What Is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is often compared to a utility, like gas or electricity, that provides only as much juice as a user needs, and only when you need it. So, when you run your applications in a cloud computing environment rather than in your own data center, you consume only the amount of compute resources those applications require, when they require it -- in a cloud, you can scale down and up as needed.
All clouds use virtualized physical resources, allow for self-provisioning of resources, provide elasticity, have programmatic control, and operate with a pay-per-use model. But different types of clouds will develop around different uses, including HPC clouds, Web clouds, data-intensive computing clouds, SMB clouds, and enterprise and government clouds.
Sun in the Cloud
As a pioneer in cloud computing technology, Sun already offers a broad range of products and services that are key to most cloud deployments. Sun's open source products, such as MySQL, xVM, and open storage, are the foundation of some of the largest clouds on the Internet today.
Sun's cloud computing services include cloud assessments and architecture guides. Sun's partners in this space include Amazon.com, Joyent, and SuperNap. Sun also supports several open communities, such as opensolaris.org and netbeans.org, that are part of the cloud computing movement.
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On Tuesday, December 9 at 1:00pm PT, Dave Douglas will talk about Sun's approach to Cloud Computing in a discussion with press, analysts and bloggers. You can join in as he outlines the goals of the new business unit, discusses the market direction and provides an overview of Sun's opportunity within Cloud Computing.
Cloud Computing from Sun
In this video Dave Douglas talks about Sun's unique ability to deliver cloud computing, including cloud-ready products and services, expertise in building communities, experience with service provider build-outs, and a commitment to making computing sustainable and efficient.
Brutal Efficiency
Cloud computing's greatest potential is its efficiency for running Web applications. Clouds take efficiency to a new, brutal level by using virtualization and automation technologies, by focusing on delivering a single service, and by optimizing around doing just one thing ever better. A cloud's application domain will determine whether it is private or public as well as the fundamental requirements in the cloud's software and hardware architectures. Cloud computing lets even the largest enterprises and even the federal government to be more efficient and agile by scaling the compute resources up and down according to demand.
Learn more about the other ways Sun is making datacenters more efficient
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