- Azure Services Platform is a Microsoft application built ‘in the cloud.’ It allows applications to be hosted and run at Microsoft datacenters. It provides a cloud operating system called Windows Azure that serves as a runtime for the applications and provides a set of services that allows development, management and hosting of applications off-premises. All Azure Services and applications built using them run on top of Windows Azure.
- BPOS is a range of Microsoft products that work and integrate well in the cloud. BPOS stands for Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS) and consists of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online and Office Live Meeting. Taken together, all four products are a great way to integrate your business in the cloud with proven technology. Many cloud service providers specialize in these products, such as Nimbo (www.nimbo.com).
- The future of the cloud. The intercloud is an interconnected global “cloud of clouds” and an extension of the Internet “network of networks” on which it is based. The term was first used in the context of cloud computing in 2007 when Kevin Kelly opined that “eventually we’ll have the intercloud, the cloud of clouds. This Intercloud will have the dimensions of one machine comprising all servers and attendant cloudbooks on the planet.” It became popular in 2009 and has also been used to describe the datacenter of the future.
What might the intercloud look like?
The Intercloud scenario is based on the idea that individual clouds do not have infinitive physical resources. If a cloud saturates the storage resources of its virtualization infrastructure, it could not be able to satisfy further requests for service allocations from clients. The Intercloud aims to address this situation – here, each cloud can use the computational and storage resources of the virtualization infrastructures of other clouds. Such form of pay-for-use introduces new business opportunities for cloud providers. Nevertheless, the Intercloud raises many challenges concerning cloud federation, security, interoperability, QoS, monitoring and billing.
For more information about how to integrate your business in the cloud, please contact Nimbo at info@Nimbo.com or visit the website at www.Nimbo.com.
- John Shaw