There was a question from the audience: “Gee, Steve, what’s the difference between what you’re proposing and straight up virtualization?”

Good question. Glad you asked. Good enough question in fact to insert part 1.5 inbetween parts 1 and 2.

The definition of cloud computing remains nebulous at best. We’re entering a phase where everything is claiming to be a cloud — if you offer something hosted, it’s a cloud. By such a loose definition, the tech biz has been selling clouds since we’ve been renting mainframe time. To offer a little contrast, Amazon EC2 is a huge cluster of virtual machines that you rent a-la cheap dedicated virtual servers. Read More→