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A More Secure, Trustworthy Cloud.

Virtual private clouds bridge real and virtual computing infrastructure.

After weeks of testing, Amazon.com is preparing to bring out of beta a service that will let customers merge their own computer systems with its cloud-computing services.

Amazon's Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) service, currently in beta testing, integrates remote, virtual resources with physical computers, giving customers the option to use cloud computing while keeping sensitive information on one of their own machines. Amazon's service is the latest part of a larger trend in cloud computing: creating secure connections between real and virtual machines. Similar offerings are available from other cloud-computing companies, including CohesiveFT, IBM, and Enomaly.

Cloud computing allows companies to perform feats of computation that would otherwise have been impossible, or at least prohibitively expensive. However, cloud computing has generally lacked the security features typically required by small and medium-sized enterprises.

Amazon's technology enables cloud-based resources to appear as part of a regular local network of servers. It uses Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) to establish a secure connection with existing data centers. Servers in the cloud can then be assigned specific network addresses and mapped onto an existing network.

-- Tom