting to their customers.

IT’S BECOME obvious that FrontPage is going to be quietly dropped from the Beast of Redmond’s regular user orientated offerings – only to be replaced by professional design tools. Blogging sites are replacing personal Web sites for the average PC user.
Originally a classic part of Microsoft’s Office suite, FrontPage’s role will be taken care of by two new products – Expression Web and Sharepoint Designer. Both are blatantly aimed at “the professional Web designer” rather than ordinary PC users.

According to FrontPage’s own home page, “After nine years of being an award-winning Web authoring tool, FrontPage will be discontinued in late 2006.”

The news leaked out when an irate ISP support engineer told an INQ reader, “Microsoft has since decommissioned and no longer supports FrontPage.”

He added, “Microsoft has not supported FrontPage Extensions on Linux hosting accounts since 2002.” His suggestion was to “recommend no longer using FrontPage and utilising FTP software to upload your website.”

The INQ checked with Microsoft which merely pointed out that, officially, ‘mainstream’ support for FrontPage 2003 won’t expire until January 2009 and ‘extended’ support won’t expire until January 2014.

But the point is – where does this leave those users who created sophisticated web sites using FrontPage extensions? The number of ISPs willing to offer support for such extensions appears to be dropping at an alarming rate.

Microsoft itself said: “We are planning on providing a range of resources to assist FrontPage users with migrating their legacy sites to fully conform to new standards.”

In the meantime, existing users can only take advantage of migration tools such as one offered by Adobe to work with its Dreamweaver package.

The majority of other FrontPage migration tools appear to be designed merely to help users migrate their personal web sites to blogging sites. Sophisticated Frontpage ‘Webots’ will be lost.

There’s obviously a gap emerging for a simple HTML creation package which doesn’t require hours of online tutorials to learn how to use.