Google gets into cloud services
A few weeks ago I posted about Microsoft getting into the cloud computing space with their SQL Data Services service, and predicted that Google would soon join the game as well. As you may have already heard, yesterday Google announced their entry into the market for developer-oriented cloud services - Google App Engine. Neither Microsoft nor Google can currently match what Amazon currently offers, either in breadth or when it comes to bulk data storage with Amazon S3. Google currently limits applications to 500MB of storage and doesn’t provide APIs suitable for uploading or downloading large files, however in their Campfire presentation they had a slide with large file services at the top of their “What’s Next?” list so it’s only a matter of time (and price!).
While we’re still completely focused on building the best possible service on the Amazon S3 platform, it’s good to know that there will be more options “in the cloud” down the road. I think these announcements further validate Jungle Disk’s strategy of focusing on building great storage software rather than building datacenters and server farms.
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XavierL said,
April 8, 2008 @ 3:49 am
“I think these announcements further validate Jungle Disk’s strategy of focusing on building great storage software rather than building datacenters and server farms.”
100% agree. I love the jungleDisk client and I use it for about a year and a half now. Amazon S3 is fine but it could well be someone’s else datacenter - I don’t really care. What I would love is to host my own disk/server and use the JungleDisk client for backups and remote files access.
I would probably maintain two batches of all my backups: one on-line as usual and one local, using the same client software. My “precious files” are worth (to me) the effort.
XavierL
Stephen said,
April 8, 2008 @ 9:30 am
To take the comment by XavierL one step further would be to have the files backed up via JungleDisk locally on some pretty advanced network policies in more real time and then backed up to S3 (or whoever in the future) on a more server side schedules, like overnight or something.
Pablo said,
April 8, 2008 @ 9:30 am
Agree completely as well. Things like JungleDisk and Heroku make me really excited about accelerating the rate at which innovation can occur by not bogging down ideas with pesky operational problems.
Hans said,
April 8, 2008 @ 1:37 pm
I don’t know exactly who it was but not too long ago some CEO made fun of Bill Gates that in times of Web 2.0, he was still thinking it was all about software…
Well, name it what you want but creating/consuming cloud APIs, running web services, building RIAs with all its bells and whistles etc. will always need and be nothing without tailor-made, application oriented execution logic.
I’m far from being a Bill Gates fan but I name this software, too, and you are right with your strategy.