Everywhere you turn today, someone is blogging about cloud computing. A recurring theme is “All clouds are not created equal”.  Even a map of the cloud computing ecosystem doesn’t tell the whole story.  I like to group the companies required for a complete solution together.

Since so many companies want to execute arbitrary applications in the cloud, let’s explore them first.  I refer to this set of companies as “Core Cloud Corps”.  The group includes not only cloud providers, but the companies that provide security, management, tracking, and provisioning. Over the next few months, I plan to describe several companies, and when possible, interview a representative from the company, for a weekly blog.
 
The use of IaaS is the fastest growing cloud computing segment. But none of the IaaS companies provide the complete solution by themselves.  Best of breed supporting cast is needed for a complete solution.
 
While many of the Core Cloud Corps are in co-opetition with Amazon (Microsoft or IBM) for some services, their growth rate is dependent upon or parallels that of Amazon’s in this space.

Stay tuned for my next blog in the Core Cloud Corps series.  It is an interview with Betsy Zikakis, VP of Marketing at RightScale.