True story. Amazon’s cloud service disrupted by lightning storm. So many play on words possible, but this is the Google search engine age. Everything is vanilla. How unfortunate.

Very interesting presentations on cloud computing at Seattle Tech Startups tonight.

Jeff Lawson of Twilio gave an en depth presentation on how his company is levering AWS, Rackspace and other providers to bring telephony into the cloud. I was very impressed with their architecture. Honestly, it is better and more scalable than many enterprise architectures. I say this with 15+ years in the enterprise space. Twilio has figured out how to deliver a very robust enterprise class system on Amazon AWS. If others are able to replicate the Twilio model, the cloud will thrive in the enterprise. He offered some insights on cloud advantages. First, the cloud gives you the opportunity to determine the optimal cost performance trade off. Second, the cloud is great for load testing. Third, the cloud is great for the often overlooked failure testing. Given that services can die in the cloud, the uncertainties force better, more redundant design. Twilio is very sensitive to uptime since they are a consumer and provider of cloud services. Jeff ended his presentation with a very funny send up of the most commonly asked questions on the STS forum. Keep your eye on Twilio.

Steve Marx from the Windows Azure team followed. Personally, I have only thought of Azure as a pure cloud application type offering, but in reality Windows Azure will play in the commodity/utility space of the cloud as well in the higher value services of cloud applications. Windows Azure will run a forked version of Windows 2008 Server that has been optimized for the Microsoft virtualization stack and bootup time. Aside from running Windows Server 2008, Azure will be a fairly open system allowing other databases and programming languages. MySQL will be supported as well as other applications that do not require administrative access to the server according to Steve. Impressively, Windows Azure will offer easy scalability and rollback features baked into the “fabric” of the offering. Ease of use could be a compelling point for customers. Look for the Windows Azure SLA and business pricing in November of this year. Steve demonstrated Windows Azure by setting up a web service that used Twilio. Nice touch.

When I leave an event like this and my mind in spinning with the possibilities, it was worthwhile. Tonight was no exception.

Ray Ozzie Asserts Microsoft’s Position In The Cloud

Some interesting predictions and comments over at TechCrunch. Most of them centering on Amazon AWS vs. Microsoft. My opinion is that people are trying to define cloud as a something very specific when a more general definition is appropriate. Think “Transportation” rather than “Planes, boats, trains and/or automobiles.” Microsoft is in a good position as well as Amazon. No reason that both approaches will not be successful.

Came across the Amazon Windowshop Beta today. Very cool use of 3D browsing and AWS. New books, music and “Music Artists We Think You Should Hear”. When this is connected to purchase history, it will give iTunes a run for its money.

Analysis from McKinsey & Company that “deflates the cloud” according to coverage by Forbes. I have checked it out and I could wax philosophic on this, but Nicholas Carr has already produced as very good criticism of the report. The cloud will supplement in the enterprise as it will incubate new processes, ideas and competitive advantages. A great example is the New York Times Archives on Amazon AWS. What is going to happen when smart companies figure out how to aim all that raw computing power at their disposal?

Amazon, Microsoft improve their cloud computing game

Interesting read on AWS and Azure offerings. No surprise that Microsoft is offering SQL Server. One thought though is how many less sophisticated organizations run much of their business on Excel or Access. Is this really going to attract those customers?

The AWS pricing is so attractive that I will bet many organizations will bite. It is even tempting for a start up. Hmm…

See disclosure below.

Amazon EC2 Introduces Reserved Instances
This is a great pricing model for budgets that have the “use it or lose it” money. It might entice enterprises to try the service without the recurring payments and unexpected fees that many “As A Service” providers use.

Full disclosure: The wife works at Amazon, though in an area unrelated to AWS.