A recent study shows that the awareness of cloud computing in Asia is still relatively low at 46%.  That means over half of the survey respondents answered that they were not familiar with the concept of cloud computing.  This sound to me like half of Asia has never even heard of cloud computing!

So what does that mean for the market of cloud computing?  There is room for a lot of global growth.  While currently over two-thirds of the respondents say that cloud computing is "not relevant" to their businesses, I have a feeling that as the benefits of virtualization and cloud computing become more apparent, those thoughts will change, especially in a country where 95% of organizations are aware of or using Software as a Service.

“Cloud computing is the next phase in the delivery and consumption of IT-enabled services and a major evolutionary step in the maturing of the IT industry,” said Michael Barnes, vice president.. “It provides an opportunity for organisations in Asia Pacific to leapfrog competitors in other regions. We expect organisations across Asia Pacific to embrace Cloud Computing as a way to drive greater standardisation at the IT infrastructure level while simultaneously lowering the resources required to leverage technology solutions for business benefits,” Barnes added.

 Wednesday, Intel demonstrated an experimental processor that applies the principles of cloud computing.  Intel was involved with the launch of BlueLock vCloud Express back in September, so we're excited to hear about the continued advances in their cloud computing technologies.

The new processor, a 48-core processor has 10 to 20 times the processing engines contained within the most popular Intel chips and consumes the same amount of energy as two household light bulbs.

The developer community refers to the chip as a cloud computing chip because the design is similar to the organization of cloud datacenters with the linking of processing cores through a high-speed network.  

Intel Lab Head and Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner quotes, "With a chip like this, you could imagine a cloud datacenter of the future which will be an order of magnitude more energy efficient than what exists today, saving significant resources on space and power costs."

As a leading infrastructure-as-a-service provider, BlueLock gets excited to hear about these new advances in cloud computing technology.  As the market continues to grow and mature, it will be technology like this that will push "the cloud" to greater heights.  Keep up the great work Intel!

All schmoozing and business-card-swaping aside, there are some fantastic advantages of attending cloud computing conventions and expos. I've found meetups like Cloud Camps, ITEC, TechPoint Summits, and Cloud Users Groups to be a fuel source for both professional and personal growth.

Assimilation of knowledge through osmosis is simple.
There are usually tons of super-smart people at events like those listed above. Whether these people are cloud computing providers, vmware virtual server specialists, or others utilizing a cloud computing platform; just standing b and listening in on conversations can be a learning experience. Be curious, pay attention, and ask questions.

Networking -- the interpersonal relationships kind -- reaps rewards.
Meet some new people, nd expand your network. How can you help event attendees? I always make it a goal to make at least three connections that don't immediately benefit me in any way. While you should never help someone with the intent to gain something in return, the law of reciprocity always pays dividends.

Fluency increases competency.
The simple repetition of explaining the advantages of cloud computing has helped me build a certain level of confidence and competence around the benefits of virtualization, vmware hoted environments, and SaaS irtualization. Join in the conversation and learn to talk the talk. The act of speaking about cloud computing platforms, helps to organize thoughts, enhance comprehension, and vet new ideas.

Bottom line: get out of the office and learn somthing from somebody -- including yourself. Find the next cloud computing meetup in your area. Hope to see you there.

This news warms my heart.  As an Indiana University Bloomington grad and now working for a leading Infrastructure as a Service provider (cloud provider) I'm ecstatic to hear that my alma mater is heading to the clouds in a big way.  Let's not be foolish to think that IU has been out of the cloud party completely, the IU School of Informatics is on top of their game.  But now, with the news of a grant specifically dedicated to cloud computing, IU should be making some big leaps in the arena. 

Indiana University has received a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a software infrastructure and use cloud computing for a variety of life sciences and genomics data applications, IU said today.

"This research is potentially path-breaking," Peter Cherbas, a professor of biology and director of the IU Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics, said in a statement.

"Cloud computing approaches are likely to change the nature of our national research computing infrastructure in the coming years," said Principal Investigator Geoffrey Fox, director of the Digital Science Center and associate dean of research and graduate studies in the IU School of Informatics and Computing. "These technologies hold significant promise in the life sciences and medical sciences as they offer the potential for greater computational power and faster speeds at a lower cost, and in a way that is easier for scientists to use than traditional grid computing approaches."

"Contemporary DNA sequencing machines are churning out data at rates that would have been unimaginable to biologists just a few years ago,” he added. “To use these data — to turn data into some kind of understanding — will demand good tools for using the Cloud and those tools will impact genomics projects worldwide.”

Ahhh...the joys and economics of cloud computing.  This is what its all about - churning lots of data at a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time.  Click here to learn more about how we do just this for our clients.

Click here to read the news release about IU's Cloud Computing grant.

Its no surprise to hear cloud computing tops another top ten list, but this is a good one. 

The news alert reports that "Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt." 

This year “cloud computing” bumped “virtualization” for the number one spot on Gartner’s top 10 strategic technologies list.  It should be noted that Gartner’s report is referring to virtualized computing environments (i.e. VMware, etc.) within the organization, as opposed to the virtualization that is inherent to cloud-based services delivered via the public Internet. 

Another recent report on private clouds acknowledged that companies will more than likely spend more money on internal (or private clouds) cloud computing environments than with public cloud providers.  BlueLock fits in well with this mix because with our private cloud offering we are able to deploy a private/internal cloud within your organization, but the technology allows for the private cloud to connect to the BlueLock public cloud environment for spillover or other needs.

Here is the full list of the top strategies from 2009 and for 2010:

Gartner’s top 10 strategic technologies for 2009 were:
 
1.  Virtualization
2.  Cloud computing
3.  Servers (beyond blades)
4.  Web oriented architectures
5.  Enterprise mashups
6.  Specialized systems
7.  Social software / networking
8.  Unified communications
9.  Business intelligence
10. Green IT
 
The research firm’s top 10 strategic technologies for 2010 include:
 
1. Cloud computing
2. Advanced analytics
3. Client computing
4. IT for green
5. Reshaping the data center
6. Social computing
7. Security
8. Flash memory
9. Virtualization
10. Mobile applications

To find out more about BlueLock's public cloud and private cloud solutions contact us here.

To read the original release, click here.

(Indianapolis, IN – December 1, 2009) - Indianapolis-based BlueLock, provider of cloud computing and managed IT services, announces its second round of Beta testing with BlueLock vCloud Express Beta II.  BlueLock was one of only five cloud computing hosting providers chosen by VMware to provide VMware vCloud Express services since its launch in September 2009.

BlueLock vCloud Express Beta II is a Compute-as-a-Service solution designed to support transient workloads by providing a high level of elasticity for faster turnaround time and future workload federation.  BlueLock vCloud Express will compete with services such as Amazon EC2 and Windows Azure.

“BlueLock vCloud Express Beta I was an instant success,” said Pat O’Day, CTO, BlueLock. “We filled up our Beta I slots in less than two months.  With the feedback we garnered from those early users we’ve been able to make some major changes and the offering will continue to get better as we prepare to launch the public offering early in 2010.”

BlueLock vCloud Express Beta II is a reliable, on-demand infrastructure solution that ensures compatibility with internal VMware environments and with VMware Virtualized™ services worldwide. The technology allows users to create virtual machines as needed and add compute capacity via an online interface. The beta services are currently free, but the public offering in the future will include a pay-as-you-go payment structure where users pay only for the compute and storage space they use.

BlueLock vCloud Express Beta II is available immediately. For additional information, visit http://vcloudexpress.bluelock.com.

Have you looked around at the cloud computing conversations on Twitter lately?  Chances are that might be how you landed here.  From cloud organizations to users to developers and even among people who aren't really sure what cloud computing is, conversations are flowing. 

Want to know how to install a server on a certain platform?  A little searching in the blogoshpere or twitosphere will get you the information you need.

What's this mean for the cloud computing world?  That its not going away.

James Urquhart quotes:

"If you are wondering if cloud computing is a fad, the evidence to the contrary is all around you. I heartily recommend that you really listen to what is being said, understand how the cloud is being used, and seriously evaluate how this disruptive model will change your projects, your organization, and even your career. Clearly, there are many technologists who already have."

Cyber Black Friday is right around the corner - the infamous day that gives those of us who hate long lines and packed malls a much better alternative - online shopping exclusives. 
Online shopping should give buyers the ease and convenience they're looking for, but in the wake of a huge rush of traffic, sometimes it just doesn't work that way (just like when you're out in the brick and mortar shops).  Why?  Because even today many e-commerce sites aren't built with hosting in place that allows for the site to expand and scale based on the amount of traffic coming to the site.  The advantage of cloud computing is that websites are able to scale on demand, depending on the amoung of traffic it is experiencing, and they pay for that increase in infrastructure as they go.  So for instance, they only pay for the spikes as they happen, rather than all year long like with traditional hosting solutions.  

A couple tips for e-commerce sites on Cyber Black Friday from BlueLock:

- Take an inventory of the amount of traffic increases you've seen in past years on Cyber Black Friday.  Are you paying for the infrastructure necessary to handle that spike all year long? If so, its time to switch to the cloud.

- If you're an e-commerce site, you most likely need to be PCI compliant with whichever hosting solution you choose.  Did you hesitate to realize the benefits of cloud computing because PCI compliance wasn't available?  Look at your options again.  BlueLock has many clients in our secured PCI compliant cloud.

Cloud computing continues to gain popularity, and with that more options, advances and opportunities will arise.  E-commerce sites are prime targets for cloud computing simply because they will see immediate benefit from switching to the cloud due to the peaks and valleys they see each year around the holidays.  What company wouldn't want to save all excess IT costs to put towards something else that will increase their bottom line?

Now to the shopper's bottom line...

CyberBlackFriday.com already has exclusive Black Friday coupons available and hundreds more will go live on November 27th.

Tips for shopping on Cyber Black Friday from cyberblackfriday.com:

    * Some brick and mortar stores will have exclusive online only specials not available in stores.

    * The US has three different time zones, each an hour apart. If an online store also has brick and mortar stores, the online store will usually operate in the time zone of the company's headquarters. Depending on where you are, an online store's 12:01AM may arrive early or late.

    * You could stay up late to wait for Cyber Black Friday specials to go live but instead enjoy time with your family, wake up early on Friday and get all your Christmas shopping done from your computer.

    * Shopping early ensures getting items in stock and free shipping with guaranteed Christmas delivery.

This November 27th (Black) Friday most certainly means two things: crowded malls and crowded e-commerce sites.  Every year we hear about sites not being able to handle the rush of shoppers at their online venue.  Will the growth in cloud computing during 2009 make a difference in this year's Black Friday news?  I sure hope for my own shopping pleasure, companies like Sears, Saks and Kohl's learn from their lack of website performance on last year's "Cyber Black Friday."

In 2008, Black Friday Looked Grey Without Cloud Coverage.  There was news of e-commerce sites going down or simply being way too slow.  Nothing is more annoying to the online shopper (who shops on line for convenience, ease and quickness) than a slow website - except for a downed website... and in today's world, with cloud computing services that are there to make life for ecommerce sites so much easier come Black Friday with advantages like scalability, elasticity and pay-per-use, there's almost no excuse for an under performing website. 

Cloud computing is economical for any site that experiences peaks and valleys b/c the company no longer  has to purchase loads of IT capital that can meet that peak (which can easily be exceeded on a day like Black Friday anyway) all year long.  The site simply puts their website in the cloud and pays for whatever traffic they experience as they go which can amount to immense IT savings.  What e-commerce site would hesitate to experience the vast advantages of cloud computing? 

Guess we'll find out come Cyber Black Friday...

Of course cloud computing would be the top technology trend to watch in 2010, that’s not a surprise at all.  As we all know, the economy hasn’t bounced back too much, so the focus is still on getting the biggest bang for your buck and making the most economical investments and that will lead us right in to 2010 when the chief issues will again be around the economy and cloud computing.

Brian Dooley points out in his article “Top tech: the trends to watch in 2010,” “the economy has brought about industry consolidation and re-evaluation of expenditure which have, in turn, affected corporate spending plans, upgrade cycles, areas of interest for new technologies and willingness to undertake large, new projects.”  It is this realm of re-evaluation and decreased corporate spending ability where companies are charged to do more with less.  The companies still need to grow, innovate and expand (or simply stay afloat if that’s the goal) and it can be very hard to grow certain areas when you have to cut others that have a huge impact on the business. 

Companies have taken a long hard look at IT spending in the past year which is a big reason why cloud computing has received the attention is has so far.  No longer can IT departments afford to purchase expensive state-of-the-art capital on demand.  It costs money to buy it and more money to manage it.  But how can the company support its efforts without the IT to back it, especially if the company’s main products are tied to that infrastructure - an infrastructure that has to grow if the company is going to grow?  Cloud computing.

What else will be hot in 2010?Funny, lots of these are related to cloud computing in one way or another…

Dooley's original article.

What makes education different from any other business with hundreds or thousands of users?  The economics are all the same, so why wouldn’t the education industry be able to benefit from the advantages of cloud computing like other organizations?  A recent article in Campus Technology entitled, “Is Cloud Computing a Credible Solution for Education?” visits that subject.

Bruce Schneier points out that cloud computing is really nothing new.  Hotmail and Gmail have been doing it for a long time; social networking sites, remote backup companies and remote email filtering companies have also been in on the game.  Schneier says, “Any IT outsourcing—network infrastructure, security monitoring, remote hosting—is a form of cloud computing.”

Cloud Computing provides computer applications to users without the need to purchase, install or support those application.  The software and data is hosted on a remote computer.  Infrastructure-as-a-service providers such as BlueLock are able to provide substantial financial advantages as well as increased IT agility, improving collaboration and innovation within that organization.  And we’ve done that for higher education organizations already.   

Gartner Group blogger Thomas Bittman said this: "The Web, social software and cloud computing will definitely have an impact on enterprise IT--but the impact on our educational system will be astounding, and many in our educational system don't see it coming."

But the downside…

Schneier also cautioned that cloud computing forces reliance on a third party, which may not always be the best idea.  Why? Because when the computer is outside your network, you’re not able to protect it with security systems like firewalls and IDSs.  Not only that but you have to trust your vendor completely – its security, reliability, availability and business continuity.

That’s not a downside at BlueLock.

So yes, you’ll have to rely on us, a third party.  But we install firewalls and IDSs and most likely take more security precautions than you are already taking.  We are SAS 70 and PCI compliant.  Not only that, but we provide SLA with promised uptimes of 99.99%, in case you’re worried about availability.  As for business continuity, we’ve got that too, and at a fraction of the cost.  You can click here to learn more about our virtual disaster recovery solutions.  And most importantly, the trust issue.  Our clients view us as a trusted advisor.  We don’t want to be just another vendor; we want to be an extension of your organization, a partner.  That’s our goal (and we tend to hit goals over here).

And when it comes right down to successes in the education industry, just click here to read our case study on Marian University.  You could say they were more than pleased with what we were able to do for them.

New to the idea of Software as a Service SaaS Virtualization? This video from Salesfor will help bring you up to speed:

This short video clip, produced by Salesforce.com, effectively points out that managed cloud hosting is a superior way to run your business. It's clear that multitenancy is simply a more efficient way to approach IT infrastructure.

For those of you who are new to cloud, some of the major benefits of cloud computing are that your data is:

• secure
• backed up in another location (redundant)
• not limited in storage or resources

To help you better understand Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas), Common Craft recently put out a cool little video that is put together like School House Rock for the 21st century.

You can check it out here: Cloud Computing Hosting in Plain English

I always keep an eye open for better ways to explain the benefits of virtualization and cloud computing to not-so-technically-inclined friends as well as potential clients. I found these quick videos to be expremely helpful in succinctly illustrating cloud computing hosting.

A recent email industry survey shows how businesses are reacting to email infrastructure being migrated to the cloud.  Osterman Research found that security-related email functions are dominating the software as a service market today and that the functions most likely to be outsourced in the future, if not already, include anti-spam, bulk email, anti-virus an anti-malware.

What factors are holding companies back from migrating to the cloud?  Findings show that more companies haven’t migrated to the cloud because of privacy concerns, data retrieval concerns (will they be able to grab that data back once it’s in the cloud?), because of regulatory compliance issues and because some companies are just plain scared of losing control.  However, upon a closer glance at cloud computing - a full-fledged look at what cloud hosting can do would show that cloud computing advantages include more choices, agility, control and protection than what a standard IT infrastructure environment can provide, which is why more than 20% of the users surveyed have outsourced their email functions to the cloud already.

Here are some of the results of the survey:

• 40% of companies surveyed are outsourcing some or part of their email infrastructure
• Anti-spam (64%) and bulk email (46%) are being outsourced by most companies
• Today:
  •  20% of users are served by a SaaS solution
  • 22% of email servers run as virtual servers
• In two years:
  •     38% of users will be served by a SaaS Solution
  •     49% of email servers will run as virtual servers

I think the two year projections are somewhat low, but the general growth towards using cloud hosting for email functions and/or using virtual servers is evident.  At BlueLock we’ve seen great success in migrating email to the cloud.  For many companies it makes the most sense to get email off of their machines freeing up space for them internally and getting their IT people working on more strategic applications.  Contact us today to learn more about migrating email to the cloud. 

Read the original post about the survey.

By now everyone has heard about the T-Mobile Sidekick crash in one of Danger’s (a Microsoft subsidiary) cloud computing environments.  Just like every time Gmail goes down, there is a wide and broad brush of FUD painted across the cloud computing canvas. 

Stephen Foskett recently wrote a blog post that talks about the shocking “bubblegum and baling wire” approach that some companies take when delivering cloud computing storage.  I couldn’t agree with him more.  There are some hokey things going on in the world of cloud storage, otherwise these crashes wouldn’t happen and James Urquart wouldn’t be questioning the need for malpractice safeguards in cloud computing.

As the title of this blog post implies, this type of data loss that occurred at Microsoft is more common than many would admit.  The difference is that most times it’s not in a public cloud and it doesn’t affect thousands of people.  Why does it happen?  It happens because moving parts break and because human beings are involved.  Now, just because there are breaking parts and humans, that doesn’t mean there must be a disaster or data loss.  The question is really about whether your business is willing to pay for what it takes to insure that the data is protected or in the case of Microsoft Danger, take the extra step of providing a path to copying the data to another instance.  Data loss can be prevented; it’s just a matter of who’s willing to pay for it.  It would be wild speculation on my part to say what actually happened in the MS Danger data center - but what I can say with much confidence that an economic decision was at the heart of the loss. 

How do I know that?  Because at BlueLock we take data loss very seriously, so we have engineered redundancy into our cloud architecture and that kind of protection comes with a cost.  Some prospects choose to pay for it (we call them clients) and some don’t (we call them “lost deals”).  Go here to learn more about how we back our data up.   More often than not, the prospects that choose not to pay the cost do so because the data they are trying to protect is not worth the cost that I’m proposing to keep it safe.  Of course the converse is also true, our clients that accept the cost, do so because when they see all of  the engineering and services bundled into the price, the cost is in balance with the risk of the data loss.   

The bottom line…

Just as I discussed in a previous post about the TCO of an Infrastructure, there are many costs associated with protecting data and insuring that failing hardware or humans don’t take you down.  The bottom line is really about the risk of loss and a careful cost/benefit analysis of paying to protect the data….or not.  If you’d like help completing that analysis, send me a note or give me a call.  That’s what we do every day for companies just like yours.

Reference post by Stephen Fosket

It has been a couple of weeks since I’ve blogging about taking the first steps into cloud computing, but here we are at step number 3, cloud architecture planning.  As you recall, step number one is to take inventory of your infrastructure.  Step two, is to compare cloud computing providers. 

When it comes to cloud architecture planning, this is something that I would hope your trusted partner (cloud provider) would help with.  But to get started, these are some of the vital questions that need to be answered regarding the application you are going to host in your cloud environment (whether it’s in a private cloud or public cloud):

• How important is the application to your business?  The application or its data can range from being extremely vital to running day-to-day operations to being not so important.  Think about it in terms of how long you could go without the application or data.  If your app is your business, the answer is obvious and this will determine the service level agreement you might need.
• Does the application contain time sensitive data?  Does it need to be accessed in real time, or are delays acceptable?
• Does the application have regulatory requirements?
• How many users in your organization have access to the application and how heavily is that access controlled?
• How many systems interact with the application?
• How dynamic is the data and/or users in the application and do you forecast and increase or decrease in the volume of users and/or data?
• How old is the application?

All of these questions (and more) will become major factors in how the cloud computing environment should be architected.  Unfortunately I can’t really tell you HOW to architect the environment because that would be giving away BlueLock’s special sauce.  What I can tell you is that you really must take into consideration the level of uptime you need, how dynamic the app is and what security measures are absolutely vital for the functioning of the application.  That will get you going on the road to architecting your cloud environment.

Rackspace recently released their growth numbers for their cloud computing services.  They are obviously very big and only hoping to get bigger like many other large clouds.  Large cloud hosting providers are great at what they do – offer cheap cloud hosting solutions with no frills and no customization.  When I say no customization, we’re talking McDonald’s cloud computing, not Burger King.

On the other hand, for those clients who don’t want McDonald’s cloud hosting, a big cloud computing company might not be better.  Let’s face it; Seth Godin really has something going in “Small is the New Big.”  Bigger companies tend to have lots of set processes, procedures, guidelines, systems and such that can get in the way of one big thing – the creation of client-specific solutions for even the most complex projects.  But there are some slightly smaller cloud hosting providers (with just as much stability, maybe more) who can better focus on the specific client's need to create just the right cloud solution.

A client with those complex needs for their important data and processing like higher up-time, disaster recovery, compliance and security, can’t go with the McDonald’s approach.  They need something more like Burger King.  Obviously Burger King doesn't offer cloud computing, but BlueLock does.  And we’re able to create cloud computing environments for our clients that fill their specific needs, not just the needs a "big" cloud computing company assumes they have.  So, if you’re an enterprise client, with big ole’ security and service requirements, you can still enjoy the wonderful benefits of cloud computing.  You just might not be able to do it with a huge cloud computing company.  But that’s why we’re here. 

Charles Babcock recently wrote an article entitled, “Hybrid Clouds Floating to Enterprise Forefront” which ran in InformationWeek.  He attended the Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, where speakers raised the prospect of private clouds working with public clouds, creating hybrid clouds.

The hybrid cloud is not a term we’ve never seen or heard before.  However, it seems in his article that there aren’t many providers out there actually doing the hybrid cloud approach with their clients.  But BlueLock is. For over two years BlueLock has offered a private cloud solution (The BlueLock Box) in conjunction with our public cloud hosting solution.  Our clients’ ability to have their own internal cloud which has the capability to spill over and utilize our public cloud when necessary has proved itself very valuable.  So yes, Mr. Babcock and the Expo speakers, the hybrid cloud computing approach is going to continue to gain traction.

For those companies who are fearful of “losing control” in the cloud, the private cloud approach is extremely beneficial because those companies are able to gain access to the benefits of cloud computing while still controlling their own infrastructure in house.  So not only is the private cloud a good starting point, but with the right cloud technology (like BlueLock’s), it doesn’t have to be the end of their cloud strategy.

Learn more about BlueLock's private cloud solution known as the BlueLock Box. Or contact a sales rep.

Watch our private cloud video.

Read the original InformationWeek article.

I love my job. As a client specialist at BlueLock, I get to spend the majority of my time working with the innovative companies that are producing the products and services of the future and, at the same time, pushing the limits of cloud computing hosting.

In all of my conversations with BlueLock clients, one thing is clear:

There is massive demand for a cloud computing platform, specifically for testing and development, that is cost-effective and integrates well with production environments.

Many businesses have data and processing that doesn't require a fully-managed cloud hosting service at four nines (99.99%) uptime.

Some companies offer services that seem like they could be a good answer for this problem. IBM recently released Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud, which seems like it might be a competitor of Amazon's EC2 cloud computing platform.

The problem with some of these test/dev clouds is that they can't support VMware hosted environments. This means that, with test/dev clouds like EC2 and IBM's new offering, a company that is running their production environment on VMware can't necessarily integrate their test and production environments seamlessly -- an important consideration when doing a cloud computing comparison.

Enter vCloud Express...

One of the cool tools that the BlueLock engineers are tinkering with is a VMware-based, pay-as-you-go option that will be ideal for companies that need an environment that is dedicated to test and development. We announced vCloud Express back at the start of September, and since then, have received an overwhelming number of signups for the beta-version. In fact, we acually completely filled up all of the beta test slots!

I'm excited for the public launch of BlueLock's vCloud Express, because we'll be able to offer clients the perfect solution for their test/dev needs. Until then, I'll keep you posted as we continue to progress. 

Just last week I wrote a post on the top ten most viewed blog posts from the BlueLock Blog.  Granted, they were all great blog posts, but it didn’t really give me the ability to post my favorites.  Here is a list of my all-time favorite blog posts from the BlueLock Blog.  Let me know if I missed your favorite!

1.    Cloud Computing – a five-layer model 
2.    Going green in your data center 
3.    Seven things you should know about cloud computing
4.    Fuzzy math in the cloud – TCO of cloud vs. internal IT
5.    Your infrastructure choices: a cloud is not a cloud is not a cloud 
6.    Why cloud computing makes perfect sense
7.    Marian College catapults their IT infrastructure with a private cloud from BlueLock
8.    My favorite virtualization myths
9.    What is cloud computing – beyond the buzzwords
10.  What’s emerging in cloud computing