New Street is continuing to offer the 2011 edition of our popular THE LITTLE BOOK OF CLOUD COMPUTING for those who may want it. However, we wish to point out that the new, completely revised 2012 edition of this bestseller is now, as of January 20th 2012, available as a Kindle eBook.*Using an approach geared toward non-techies, noted systems developer Lars Nielsen explains the state-of-the-art (and the state of the industry) in Cloud Computing - that powerful approach to enterprise systems by which today's smart organizations cut costs while still having access to all the digital capacity they need.In a concise 16,000 words, Nielsen describes tested, effective strategies for maximizing the latest Cloud Computing tools and economies, putting them to work for your organization. He also provides a vivid snapshot of the major industry players, surveys current trends in the cloud marketplace, and lays out vital issues of cloud security.Introduction * The Basics * Technology and Business Fundamentals * Amazon Web Services (AWS) * IBM Cloud Services * Microsoft and the Cloud (Including BizSpark - Cloud on the Cheap for Small Startups) * Google and the Cloud (Including Google Apps - The Cloud for Free) * Red Hat * Cloud in a Box - The Pre-Fab Track to a Robust Private Cloud * Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle/Sun, Cisco, VMware and Other Players * Cloud Security, With Special Attention to the Roles of EMC, Intel and Microsoft * The Amazon Crash of April 2011 and the Importance of the "Design for Failure" ModelABOUT THE Lars Nielsen has more than thirty years experience as a systems developer and administrator for a host of Fortune 500 companies. He is the author of A BUSINESS HISTORY and the newly published LITTLE BOOK OF CLOUD COMPUTING SECURITY, 2012 Edition. He lives in Amsterdam.
This was a decent overview of the services out there, in one way. LIke it's good to sort of get your head around what Red Hat or VMWare is offering, and I have to say, Windows Azure seemed strangely kind of awesome. But in another way it's not particularly useful. Like it doesn't really help you understand what you can DO in the cloud, except only in abstract terms. But really its biggest failing is its over-reliance on PR releases and quotes. It feels very cobbled together. And then it sort of advertises that it was updated in the wake of the amazon crash, but all it really did was tell you there was a crash, so, hey, watch out!
I dunno, it's probably me. I am looking for a specific type of cloud computing book, but everything I can find is either too zeitgeisty, academic, or "move your business into the cloud" ish. This one is mostly the latter.
This is largely a compilation of what cloud service vendors say about themselves. It's useful in the sense that the author has taken the trouble to identify the services and piece together their collateral. It makes no attempt to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses or appropriate uses of the different approaches or of cloud computing as a whole.
If you want a general non technical overview of what popular public clouds have to offer and don't feel like googling them one at a time... then this is the book for you.