Top 9 Cloud Computing Stories of 2009 - (#5) Amazon Virtual Private Cloud - December 22, 2009 at 10:09 am

Amazon’s Web Services have been getting better and better, but typically by incremental amounts. Up until now, it’s been a slow trickle of improvements to a solid suite of offerings. Cheap storage, cheap computing power, cheap access to PCI compliance, etc.

This new offering however, may truly be a game-changer for their web services division. Amazon’s Virtual Private Cloud lets companies create their own isolated set of EC2 instances and connect them to their own existing IT infrastructure through a VPN connection.

What does all that mumbo-jumbo mean to the business management people? Simple. Now you can augment your IT’s infrastructure without huge capital expenditures. EC2 already runs Windows Server 2008, SQL Server, Oracle Database 11g, IBM DB2, IBM Websphere and many more.

Amazon’s immensely powerful infrastructure is available as a service at prices that will make you wonder if you should bother with your own hardware anymore.

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