Last March, Hewlett-Packard CEO Leo Apotheker took advantage of the company's annual analyst meeting to announce plans to launch a public cloud service. That service is one step closer to reality with today's announcement that HP has initiated a beta program for HP Cloud Services.
The two services entering beta are HP Cloud Compute and HP Cloud Object Storage.
HP cloud services VP Emil Sayegh announced the beta program on his blog:
Today, we are pleased to invite you to participate in the HP Cloud Services private beta program. We are making this early access available so you can test, experience and provide input on our two initial cloud services: HP Cloud Compute and HP Cloud Object Storage. Both offerings are based on HP’s world class hardware and software with key elements of HP Converged Infrastructure and HP Software combined with a developer friendly, integration of OpenStack through our easy to use, web-based User Interface (UI) along with open, RESTful APIs.
At HP Cloud Services, our goal is to provide the next generation of cloud infrastructure, platform services and cloud solutions for developers, ISVs, and businesses of all sizes. We recognize that public cloud services should be open and transparent from end-to-end across APIs, infrastructure and software stack.
For more information – or to sign up for the beta program – visit www.hpcloud.com.
Oh, one last thing. Before you devote a lot of time and money to evaluating the services and building apps based on them, consider that HP hasn't announced pricing details yet.
Web recommendation: I don't think I need to frame today's recommendation with comments. The horrifying story speaks for itself: Three in Ten Americans Urge Feds to Read Their E-mail. I know you'll find this story – a tip of the hat to The Register for publishing it – as disturbing as I do. J.D. says check it out.
J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He recently relocated to a small town outside Belgrade – stop by if your travels take you through Serbia.