Clouds Over New York: 10 Cloud Computing Vendors At Interop NYC

Gathering Clouds

Interop New York 2010 also played host to the Enterprise Cloud Summit. And the cloud was on nearly every attendee's mind at this year's East Coast Interop. Nowhere was that more evident than in the Cloud Zone on the Interop New York show floor -- the busiest section of the expo floor by a massive margin.

Dozens of cloud players -- including the established big dogs and the hungry startups -- took to Interop to showcase their cloud computing solutions, ranging from platforms and infrastructure to security and storage. Here we take a look at 10 cloud computing vendors that stand out from the pack.

Microsoft

Microsoft has made it known that it's "all in" when it comes to the cloud. And the software giant was sure to make its cloud presence known to the Interop masses, taking center stage in the cloud zone and showcasing its Windows Azure cloud computing platform, its BPOS cloud apps and a host of other cloud computing solutions, like SQL Azure, to get apps off of pricy, bulky hardware and into the cloud.

Amazon Web Services

The granddaddy of cloud computing, Amazon Web Services needed no introduction to the Interop masses. The cloud computing offspring of the massive online retailer showcased its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) on-demand cloud infrastructure and its Simple Storage Service (S3).

Hosting.com

Hosting.com took to the Interop New York Cloud Zone to prove once and for all that migration from legacy systems to the cloud isn't as tall a hurdle as many perceive. Hosting.com, Denver, Colo., showcased its cloud hosting capabilities, along with its hybrid hosting, collocation, managed hosting, disaster recovery and business continuity services. Hosting.com showed Interop-goers that migrating across platforms isn't a headache.

AEP Networks

Security and the cloud aren't always seen as going hand-in-hand, but AEP Networks set out to prove that the cloud can be secure. Heck, AEP showed Interopers that the cloud could be just as secure as their old systems.

At Interop, AEP showed off its CloudProtect Application Security offering, a pay-as-you-go security solution, which AEP calls SECaaS (or Security-as-a-Service) for application and data security. Somerset, N.J.-based AEP said that CloudProtect is ideal for companies that want fully functional secure access to cloud computing environments or Web-based applications. CloudProtect offers policy-based application and network access to secure the cloud.

Vembu

At Interop New York, Vembu launched the production release of its Pro Online Backup Service, a service hosted on the Amazon Web Services cloud. The service lets VARs and MSPs offer their own branded cloud backup service leveraging the scalability and security of Amazon's cloud. Vembu's newest release offers cloud backup for a host of various data types and is powered by Carson City, Nev.-based Vembu's cloud and online backup software offering StoreGrid.

AppRiver

Messaging security in the cloud? Yup. AppRiver does it. The Gulf Breeze, Fla.-based company showed Interop attendees its SaaS-based spam and virus services, including SecureTide, it's fully managed e-mail protection service; CipherPost service that encrypts all e-mail and mobile messages and its Secure Hosted Exchange offerings.

Rackspace

No Cloud Zone would be complete without a bunch of "rackers." Rackspace's booth at Interop New York 2010 bustled with attendees seeking more details on its Cloud Servers cloud infrastructure and its Cloud Files cloud storage offering. Cloud-headed Interop goers also sought details of Rackspace's OpenStack initiative, an open-source project and ecosystem through which the San Antonio hosting-turned-cloud provider is opening up its cloud code to the masses.

Platform Computing

A neighbor to the north, Ontario-based Platform Computing showed Interop attendees just why it is a leader in cluster, grid and cloud management software. At Interop, Platform Computing showcased its private cloud offerings, including its Platform ISF, end-to-end software for private cloud management.

Apprenda

Clifton Park, N.Y.-based Apprenda didn't have to travel far to show Interop N.Y. attendees its SaaSGrid next generation application server for cloud computing and SaaS. Apprenda said the SaaSGrid cloud middleware lets applications embrace the cloud and multi-tenant SaaS, and offers a host of "out-of-the-box" application services like billing and subscriber management and application lifecycle management.

Bat Blue

Bat Blue, based in Clifton, N.J., took to Interop to showcase its security-in-the-cloud Cloud/Sec offering. Cloud/Sec offers application-based security while also consolidating user-based access control, application visibility and control, threat management, malware protection, VPN, URL filtering and data leakage prevention into a single cloud-based security play.