Here are some Analysts from Gartner and Forrester who released at least one Cloud Computing related research in 2009.

Gartner

David W. Cearley, VP & Gartner Fellow

http://www.gartner.com/AnalystBiography?authorId=25698

http://blogs.gartner.com/david_cearley/

Simon Hayward, VP & Gartner Fellow

http://www.gartner.com/AnalystBiography?authorId=12498

Daryl C. Plummer, Managing VP & Gartner Fellow

http://www.gartner.com/AnalystBiography?authorId=7521

http://blogs.gartner.com/daryl_plummer/

Brian Prentice, Research VP

http://www.gartner.com/AnalystBiography?authorId=25995

http://blogs.gartner.com/brian_prentice/

Martin Reynolds, Managing VP

http://www.gartner.com/AnalystBiography?authorId=7642

http://blogs.gartner.com/martin_reynolds/

Forrester

Stephanie Balaouras
Principal Analyst, Research Director

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/stephanie_balaouras

Jean-Pierre Garbani

Vice President, Principal Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/jean-pierre_garbani

Frank E. Gillett
Vice President, Principal Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/jean-pierre_garbani

James Staten
Principal Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/james_staten

Christopher Voce
Senior Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/christopher_voce

Jennifer Belissent, Ph.D.
Senior Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/Jennifer_Belissent

Randy Heffner
Vice President, Principal Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/randy_heffner

Stefan Ried, Ph.D.
Senior Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/stefan_ried

Stefan Ried, Ph.D.
Senior Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/stefan_ried

Amazon EC2 allows users to provision compute resources on-demand. With On-demand Instances, Amazon EC2 does not require any commitment, sign-up fees, and upfront payments. Amazon Web Services (AWS) uses a monthly billing cycle; therefore users get charged at end of each month for their EC2 usages.

Amazon EC2 charge in 2 dimensions: instance (server) uptime (total number of hours an instance has been running) and bandwidth consumption. There are 2 types of bandwidth charges: “bandwidth in” or “data transfer in” (the amount of data transferred in Amazon cloud) and “bandwidth out” or “data transfer out” (the amount of data transferred out of Amazon cloud). “Bandwidth in” has a flat rate of $0.10/GB and “bandwidth out” has a tiered pricings starting at $0.17/GB. Where it gets little complicated is on the instance (server) uptime. At the end of each month, AWS tallies the total number of instances hours each type of instance ran and multiplies the total number of hour by their hourly rate. Instances hourly rates depend on 3 things: the type of instance, the EC2 region, and the pricing option.

1- Amazon EC2 Instances types
Amazon EC2 has 7 types of instances. Each instance type has 3 main characteristics: number of EC2 Compute Unite (ECU), memory size (RAM), and the size of the local drive.

2- Amazon EC2 Regions
Amazon EC2 has 3 regions: U.S.- Northern Virginia (US East), U.S.- Northern California (Northern Cal), and Europe – Ireland (EU). The hourly rates for instances in Northern Cal and EU are the same, and hourly rates for instances in US East are about 11.76% cheaper than those in Northern Cal and EU.

3- Amazon EC2 pricing options
Amazon EC2 has 3 pricing options. On-Demand Instances (default pricing), Reserved Instances (RI), and Spot Instances (SI).

a. On-Demand Instances
The On-demand Instances pricing is the default pricing for EC2. This pricing does not require upfront payments (CapEx) or commitments. Although AWS can increase users’ EC2 limits, there is no guarantee the instances will be available. The only way to guarantee capacity with Amazon EC2 is to purchase RI. The On-Demand pricing is ideal for burst capacity, dev/test, and POC.

b. Reserved Instances (RI)
RI allows AWS users to reduce their instances uptime costs by about 30% for 1-year term and 50% for 3-years term over the length of the term. RI requires upfront payments. The amount of upfront payments depends on the term of the RI and the type of instances.  Another added benefit for RI is the guarantee capacity. RI guarantees capacity for the instances purchased. I strongly encourage AWS users should purchase RI for their steady usages.

c. Spot Instances
Amazon EC2 auctions un-used EC2 capacity as Spot Instances. Spot Instances allow users to bid on un-used EC2 instances at lower rates than On-Demand instances. However, this auction is a little different than traditional auctions. Amazon EC2 set the hourly rates for each instances type by region and users bid to run Spot Instances at the rates set by Amazon EC2. Amazon EC2 can change the hourly rates of Spot Instances anytime. If the new rates are higher than a user’s original bid rate, Amazon EC2 will terminate the user’s instances. As a result, Spot Instances are not ideal for most use cases and it is not recommended to run critical elements (web servers, data base servers, and most application servers) on Spot Instances. Spot Instances are perfect for load testing, transcoding, files conversions, financial modeling, and for all  applications that that have flexible start and end times.

Net neutrality is a principle that all broadband networks (DSL, Cable internet, dial up…) should be neutral and free of restrictions, which means broadband providers (Comcast, ATT, Verizon, Time Warner….) have to treat all sites, contents, applications, platforms, and devices that connect to their networks equal. For instance, under net neutrality provision, Comcast cannot assign higher value to Google and make it easier for their subscribers to access google.com while they assign a lower value to http://moussadao.com, therefore making it hard for their subscribers to access http://moussadao.com.

Why is net neutrality important?

Without net neutrality, it would probably have been impossible to have sites such as Google, Facebook, twitter, Youtube.com. At their early stages, these sites could have been assigned lower value by broadband providers; therefore broadband providers could have restricted access to these sites and make it hard for subscribers to access them. If access to Google was restricted and google.com was slow to load, mostly likely no one would have used Google.com; therefore we could have never known how good Google search is.

Net neutrality encourages innovation on the internet. It allows entrepreneurs around the globe to focus on creating the next Google, Facebook, and twitter without worrying about broadband providers’ restrictions.

Without net neutrality, broadband providers can make it difficult to access certain type of contents (such as videos, movies and music download…) on their networks. Or they could charge extra (or premium) to access and visit these sites.

What is happening to net neutrality?

The FCC is currently in the middle of debating the future on net neutrality and wants to extend net neutrality to wireless broadband connections.  But, opponents of net neutrality are fighting hard. The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies (ATT, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner…) want to get rid of net neutrality and be the internet gatekeepers, deciding which web sites go fast or slow and which won’t load at all. They are putting presser on the FCC to not extend the net neutrality provision. 

On the other hand, Google, Amazon.com, Facebook, twitter, and many other corporations and not-for-profit organizations are fighting to preserve net neutrality.

While the Bush administration had taken side with the nation’s largest telephone and cable companies, President Obama is committed to the notion of net neutrality.

If you care about the internet, care about your freedom on the internet, want to see more innovations, continue to access any sites without any restrictions, and want to preserve the internet, join the flight to preserve net neutrality.

• Contact your congressman and senator to voice your support for net neutrality.
• Sign the petition by Save the Internet.

Additional readings about net neutrality
Save The Internet
Net neutralilty wikipidia
Google Blog

Marc Strassman and Etopia News: Producer-reporter of remote video interviews, primarily dealing with climate change and the effort to mitigate it through the rapid and universal deployment of renewable energy systems. You can find lot more interviews by Marc Strassman at http://Zibutu.com

Paul is a founding member of Plug In America and a long-time EV driver and advocate for renewable energy. Paul has worked in the film business for most of his career while keeping involved as a population activist and environmental activist. Paul currently works for SolarCity, California’s largest residential solar installer. Paul also is the president of the Electric Vehicle Association of Southern California.