Drupal Cloud at MIT

Hi folks, two pieces of news from the Drupal front here at MIT --

First, MIT's Information Services & Technology has opened up its new Drupal Cloud service (http://drupalcloud.mit.edu) to a few early users. Results http://nelson.mit.edu/, http://fgp.mit.edu/, and http://engineeringphds.mit.edu/. Perhaps it doesn't look like much so far, but it is. In fact, I'm dazzled by what the Cloud team have built and hope this model becomes the norm for managed hosting within the Drupal community. The key is the fit between platform and user. Just as a blogger knows how to blog, an MIT faculty member or student knows what they want to publish, so can quickly get to work doing so. Any managed hosting platform will eliminate the Drupal installation process, which for too long has been the mean bouncer at Drupal's door, letting in one kind of user and driving away every other. But MIT's Cloud platform also gets rid of the Drupal learning curve, or at least significantly reduces it, hence my dazzled admiration.

On a related note, I've closed the drupalgroup.mit.edu website. It was always only me in any case, and its purpose was to grow the Drupal community at MIT. Drupal Cloud will do more in that regard in a year than I achieved in four, so Drupal's home rightly moves to http://drupalcloud.mit.edu. As a well-intentioned George Bush might say, "Mission Accomplished."

Cheers,
Ed Carlevale