Top 5 Cloud Service Providing companies

Cloud computing is Hot, it's the biggest IT trend of last few years and will continue to grow strong in coming future. Cloud computing provides several not-so-easy-to-ignore advantages, especially to public and small enterprises, which cannot afford to own and maintain expensive data centres. Since most of online business now days need high avaibility, scalability, and resiliency, with-in quick time, it's not possible to achieve all these by your own, and cloud computing becomes a best alternative here. Cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) has helped several firms to remain focus on their business, without worrying for IT and infrastructure too much, this has yield big result for them. Not to forget cost effectiveness of cloud computing compared to your own hardware, software and data centres, and with increased competition and awareness of this business, cost is only going to south to make it even more appealing for public and small companies. There are lots of cloud service providers coming up, with increased focused on leveraging expensive data centres to full, many big companies who owns cloud infrastructure are making foray into cloud computing business. In this list, we will see learn 5 Cloud computing companies, which are either market leader or has potential to be a dominant market player. This list includes companies like Amazon, Google etc. If you are a programmer and think that there is no point knowing about cloud computing or not at-least about these cloud computing companies, you are wrong. As an IT professional, one should know about latest technologies and what is going around, when you grow in your career or forms a start-up, your general knowledge of cloud computing and IT platform, infrastructure will help a lot.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon's cloud offering, popularly known as AWS is probably the biggest cloud computing company at this time. It is world leader in two of most popular forms of cloud computing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). Recently AWS announce its move to China, which is going to bring pace to cloud computing industry in world largest economy. Originally started to improve utilization Amazon's expensive data centres, cloud computing is quickly becoming the big revenue driver for company. Amazon built it's cloud infrastructure to support it's well known E-commerce business, but realized later potential in cloud computing. Sometime back Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon, has acknowledged that cloud computing could be the Amazon's biggest business in the future as the demand for cheap computing and storage power keeps rising. Amazon web services is a quite matured cloud-computing Service Provider and it will definitely help to grow this trend in near future.

Google Compute Engine

  Google Compute Engine(GCE)is biggest threat to Amazon's AWS. Though it remains in limited preview and don't support Windows yet, it could completely change the cloud computing game, if Google chose to. They are very similar to Amazon's AWS but in some respect they even beat them; Like Amazon, Google's cloud infrastructure is built to support their own business mainly for Google Search, Gmail and other products. "In the public cloud, it's going to come down to Google and Amazon," said Floyd Strimling, formerly a technical evangelist at IT monitoring software provider Zenoss, which has a partnership with Google for integration with Google Maps as a visualization tool. "Just like Amazon, they're all in," he said. Google also owns fiber-optic networks, unlike Amazon, which rely on ISPs. Google has been ahead of the software-defined networking (SDN) game as well, and can compete with Amazon on pricing and performance right out of the gate. Fortunately for Amazon, Google has not shown any aggressive intent to dominate cloud computing market yet, but we expect it happens sooner than later, given current IT trends and cost effective advantages of cloud computing.

CloudBees

  CloudBeesis relatively new entrant in cloud computing space and focusing on Java Paas and Continuous delivery area. Unlike many other Platform as a Service vendors, CloudBees seems to be committed on Java, Grails and JRails. Apart from Platform as a Service, CloudBees offers continuous integration services through its Jenkins plugins and also has tie-ups with a number of ecosystem partners, e.g. New Relic for monitoring and PaperTrail for log sequencing. CloudBees seems to be rightly place for small scale companies and start-ups which makes heavy use of Java and open source technologies e.g. GitHub, Jenkins and other third party libraries. The Jenkins plugin is also used by Google App Engine.

Rackspace

  Rackspace is another growing cloud computing company in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as Service (Paas) space. Rackspace has played a significant role in developing and shaping OpenStack, the much talked about open source cloud software. It has started offering public cloud service based on OpenStack from August 2012, setting the environment for other major cloud service providers to follow. It still has a long way to go, to even close of Amazon's AWS, but if it continues to broaden to its IaaS managed cloud service offerings as well as evolve to its Pass products for the buzzing DevOps market, it has bright future ahead of him.

CloudSigma

  cloudSigmais a company which thinks that the currently available public clouds are a lot more restrictive than it should be and it aims to facilitate a more flexible and collaborative relationship between public cloud providers and customers. They are not as big as Amazon AWS or Rackspace, market leaders of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering, but aims to provide an alternative close to customers. The a la carte, or utility, approach to IaaS to configure  CPU performance, RAM size, storage size will surely attract many more customers in the future.

That's all on this list of some of the top five cloud computing companies and service providers, particularly for Java and IT professionals. Many companies are in business of providing  Infrastructure as a Service (IasS) and Platform as a Service(Pass), but there are also companies which provides Software as a Service. Cloud computing is all set to take a big leap this year, and we are likely to see increased competition, reduce price and more attractive packages for using clouds. As IT professional, we should know how IT infrastructure landscape is changing, knowledge of current technology and trends also helps to develop good rapo among peers and colleagues. In 2014, Invest some time to learn about technical changes which can create big impact.

ANDROID LOLLIPOP

Android 5.0 "Lollipop" is a version of the Android Mobile Operating System developed by Google. Unveiled on June 25, 2014, the operating system will be first made available in November 2014 for selected devices that run distributions of Android that are serviced by Google, including Nexus and Google Play Edition devices.

     The most prominent changes in Lollipop include a redesigned user interface built around a responsive design Language referred to as "material design". Other changes include improvements to the notification system which allow notifications to be accessed from the lock screen, and displayed within other apps as banners across the top of the screen. Internal changes were also made to the platform, with the Android Runtime(ART) officially replacing Dalvik for improved application performance, and changes intended to improve and optimize battery usage.The main features of Lollipop are
Enhanced notifications
1. Android L will make notifications even better. For starters you can get them on the lock screen - and they will be automatically ordered in priority. You will be able to swipe them away like normal or double tap to open the relevant app.
2. New lockscreen
Part of the Android L redesign is a new lockscreen which will show you notifications (see above image). You'll need to swipe up to unlock (if you don't have a lock pattern or other unlock method) but you can also swipe right to launch the dialler or left to launch the camera.
3. New multi-tasking
Forget a 2D list of open apps, the new recent apps section of Android L brings a Google Now card style layout. The open apps flow on a sort of carousel and can be swiped off to either side to close them as before.
It's not working on the developer preview but some apps, for example chrome, will be able to have multiple cards in recent apps. Android L will show a separate card for each open tab.
4. New notifcation bar
The Android L notification bar looks quite different to before. It works in the same way as before so a swipe from the top of the screen grants access. There's a new layout and colour scheme.
Instead of tapping a button to access quick settings you simply swipe downwards a second time. There is now screen brightness control as standard and a new 'cast screen' icon for mirroring with a Chromecast.
5. Security - personal unlocking
Google said that security is a key element for Android and its users. A new feature will enable users to unlock their smartphone when physically near enough a device like an Android Wear smartwatch. It's a bit like cars with keyless entry.
6. Battery life - new saver mode
Better battery life is something we always want and Google promises that Android L will bring it via a new battery saving mode. Project Volta will allow developers to identify how their apps are using battery so they make improvements.
Google said that the new battery saving mode will give a Nexus 5 an extra 90 minutes of power. The battery section of the settings menu now gives more detailed information, too.
7. Performance
As we expected, Android L will support 64-bit processors and it will also support the ART software library which Google says will be twice as fast as Davik.

WINDOWS  10

Windows 10 is an upcoming release of the  Microsoft Windows operating system. Unveiled on September 30, 2014, it will be released in late 2015.
First teased in April 2014 at the Build Conference, Windows 10 aims to address shortcomings in the user interface first introduced by Windows 8 by adding additional mechanics designed to improve the user experience for non-touchscreen devices (such as desktop computers and laptops), including a revival of the Start menu seen in Windows 7, a virtual desktop system, and the ability to run Windows Store Apps within windows on the desktop rather than a full-screen mode.
These are the top reasons why Windows 10 looks like a winner for PC owners

1. The Start button is back.For years, the first thing people saw when they booted their PCs was the humble Windows Start button. But the little guy was nixed from Windows 8 in favor of the Start screen.

With Windows 10, however, Microsoft is bringing back the Start button. You can finally see all of your programs nested in its menus, and shutting down is once again an easy click away.
What’s more, Windows 10 lets you add some of those nifty Windows 8 app tiles to the Start menu. It’s the best of both worlds.
2. The desktop returns.In Windows 8, the traditional desktop took a backseat to the Start screen. Sure, you could choose to boot to the desktop by fiddling with different settings, but the emphasis was clearly on getting people to the Start screen.

The Start screen interface worked well with tablets, but Microsoft wanted desktop and laptop owners to interact with the Start screen, too, even if their computers didn’t have touchscreens.
Windows 10 puts the desktop back in its rightful place, front and center as soon as you start up your computer. In fact, the touchy-feely Start screen is entirely gone from the PC version. The only remnants of the interface are the aforementioned app tiles that appear in the Start menu.
3. Continuum mode.Microsoft hasn’t completely axed the Start screen interface, though. It will still be available to people who own 2-in-1 laptop-tablet hybrid computers.

The feature works by recognizing how you’re using your device. So if you have a Surface Pro 3, for example, Windows 10 will run in tablet mode, emphasizing the Start screen.
Connect the Surface’s keyboard attachment, however, and Windows 10 will switch over to desktop mode and all the features it includes.
4. Windows apps.Microsoft introduced its own apps with Windows 8. And though they were beautiful, you could use them only on the Windows 8 Start screen. Windows 10 changes that, letting you open and use Windows 8 apps on the traditional desktop.

Better still, the apps don’t take up the whole screen anymore, because they run in actual windows, meaning that you can move and resize them as much as you want.
5. Snap your apps

Windows 8’s Snap feature, which lets you move apps to either side of the screen, also returns in Windows 10. This time, though, you can snap both Windows 8 apps and regular programs to either side of your screen. It should make multitasking worlds better.
6. Task view.Windows 10’s new Task view is similar to the Mission Control feature found in Apple’s OS X. From Task view, you can open multiple desktops, each with their own apps. That should help you crank your productivity up to 11 with ease.

What’s more, when you move your pointer over a desktop, you can see what apps are running on it, so you don’t have to search each desktop to find where you last left off.
The outlookWindows 8 has been a headache for Microsoft, but Windows 10 is well on its way to righting its predecessor’s wrongs. Still, there’s a long way to go before this operating system is finished. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what Windows 10 has to offer. But from what little we’ve seen, Microsoft is on the right track.