More news coverage in the Australian IT press, take a look at http://www.itnews.com.au/News/168570,canberra-cloud-scraps-beta-tag.aspx for more info.

I participated in an interview with Andre Leibovici’s APAC Virtualisation Roundtable back on Feb 9 2010, unfortunately I had not had the time to post it up until now as I’ve been busy preparing our system for our upcoming launch on Monday the 8th of March 2010.

Take a look at http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=707 for the full interview, and thanks very much to Andre for having me, he has a very good blog over there that is worth checking out for anyone with an interest in Virtualisation and next generation computing topics!

We are pleased to announce that we are sponsoring Cloud Camp Sydney, which is being held on Thursday the 4th of March 2010.

Event details can be found at http://cloudcamp.org/sydney/2010-03-04 - entries are still open for the event and all are welcome to attend.

We look forward to connecting with everyone at the event!

We are proud to announce that Cloud Central’s Cloud Servers will launch to the wider public on the 8th of March 2010!

What Are We Doing?

Once we ‘go live’ on the 8th of March 2010, we will be removing the beta label from the product, and charging for services according to the pricing schedule located at http://www.cloudcentral.com.au/cloud/servers/pricing.

We’ve are introducing the following system enhancements by go live:

1. Performance Improvements: The performance of the Cloud Servers system has been improved, especially for smaller sized Cloud Servers.
2. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard: Our Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition database template will be made available.
3. CentOS 5.4 Xen PV & System Updates: Our CentOS templates have added Xen Paravirtualisation support added for higher performance, we have also updated system packages to newer versions for improved security & stability.
4. Debian 5.0.4 Xen PV & System Updates: Our Debian templates have added Xen Paravirtualisation support added for higher performance, we have also updated system packages to newer versions for improved security & stability.
5. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Xen PV & System Updates: Our Ubuntu templates have added Xen Paravirtualisation support added for higher performance, we have also updated system packages to newer versions for improved security & stability.
6. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS LAMP, Web and Database Templates: Ubuntu LAMP, Web and Database templates will be available
7. Control Center UI: Several user interface enhancements have been made to make the system more consistent and easy to use
8. Security: Several security enhancements have been introduced, unfortunately we can’t tell you what they are or we’d have to kill you
9. System Capacity: We have added additional capacity to our system to cater for your on demand computing requirements.
10. Customer Services: We have added additional support resources to provide expert Australian based technical support & customer services.
11. Cloud Server Sizes: Large (8 GB RAM, 512 GB Storage, 4 CCU) – $0.96 / hour, and Huge (15.5GB RAM, 1024 GB Storage, 8 CCU) – $1.92 / hour Cloud Servers will be available for use. We recommend these for large scale databases.

What Should Existing Beta Customers Do?

Existing beta customers who wish to continue services after ‘go live’ should update their billing details at https://secure.cloudcentral.com.au/account/billing/details. If you have not not provided billing details by ‘go live’, your Cloud Servers will be stopped (but you can recover them by supplying valid billing details), if you have not provided valid billing details by the 15th of March 2010 your servers will be deleted.

Thanks

We thank the input of our beta testers who have helped make the service what it is today, we trust that you will continue the journey with us towards simpler, agile, reliable, secure, flexible, open, value for money computing services.

Best Regards,

The Cloud Central Team
1300 144 007 – +61 2 6173 7340
team@cloudcentral.com.au

We are proud to announce that the Cloud Central Cloud Servers public beta will commence on Monday the 15th of February 2010.  We believe that our service has now attained the required level of security and stability to progress to a wider public beta.

We sincerely thank our private beta testers who have evaluated and provided feedback about our services so far.  This feedback has been taken on board, and fed back into the development of the service.  We look forward to your ongoing support as we enter the public beta phase of operation.

Private beta testers can continue to enjoy a free evaluation & testing period over the next two weeks.  We will provide further notice about the arrangements for the public beta over the coming week.

If you have any questions, please feel contact our beta team by emailing beta@cloudcentral.com.au, or calling 1300 144 007.

Best Regards,

Cloud Central Beta Team

Here at Cloud Central we love services like LinkedIn and Twitter – they allow us to reach out directly to customers, partners, suppliers, and others.  They allow a direct interaction and connectedness that just wasn’t possible  before they came about.

I welcome everyone to join the Cloud Central LinkedIn Group and follow Cloud Central and Kristoffer Sheather on Twitter!

Looking forward to hearing from everyone soon

We’ve been lucky enough to have some great coverage both within Australia and overseas recently:

• CloudBuzz – Cloud Central: Australian for Cloud
• ITNews.com.au – Canberra Startup Launches Public Compute Cloud
• CloudAve – Cloud Central Answering the Geo Issue
• Cloudscaling.com: How Clouds Enable Global Reach
• Tier1Research: Cloud Central launches Australian cloud infrastructure service

If anyone knows of any other articles out there that are not in the list, please let us know!

Yes, governments are well-known for unwieldy bureaucracies, carrying out processes with ten people that can be just as easily done with one or two, and for engaging an entire committee to figure out something that a high school student could probably take care of in an afternoon. But sometimes they do get it right.

Bloated IT infrastructures in government are already being streamlined by cloud computing options, especially in the US, where the country’s CIO Vivek Kundra is taking the lead. While Kundra was the technology chief in the District of Columbia, prior to his appointment by President Obama, he saved the district millions of dollars with a few common-sense cloud implementations. He killed a project to create  multi-million dollar intranet for the district. What did he put in its place? Google Apps.

This was a case of a solution staring you right in the face. The district’s training information is now on videos on Google Apps, procurement information is available there, and a vast amount of public information has been shifted to the Google platform. And not satisfied with that, he also implemented the “Apps for Democracy” program, which has already generated tremendous cost savings. The program is a contest, which allows users to create applications that make use of data that is already available from the district’s web site.

Kundra is a big proponent for cloud computing, and said, “The cloud will do for government what the Internet did in the ’90s. . . . it’s a fundamental change ot the way our government operates by moving to the cloud. Rather than owning the infrastructure, we can save millions.”

There are many different types of cloud computing, and the simplest and most well-known example is free, public email such as Hotmail or Gmail. There have been plenty of examples in the news lately of misuse of these free services, and accounts being hacked. One of the most prominent examples was when the email account of Sarah Palin, the former US Vice Presidential candidate, was hacked.

There is a big difference between using a free public email service and deploying secure email in the cloud. Almost all security experts caution against using these free services for anything that could remotely be sensitive, and experts on corporate policy say that use of them should be prohibited in the workplace. Using the cloud to run your own virtual corporate email server, on the other hand, is just as secure as running it in-house.

There are two things that govern security in a hosted, cloud-based email configuration; and that is the security afforded by the cloud provider, and your own internal corporate policy. Policy item number one should be that employees should use only corporate email accounts for business, and not the free services, which typically do not include the same robust security practices that are offered by cloud providers like Cloud Central.

Secure email is a serious business. Smaller companies in particular often lack the specific expertise required to run a safe and secure internal email server; in this case especially it is advantageous to move your corporate email server to the cloud to take advantage of the cloud provider’s existing security infrastructure, their own in-house talent and expertise, and to make use of the provider’s 24×7 maintenance and administration facilities.

Cloud computing is rapidly taking its place as the most disruptive technology of the decade. Research organization Gartner has placed cloud computing at the very top of its list of the “Top 10 strategic technology areas for 2010″, up from its number three position last year.

It’s no longer just a buzzword, vaporware, or something that hasn’t yet been proven. It’s not just for the early adopters, it’s gone mainstream. Gartner sees a very broad range of users taking advantage of the cloud in the near future. To date, many people have asked the question, “is cloud computing suitable for enterprise computing?” And the answer is a resounding “yes”. With excellent performance metrics, strong security and availability of a powerful infrastructure, it’s ready to roll. Gartner visualizes enterprise customers making use of cloud computing to act as cloud providers themselves, pushing out data, applications, and services to their own customers and business partners.

In relation to cloud computing, Gartner also highlights the advantages of virtualization. By abstracting the server layer, and creating virtual barriers between a single physical piece of equipment, the actual choice of hardware—and even the OS—is becoming less important, according to Gartner.

According to the Gartner analysts, it’s no longer a question of whether or not cloud computing will work for you, it’s just a matter of deciding which cloud services will give you the greatest value, how to write applications that run on cloud services, and whether or not to use a private cloud, a cloud service, or a combination of the two.