The idea of the open cloud has different meanings. There are open infrastructure groups that are working toward federating clouds at the infrastructure level. These are groups such as OpenStack and Cloudstack, two of the most well-known efforts to help companies build their own clouds.
And then there are the hosting providers who serve the small business. Small businesses are not as much interested in building out their own clouds. But more so they want to use tools available in a SaaS environment with as little hassle as possible.
On Tuesday, February 5 at 1:30 p.m. PST, I will co-host a Google Hangout live from the Parallels Summit with Krishnan Subramanian, founder of Rishidot Research. The topic: the drive to build open cloud marketplaces. You’re invited.
Some of the topics I expect we will cover include:
- Why are cloud marketplaces an issue particular to small businesses?
- Why not open-source the effort?
- What would make this better than the Amazon marketplace?
- Are there any other federated cloud marketplaces available?
Our discussion will also cover the differences between open cloud efforts and why there are so many grassroots open-source cloud initiatives.
Krish and I will be joined by executives from Parallels, Savvis Direct, McAfee and hosting service 1&1.