The flexibility and economic benefits of cloud computing have generated a tremendous amount of interest. As developers work with this technology, an obvious concern is vendor lock-in. Writing an application that makes the most of cloud computing is great. But what if that application locks you in to a single vendor? The Simple Cloud API is an effort by multiple cloud vendors to create a single API that works with cloud services from multiple providers. This article is a high-level overview of the API and its goals.

Cloud computing promises to change IT as dramatically as anything since the rise of the Web. If you’re a developer or architect, you should at least be evaluating cloud computing if you’re not using it already. These are exciting times, but the usual caveats apply. As with any new technology, you should understand cloud computing’s strengths and weaknesses and use it only where it’s appropriate.

One of the biggest risks with any new technology is building critical applications that lock you in to a particular vendor. Cloud computing can have significant economic benefits, but if using the cloud puts you at the mercy of a vendor’s pricing strategy, that’s a major concern. Even if you’re perfectly happy with your cloud provider, your partners, customers and suppliers will likely use different cloud providers. It’s vital that your applications be able to work with as many providers and services as possible.

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