"The promise of cloud computing is here. These pages provide the 'eyes wide open' insights you need to transform your business." --Christopher Crowhurst, Vice President, Strategic Technology, Thomson Reuters

A Down-to-Earth Guide to Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing: A Practical Approach provides a comprehensive look at the emerging paradigm of Internet-based enterprise applications and services. This accessible book offers a broad introduction to cloud computing, reviews a wide variety of currently available solutions, and discusses the cost savings and organizational and operational benefits. You'll find details on essential topics, such as hardware, platforms, standards, migration, security, and storage. You'll also learn what other organizations are doing and where they're headed with cloud computing. If your company is considering the move from a traditional network infrastructure to a cutting-edge cloud solution, you need this strategic guide.

Cloud Computing: A Practical Approach covers:

• Costs, benefits, security issues, regulatory concerns, and limitations
• Service providers, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, IBM, EMC/VMware, Salesforce.com, and others
• Hardware, infrastructure, clients, platforms, applications, services, and storage
• Standards, including HTTP, HTML, DHTML, XMPP, SSL, and OpenID
• Web services, such as REST, SOAP, and JSON
• Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Software plus Services (S+S)
• Custom application development environments, frameworks, strategies, and solutions
• Local clouds, thin clients, and virtualization
• Migration, best practices, and emerging standards

Section One: Getting Started;
Chapter 1. The History and Future of Cloud Computing;
Chapter 2. Cloud Computing Basics;
Chapter 3. Your Organization and Cloud Computing;
Chapter 4. Cloud Computing with the Titans (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo);
Chapter 5. The Business Case for going Cloud (w/ case study);
Section Two: Cloud Computing Technology;
Chapter 6. Hardware and Infrastructure;
Chapter 7. Accessing the Cloud (basics to APIs);
Chapter 8. Cloud Storage;
Chapter 9. Emerging Standards;
Section Three: Cloud Computing at Work;
Chapter 10. Software as a Service;
Chapter 11. Software Plus Services;
Chapter 12. Developing Applications;
Chapter 13. Local Clouds and Thin Clients;
Chapter 14. Migrating to the Cloud;
Appendix A. Best Practices;
Appendix B. List of Cloud Computing movers and shakers and Informational Resources