4th International Cloud Expo Photo Album on Ulitzer

The past month has seen an unprecedented concentration of Cloud-related articles, events, tweets, and - above all - product launches, partnership announcements and M&A moves. So is Cloud Computing, after three years, finally coming to the boil? Here, by way of allowing you to judge for yourself, SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Journal brings you a timeline of the trajectory of the Cloud so far.

NOVEMBER 13, 2006
Jeff Bezos' Risky Bet - BusinessWeek publishes a cover article on Amazon's "Elastic Compute Cloud" (EC2) - a totally new on-demand, pay-as-you-go storage and computing service launched earlier that year, in August 2006. [From the article: "Bezos wants Amazon to run your business, at least the messy technical and logistical parts of it, using those same technologies and operations that power his $10 billion online store. In the process, Bezos aims to transform Amazon into a kindIBM (NYSE: IBM) unveiled plans for "Blue Cloud," a series of cloud computing offerings that will allow corporate data centers to operate more like the Internet by enabling computing across a distributed, globally accessible fabric of resources, rather than on local machines or remote server farms."]

DECEMBER 6, 2006
Ajit Jaokar writes about "cloud computing" and so begins SYS-CON Media's high-energy and continuous coverage of the Cloud. [From the article: "What I am proposing is a mobile phone optimized to accessing information on the Web...It could be based on the idea of Cloud computing."]

OCTOBER 22, 2007
RightScale, still at that time an early-stage company, wins an award for providing support for Amazon's EC2 and helping companies to tap raw computing power in the brave new world of cloud computing.

NOVEMBER 15, 2007
IBM unveils plans for "Blue Cloud," a series of cloud computing offerings that will allow corporate data centers to operate more like the Internet by enabling computing across a distributed, globally accessible fabric of resources, rather than on local machines or remote server farms.

JUNE 4, 2008
Terremark launches its Internet-optimized computing infrastructure, "Enterprise Cloud."

OCTOBER 6, 2009
SYS-CON launches the inaugural Government Information Technology Conference & Expo series. The 1st Annual GovIT Expo is held in Washington, DC. The opening keynote address is given by the Deputy CIO of the Central Intelligence Agency, Jill Tummler Singer.

NOVEMBER 19-21, 2008

SYS-CON's International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is launched. The inaugural event, 1st International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, is held at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA. The opening keynote address is given by Amazon's dynamic CTO, Werner Vogels.

MAY 18-19, 2009
3rd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (Cloud Expo Europe) is held in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. The opening keynote address is given by serial entrepreneur Roman Stanek.

MAY 21, 2009
U.S Government launches Data.gov open government initiative.

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009
Vivek Kundra announces launch of Apps.gov "to help continue the President’s initiative to lower the cost of government operations while driving innovation within government."

OCTOBER 27, 2009
Amazon Web Services launches Database in the Cloud.

OCTOBER 31, 2009
The city of Los Angeles announces switch to Google Apps.

NOVEMBER 2, 2009
Cisco, EMC and VMware announce joint cloud venture: vBlock.
Microsoft announces Windows Azure Platform launch update.
CSC launches Cloud Assessment Service.

NOVEMBER 2-4, 2009
4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo is held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, and sets new attendance record with over 2,000 registered delegates attending a program that include 130 speakers and 110 general and breakout sessions.

NOVEMBER 3, 2009
"Large Crowd Gains Insight into Future of Cloud Computing" (eWeek)
{From the article: "There may be a worldwide recession that is cutting back travel for many people, but don't tell it to the organizers and attendees of the fourth International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, which opened Nov. 2 and is being held here at the Santa Clara Convention Center through Nov. 4.Most of the 30 or so sessions on Day 1 were well-attended, and the three main presentations in the late afternoon were packed to standing-room-only status."]

NOVEMBER 2-4, 2009:
A sample of the many thousands of Cloud Expo-related tweets:

@cloudbzz: http://twitter.com/cloudbzz/status/5374620388
@johnsavageau: http://twitter.com/johnsavageau/status/5393327358
@zhenjl: http://twitter.com/zhenjl/status/5436941998

@scottsanchez: http://twitter.com/scottsanchez/status/5376720036
@lounibos: http://twitter.com/Lounibos/status/5411409807
@sureddy: http://twitter.com/sureddy/status/5394153608

A sample of the many hundreds of Cloud Expo-related blogs:
Bill Roth: Long lines, No Parking: A Good Sign?
Dekel Tankel: Yahoo! at Cloud Computing Expo
Glenn Brunette: Update: Recent Cloud Security Happenings
Ellen Rubin: Reality Check at the Cloud Expo
[From Rubin's blog post: "The fact that 2000 people showed up at the Cloud Expo in Santa Clara this week (double the number from last year’s show) suggests that at the very least, interest in enterprise cloud computing remains very real, and the need for practical solutions and use cases is growing more urgent."]

NOVEMBER 4, 2009
Nortel launches cloud-based real-time applications using EC2.

NOVEMBER 6, 2009
BioSciences firm LI-COR uses Force.com platform to go live with an offering called CloudCraze.