Help Fund Independent Research on Cloud Reliability

Cloud Looking Glass is a graduate research project conducted through the Computer Science Department at Western Washington University by myself (Jason Read) and Dr. Tarek Idriss. Our mission is to empirically measure and publish real-world data on the availability and performance of hyperscale cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure.

Unlike vendor-maintained status pages, Cloud Looking Glass uses independent, triple-redundant accounts and globally deployed test agents to evaluate critical cloud services — from compute and storage to serverless and networking. We measure thousands of operations every minute, logging both latency metrics and service outages across dozens of regions and zones.

Our research aims to:

• Provide transparent, vendor-neutral data on cloud performance

• Help developers and IT teams make informed, evidence-based decisions

• Publish our findings in a peer-reviewed academic journal in 2026

⸻

How You Can Help

Operating this infrastructure at global scale incurs significant cloud costs — including compute, storage, network traffic, and API fees across multiple providers.

With your support, we can:

• Sustain and expand our network of globally distributed test agents

• Onboard additional cloud providers to broaden coverage

• Increase visibility across more services and regions

• Maintain and improve our public dashboards and tools

• Help transition Cloud Looking Glass from a time-limited academic project into a long-term public resource

If you believe in open, unbiased research and greater transparency in cloud reliability, please consider contributing.

Learn more: https://cloudlooking.glass

Research Target: Academic publication in 2026

Thank you for your support.