Elemental Cloud Computing is a new research offering dedicated to exploring the opportunities, issues, technologies, offerings and implications of cloud computing from a practitioner perspective.
Key to the practitioner perspective is context. Context influences the Elemental Cloud Computing (ELCC) research philosophy in two ways. First, cloud computing is being viewed in the broader context of business, technology, people, and value attainment.
Second, cloud computing is being considered as part of a broader enterprise technology strategy. This includes understanding the connections and/or potential conflicts between cloud computing and services architecture, information strategies, portfolio management, business architecture, business-driven IT profiles and IT capability delivery.
Although Elemental Cloud Computing is a new research offering, I have been following and writing about the cloud computing space over the course of 2009. As many know, it started unintentionally, after attending the Open Group’s Cloud Computing Summit in early February.
Shortly afterwards, I published my Unintentional Cloud Watching >> Cloud Watching for Enterprise Architects post on elemental links, and began an intentional study of cloud computing through the lens of an enterprise architect.
Elemental Cloud Computing is a means to extend, organize and share my intentional cloud watching. Departing from traditional research services, Elemental Cloud Computing contains a mix of original works, formal research, commentary and curated industry content.
Quick Tour
For the initial launch, ELCC has three content sections: Cloud Watch, Blog and Research.
Cloud Watch: Cloud Watch items are snippets from cloud computing industry news, business and technical publications, and thought leaders. These snippets may be as short as a 140-character tweet, or as long as a few paragraphs. Cloud Watch items will be posted throughout the course of the day, and may be expanded as more voices and sources cover a hot topic. Cloud Watch items may include a short Elemental Cloud Computing perspective.
Blog: Blog content is a mix of original works, expanded commentary on Cloud Watch items, briefing notes, analysis of cloud computing developments and offerings, industry event coverage, reading picks and items of interest to practitioners considering, or adopting cloud computing.
Research: Research pieces are formal deliverables that explore a topic in depth. Research treatments include case studies, survey analysis, practitioner guidance, market landscape, and provider and product analysis. Occasionally, premium research will be available for sale, at accessible prices.
Content findability is implemented via cross-site categorization, tagging and search. As a general rule, cloud computing topics are defined as categories, while provider organizations, individuals, events and practitioner roles are noted as tags. All Blog, Cloud Watch and Research pages display the current category list and active tag cloud. The Google Site Search will be active once the site is crawled.
The Fine Print
Content License: Except where marked by a copyright notice, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. For more information, please read our Terms of Use.
Transparency: Elemental Links, the provider of Elemental Cloud Computing, practices transparency. For an explanation of our transparency practices and policies, please read our Transparency Policy.
About: For more on Elemental Cloud Computing, all policies, subscription options and contact information, please visit our About page.
