Are all clouds (such as AWS) still too "public" for internal corporate use?

Question

We use AWS as a sort of developer playground --- turning on a server to test app deployment, and execution with a variety of non production data, and then turning it off again.

We also use AWS as a host for our TFS. (because somehow our source code "isn't production data" All in all it's been great, and I would recommend it for corporate work, but that idea doesn't seem to get any traction here. The business is very reluctant to put their data "outside the wire"

What's missing from AWS, and its competitors, to make it a suitable enviornment for private coprorate use.

Answer 1

Ubuntu offer a cloud solution that you can run within your network if management is worried about information going outside of the corporate firewall.

Details can be found at: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/serveredition/cloud

From thier website:

Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud brings Amazon EC2-like infrastructure capabilities inside the firewall. The Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud is powered by Eucalyptus, an open source implementation for the emerging standard of EC2. This solution is designed to simplify the process of building and managing an internal cloud for businesses of any size, thereby enabling companies to create their own self-service infrastructure.

Answer 2

IMO EC2 is well suited for corporate use - as long as you back up all your critical data off site in case of an outage, which you'd want to do for internal systems anyway. The minimum level of security that Amazon enforces is well above what a lot of traditional hosting providers give you, and also above a lot of internal shops I've worked with. Since you have full access to the operating system, you can add in as many extra levels of security as you like.