An Outline of How Cloud Computing Should Work

February 12, 2008 by Jonathan 

I do a lot of investigating and research on , it’s always been a that interests me and the economics of the industry are very dynamic as well. Let’s just say that the entrepreneur in me has been ‘planning’ the best web host out there and you know what, it’s all about now, we need ubiquitous web application now.

So here’s what I think the ideal web host looks like:

  • Large amount of on-demand storage, I’d like to not only host my files and my web sites and applications, but also keep backups of my personal files in the pie in the sky. I do want to pay for that space, I know that unlimited storage is certainly not unlimited, the market says that just cannot be so.
  • Fast, speed is really what counts here. I need to be able to tell that my site is up, running, and extremely fast. A lot of this is up to me to develop sites that are light weight and use resources efficiently…. but let’s just check and double check that the hardware and pipes connected to that hardware isn’t what’s slowing the web down.
  • Standards Based, I’m not saying software should be free, but the ability of software to evolve and change, and be enhanced is just too powerful to ignore.
  • Easy to use control panel. I currently use several Media Temple to host various web projects and am very happy with them. One the reasons for that is that their control panel is very easy to use yet provides enough control to keep experienced developers happy.
  • Transfers to and from the service need to be simplified. This is where Amazon has lost out, they only a limited number of transfer methods. For to truly catch on and be powerful enough for us all to tap into it needs to operate like a ‘normal’ web host or server does. Simple , SFTP, and SSH access is a necessity. Without that, you loose the ability to signup young, inexperienced developers, and you loose the ability for peaceful migrations from other platforms.

I believe that these things are possible, and the is largely here already (look at the major Delivery Networks). And the final thing that needs to be worked out for cloud computer? The Pricing. It’s an entirely new way to bill and invoice customers, only charging for what they need.

However, I would also offer standard plans similar to what we have in the industry now. You get X amount of space and X amount of cpu time for $Y per month. There is definitely something to say about knowing exactly what you’re going to pay each month for hosting.

Possibly Related posts:

  1. Pie In The Sky - Mosso’s Hosting Cloud Launches
  2. Pie In The Sky - Where Mosso Has it Right and Wrong
  3. Pie In The Sky - Where We Are Now
  4. Pie In The Sky - Comparing Current Offerings
  5. Pie In the Sky - A Blog Series Examining the Future of Web Hosting

Filed under: Blog, Startups
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Comments

2 Responses to “An Outline of How Cloud Computing Should Work”

  1. Tony Lucas on February 19th, 2008 1:18 pm

    Hi Jonathan,

    Just came to your site via GigaOm’s posting’s re Mosso.

    I’d like to believe that we have achieved (or are about to with our next release) everything you have listed above and would be happy to tell you more about it if you are interested.

    Drop me an e-mail if you want to know more or checkout the website.

    Tony.

  2. Arlene Beasley on September 9th, 2008 11:09 am

    We are developing a portal that allows our customers to upload and download thousands of graphic files for processing. We are considering cloud computing to deploy our custom software, which requires windows and mac operating systems, to process these files thru several different stages. We are thinking about not supporting our own ftp site anymore and using a service so we can have an unlimited amount of users sending and receiving files without the overhead of us managing the http://ftp. Based off of your vast knowledge to you have any recommendations of a company we could use that could do the ftp hosting and the cloud computing for us? Does cloud computing support the OSX operating system?

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