Web leaders: Scaling apps with cloud computing

At the TechCrunch Cloud Computing Roundtable in March, held in Mountain View, California, panellists discuss the difficulties in creating and scaling applications in the cloud. Scott Dietzen, Yahoo senior vice president of Communications Products, says it is unrealistic to think you can just throw apps out there and expect them to work perfectly — it takes a lot of work. Amazon chief technology officer Werner Vogel believes apps immediately need the same scaling capabilities as the platforms they exist on, while Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering at Facebook, explains how and why two different functions on Facebook — status updates and pictures — have a similar interface to the user but completely different back ends.