Have you ever wondered what happens to your data if you cancel services with your cloud service provider? Is the data really gone, or does it persist? Beth Cohen looks at the common data backup and disposal practices and how various backup practices can affect the outcome.

Have you been waiting to jump into an OpenStack cloud deployment in support of your business or application but were afraid it's still an unsupported mess? Based on the recently published Atlanta OpenStack Summit presentations list, OpenStack is finally coming into its own as a maturing project.

Cloud computing continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Although Amazon had quite a bit of a lead early on, a lot of competition—from commercial players such as Google and Microsoft as well as open source contenders—has made a strong competitive market. These choices mean the end user benefits.