In Case You Missed It: Consolidation, Community, and Customers

Cloud Tweets

@reillyusa (Christian Reilly) tweeted: "@jeremyjarvis @krishnan If there is an open community then it's hard to complain and not get engaged. If it's a closed shop, then meh."

@jamesurquhart (James Urquhart) tweeted: "RT @mdesilver: #azure just cracked 31,000 customers! #Cloud < Define "customer". As in "accounts"?"

@ewindisch (E. Windisch) tweeted: "One reason why niche-heavy hosting has blossomed is because those companies are more invested in the open source sw they rely."

Cloud Posts

Couchbase: Consolidation Begins in Big Data Space by Krishnan Subramanian
"One of the common comment from those watching the Big Data space is that there are too many projects that makes it too difficult to chose the right set of tools for the user needs. Well, the consolidation process has started with the merger of Membase (see previous CloudAve coverage), the company supporting open source memcached project, and CouchOne, the company behind open source CouchDB project (see previous CloudAve coverage). The new company called Couchbase will offer comprehensive, end to end family of NoSQL database products. This is clearly a big move targeted to attract organizations trying to tap into NoSQL data stores for their big data needs."

Cloudiness and Reality by Mark Gibbs
"The truth is that, even when you outhouse to a public cloud, you still need people who really understand how these services work. These services need to be monitored, the service's security checked and rechecked, application and data integrity tested, backups done and verified, linkages to other services (possibly in other clouds) established and maintained, errors and problems investigated and handled, and usage and billing checked."

Using a Map to Find the Right Cloud Service by Alex Williams
"Cloud computing is most effective when it can be applied when needed. It's like getting water from the faucet. You get the water when you want t. It flows when you turn the knob.

"The hard part is finding the right cloud computing service. It's not like at home. You have to go out and find the service. How you do that can be a task."