Cloudy News: RightScale, 3Tera, Cloud Security

RightScale, which provides a user-friendly front-end for Amazon Web Services, has raised $4.5 million from Benchmark Capital, according to reports at GigaOm and Mashable. The Santa Barbara, Calif. startup was formed in September 2007 to help companies provision and monitor the web services products offered by Amazon.

3Tera has announced Cloudware, which it calls an "architecture for cloud computing" based on 3Tera's AppLogic software. The idea is to use AppLogic as a framework for communication and migration between Salesforce (CRM), Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG) and other platforms. There's a press release on Business Wire, and an overview from Larry Dignan at ZDNet, but no information as yet on the 3Tera web site. 3Tera said it is working with hosting companies and data center operators to build interest in the Cloudware concept.

The new Cloud Security blog provides an important look at the security implications of cloud mashups like those enabled by Appirio Cloud Storage for Salesforce, which uses Amazon S3 to back up files from Salesforce. "From a security risk assessment perspective, you now need to factor in 3rd parties that hook into your 'primary' cloud providers API," Craig Balding writes. "If your company goes with Appirio, company data is now stored in Amazon S3 buckets paid for by Appirio, instead of storage paid for by Salesforce.com. This means your data is actually split across both providers."