Which Cloud Platform and CDN Are Fastest?

Cloud computing market maker CloudHarmony this week published results of its "speed test" for leading cloud platforms and content delivery networks. The company's data is based on testing by 1,100 users around the globe, who each downloaded a 1 megabyte test file from 26 different services.

The fastest performers? Among cloud services, Voxel, Amazon EC2 and the IBM Developer Cloud fared the best in U.S. tests, while EC2, Flexiscale and Linode were the best performers in Europe. Among CDNs, the standouts were CacheFly, EdgeCast and Amazon's CloudFront service. The CDN survey did not include Akamai, as CloudHarmony said it was unable to work out a test scenario with Akamai.

Is this the best way to evaluate the performance of cloud services? Some may debate this (especially those whose services had disappointing results). But the CloudHarmony data adds to the growing body of information to help end users evaluate cloud computing options and providers.