A central element of the vision for cloud computing is that it will ultimately give end users the ability to consume computing resources on a utility basis, similar to the way they consume electricity or gas in the real world. However, few cloud service providers actually want their services to be treated as commodities. Rather than competing purely on the basis of cost, service providers would prefer to differentiate in ways that allow them to charge a premium. Indeed, it has become difficult to ignore the cacophony of pleas from vendors enticing end users to migrate to their clouds for reasons that do not involve prices. Ironically, though, pinning those qualitative differentiators down can be tedious for end users, largely due to a lack of transparency by the service providers. Few are willing to divulge details about their cloud services without getting prospects on the phone with a sales representative. End users deserve better; they deserve standardized specifications.
For example, one key concern for end-users of cloud services is the knowledge of where their data is actually being processed and stored. This crucial piece of information is difficult or impossible to find online. In our research at IDEAS, we had to use several tricks in order to compile a list of geographic locations in which the data centers of public cloud services are placed. For instance, by digging around employment sites, we were able to find where the vendors were hiring data center engineers, which, in all likelihood, means that is the region in which the vendor’s data center are located.
Right now, tracking down these data points in the "information jungle" is a lot of work, but it doesn’t need to be this way. For decades, physical infrastructure has provided specifications on the architecture it sells. Cloud service providers may not want to be treated as a commodity, but at some point in the growth phase of their emerging industry, they will need to start communicating non-marketing, but crucial, points of their services more openly.
Here is a table of cloud vendor data center locations that we have identified to date:
| Vendor | Region |
|---|---|
| Amazon AWS | Singapore (APAC), Japan (APAC), Ireland (Europe), Virginia (US), California (US) |
| Rackspace | Chicago (US; Illinois), Dallas (US; Texas) |
| Storm On Demand | Michigan (US) |
| GoGrid | California (US), Virginia (US) |
| Voxel | Amsterdam (Europe), New York (North America), Singapore (APAC) |
| NewServers | Miami (US; Florida) |
| Linode VPS Hosting | Atlanta (North America; US; Georgia), Newark (North America; US; New Jersey), Dallas (North America; US; Texas), Fremont (North America; US; California), London (Europe; UK) |
| SoftLayer | Dallas (US; Texas), Seattle (US; Washington), DC (US) |
| Terremark vCloud Express | Miami (US; Florida) |
| VPS.NET | Atlanta (US; Georgia) |
| OpSource Cloud | Virginia (US) |
| Speedyrails | Quebec (North America; US; Canada), San Jose (North America; US; California), Los Angeles (North America; US; California), Ashburn (North America; US; Virginia), New York (North America; US; New York), Chicago (North America; US; Illinois), Dallas (North America; US; Texas), Atlanta (North America; US; Georgia), Seattle (North America; US; Washington), London (Europe; UK), Frankfurt (Europe; Germany), Hong Kong (APAC; China), Tokyo (APAC; Japan), and Sydney (APAC; Australia; NSW) |
| Zerigo | Colorado (North America; Colorado) |
| ReliaCloud | Minnesota (US) |
| Gandi.net | France |
| CloudSigma | Switzerland |
| IBM Development & Test Cloud | Raleigh (North America; US; North Carolina), Boulder (North America; Colorado), Ehningen (Europe; Germany; Baden-Württemberg ) |
| BlueLock | Indiana (US) |
| Cloud Central | Australia |
| RimuHosting | London (Europe; UK), Dallas (North America; US; Colorado), Australia (APAC), New Zealand (APAC) |
| ElasticHosts | UK, US |
| Flexiscale | UK |
| ZettaGrid | Australia |
| StratoGen | London (UK) |
| Melbourne IT vCloud Express | Melbourne (APAC; Australia) |
| Agathon Group | Grand Rapids (US; Michigan) |
| Hosting.com | Newark (US; Delaware), San Francisco (US; California) |
| AT&T | United States |
| KDDI | Japan |
| Layered Tech | Kansas City (US; Missouri); Dallas (US; TX); Chicago (US; Illinois) |
| NetMagic | Bangalore (India), Mumbai (India) |
| OpSource | Ashburn (US; Virginia), Santa Clara (US; California) |
| United Internet (1 & 1 ) | Kansas (US) |
| Hosted Solutions | United States |
| Macquarie Telecom | Australia |
| Navisite | Andover (US; Massachusetts) Houston (US; Texas) Oak Brook (US; Illinois) Charlotte (North Carolina) London (UK) San Jose (US; California) Chicago (US; Illinois) New York City (US; New York) Syracuse (US; New York) |
| NTT | San Jose (US; California), Sterling (US; Virginia), Ashburn (US; Virginia), New York (US; New York), Frankfurt (Germany), London (England), Madrid (Spain), Paris (France), Singapore (Republica of Singapore), Tokyo (Japan) |
| RagingWire | Sacramento (California) |
| Savvis | El Segundo (US; California), Irvine (US; California), San Francisco(US; California), Santa Clara (US; California); Atlanta (US; Georgia); Chicago (US; Illinois); Boston (US; Massachusetts), Hazelwood (US; MO), Jersey City (US; New Jersey); Weehawken (US; New Jersey), Piscataway (US; New Jersey), New York (US; New York), Dallas (US; Texas), Sterling (US; Virginia), Seattle (US; Washington), Vancouver (Canada), Toronto (Canada), Montreal (Canada), Docklans (UK), Slough(UK), Reading (UK), Singapore (Republic of Singapore), Tokyo (Japan) |
| Star Technology Services | United Kingdom |
| SunGard | United States, UK, Sweden, France, Luxemburg, Belgium, Ireland |
| ThinkGrid | United Kingdom |
| Datapipe | San Jose (US; California), Somerset (US; New Jersey), London (UK), Hong Kong (China) |
| Verizon Business | United States |
| Virtustream | New York (US; New York), Northampton (UK), Dublin (Ireland), Jersey Islands |
Thank you very much for the information. I have referenced your material as it is great information for those looking for cloud hosting service providers to have.
Posted by: Brian Thopsey | June 30, 2011 at 05:08 PM