Thank You, Reese and O'Reilly, For Your Impeccable Timing

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Book:		Cloud Application Architectures
Subject:		Thank You, Reese and O'Reilly, For Your Impeccable Timing
Date:		2009-04-17 10:33:43
From:		Graeme Thickins

Rating: This is a book that had to be written, and O'Reilly's timing of its publication couldn't be better. It will be gobbled up in this defining year in the mainstreaming of cloud computing. Reese, an experienced O'Reilly author and recognized cloud computing practitioner, delivers a highly readable volume that cuts through all the cloud computing hype to provide real clarity for anyone wanting to better understand this often confusing and frequently derided term. He gives solid, practical advice on how to benefit, today, from this powerful new set of technologies. Cloud computing is a tsunami headed toward old-school corporate computing. Doubters beware. Reese and his O'Reilly editors do a brilliant job covering the bases for anyone "who designs, builds, or maintains web applications that may be deployed into the cloud." But the book's appeal will extend much wider than that -- not only to anyone who manages such technologists, but into C-level suites as well. And I don't just mean the CIO's office. It is an excellent companion purchase to Nicholas Carr's "The Big Switch," delivering the knowledge you and your people need to take the next step -- to actually implement cloud computing. Chapter 1 is an outstanding overview of the cloud concept and its value to the business enterprise, worth the price of the book alone. Then, Reese delves into an excellent description of the leading provider of cloud computing services today, Amazon Web Services (AWS), including its EC2 and S3 offerings. From there, he describes what you need to know before you move into the cloud, followed by a chapter on getting ready for the cloud. But it's not all sweetness and light. Reese addresses head-on the widely recognized obstacles cited by enterprises to adopting cloud computing today: security and reliability. An entire chapter is devoted to disaster recovery in the cloud, as is scaling a cloud infrastructure. Three excellent appendices round out the book, making it a must for any cloud IT professional's book shelf: an Amazon Web Services reference, plus submissions by technologists at two other leading cloud providers, GoGrid and Rackspace, explaining their offerings. I find it hard to identify anything the book lacks; it appears to cover all the bases business and IT people need -- now -- to take action and start reaping the major costs savings offered by cloud computing. We will undoubtedly see updated editions as changes occur in this field. But do not miss the first printing.