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The topic of cloud computing, and before it virtualization, has taken up ever more space in minds of engineers and executives alike. What impact will this new direction for computing have on organizations and how can they best make use of it? In the present economic climate a move away from capital expenditure on infrastructure seems ever more appealing and utility computing has taken the possibilities for this to the next level.
Here at Bondware our focus is no different and we follow these developments with much interest. Whilst, as a hosted service provider, the pay-per-usage model is already part of what our business offers, we look to these emerging technologies to provide further value and flexibility to our platform. For a wealth of applications the savings offered by these services are exceedingly competitive and cannot be ignored.
Amazon are leading the way with their market defining Amazon Web Services product line, the most prevalent of which is the Amazon Simple Storage Service (or S3). Offering unlimited storage capacity, customers are billed by their usage and nothing more; paying for the data they store and transferring that data in and out of the system. Prices scale with usage, giving better rates as you store and transfer more data, but even the lightest of users will benefit from Amazon's impressive buying power.
We have already begun integrating Bondware with S3 and the option to store your data in the cloud is now available within the File Manager in the core, as well as our modules oPhoto and VideoPro. To take advantage of this option you will need to create an Amazon S3 account and configure your site with the access key and security key provided.
We will be continuing this process, adding S3 support to more modules over time. Some likely candidates are digital downloads within our e-Commerce module and the File Library and Secure File Library modules. These developments are about providing choice to our customers, and, as Tim said in his previous post, this blog is about receiving feedback as well as passing on information. So, if there is a module you would like to see support S3 please let us know in the comments.
Cloud computing is not just about storage, however, and this is only our first step down this new avenue of computing technology. We will continue to look at the developments which occur and to incorporate them in to Bondware to provide the best value we can to our customers. Stay tuned to our blog for more news on these developments as they happen.
Cloud computing has certainly caused a stir throughout the IT and business world. Perhaps the Gigahertz Hour will join the Kilowatt Hour and Rollover Minutes when it comes to choosing our service plans in the future? In any case the face of IT is changing. Don't be afraid of the clouds on the horizon.
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