Tag Archives: cloud computing

Cloud Computing Needs to Embrace the Linux Model

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While a portion of the OpenStack community is committed to the “free” software model, numerous developers have embraced the software with the intention of using it as the foundation for a proprietary platform. While that could lead to some tension between those developers with differing philosophies, Engates views that as better than the alternative. “Is it better to have a proprietary stack with no alternative?” he asked. “Or is it better to have an open-source platform here everyone has the source code at some level?”

via Cloud Computing Needs to Embrace the Linux Model: Rackspace CTO.

Phoenix NAP’s Response to Kasim Reed Shows Its Unreliability as a Data Center

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Instead of blowing off the letter as patently contradicted by section 230, Phoenix NAP took the entire Lipstick Alley web site off line without any notice. In response to a strong protest, Phoenix NAP acknowledged that its failure to give notice was a mistake in process, but it had no sympathy for Lipstick Alley’s legal rights; PhoenixNAP told me that it takes claims of defamation seriously and, without regard to the merits of the dispute, its customers must “resolve the issue with the complaining party.”

via Phoenix NAP’s Response to Kasim Reed Shows Its Unreliability as a Data Center (CL&P Blog).

Pirate Bay Moves to The Cloud, Becomes Raid-Proof

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“If one cloud-provider cuts us off, goes offline or goes bankrupt, we can just buy new virtual servers from the next provider. Then we only have to upload the VM-images and reconfigure the load-balancer to get the site up and running again.”

via Pirate Bay Moves to The Cloud, Becomes Raid-Proof | TorrentFreak.

The load balancer and transit-routers are still owned and operated by The Pirate Bay, which allows the site to hide the location of the cloud provider. It also helps to secure the privacy of the site’s users.

Kii Cloud Opens Doors For Mobile Developer Platform With 25 Million End Users

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MBaaS is more often a way to cater to developers. The idea here is that developers program the app and push it out to Kii Cloud without having to build their own servers and back end. At the crux of it, Kii sells simplicity and scale through the APIs and SDKs that use object database technology originally developed as an open source project by db4objects. Its ad network and distribution across Japan, Korea and China give it significant reach.

via Kii Cloud Opens Doors For Mobile Developer Platform With 25 Million End Users | TechCrunch.

MBaaS = Mobile back end as a service

From: Mobile Backend as a Service Roundup and the Future of Web APIs

To help me monitor the MBaaS market I spent some time rounding up as many of the providers as I could, and so far I’ve found 24 of them:

10+ Best Apps For Your Dropbox

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It’s possible to sync Google Docs to Dropbox, automatically send Gmail attachments to Dropbox, play music in a browser from your Dropbox music files, encrypt your Dropbox, easily host a website or blog in Dropbox, collect URLs and web clippings to Dropbox and to automate file syncs between all of your social networks and Dropbox. You can even view all of your Dropbox files alongside your Google Docs, Box files and FTP files in the one web interface. If you want to know the best apps to do all of these things, then read on.

via 10+ Best Apps For Your Dropbox.

Here‘s another top 12 list.

I thought DropBoxFiler has potential in that it makes using the cloud transparent to the user.  I’m not sure how well it works in practice however and this seems rather trivial to implement on a nix box.  So far no Dropbox apps stand out as having much value added over the standard Dropbox UI.

So how does it work? Well, Dropboxifier simply fools applications into reading and writing directly from Dropbox! Saved games and profile data can be placed in Dropbox, a symbolic link put in its place (which is kind of like a shortcut at the file system level), and applications/games won’t even notice – they will read and write directly to your Dropbox folder.

Application Development Now Worth More Than $9 Billion Globally

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According to Gartner’s “Market Trends: Application Development (AD) Software, Worldwide, 2012-2016” report, cloud is changing the way applications are designed, tested, and deployed, resulting in a significant shift in development priorities.

“The trend is compelling enough to force traditional AD vendors to ‘cloud-enable’ their existing offerings and position them as a service to be delivered through the cloud,” said Asheesh Raina, principal research analyst at Gartner.

via Application Development Now Worth More Than $9 Billion Globally | Dr Dobb’s.

Google Compute Engine rocks the cloud

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Google took its sweet time entering this corner of the cloud. While Amazon, Rackspace, and others started off with pay-as-you-go Linux boxes and other “infrastructure” services, Google began with the Google App Engine, a nice stack of Python that held your hand and did much of the work for you. Now Google is heading in the more general direction and renting raw machines too. The standard distro is Ubuntu 12.04, but CentOS instances are also available. And you can store away your own custom image once you configure it.

via Review: Google Compute Engine rocks the cloud | Cloud Computing – InfoWorld.

Is 5.3 cents per GCEU a good deal? It depends upon what you want to do with your machine. Rackspace prices its machines by the amount of RAM you get. It has stopped selling the anemic 256MB RAM VMs, but rents its 512MB boxes at only 2.2 cents per hour or $16.06 per month. If you want a machine with 4GB from Rackspace, it will cost you 24 cents each hour, about $175 per month.

And one more tidbit that needs emphasizing however this entire article is loaded with the ins and outs of renting servers in the cloud.

Keep in mind that the file system that comes with your cloud computer — be it on Amazon, Rackspace, or Google — is not backed up in any way unless you code some backup routines yourself. You can run MySQL on your cloud box, but the database won’t survive the failure of your machine, so you better find a way to keep a copy somewhere else too.

Very interesting.  Here is more about pricing.

Microsoft Azure vs. Amazon Web Services: Which is Best For You?

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But there are a couple of other possibilities. Some open-source wrapper APIs under construction claim to support a whole set of clouds. In fact, here’s one on Sourceforge; I haven’t personally tried it and can’t vouch for it in any way, except to say that it’s just one example of a handful out there (do a Google search).

I suspect we’re going to see more of these open-source APIs that target multiple vendors. With one of those, you can potentially use any number of clouds. As for the APIs themselves—if you’re not worried about vendor lock-in, then both Amazon’s and Microsoft’s platforms are actually pretty easy to use and are in many ways quite similar. I personally rank them both about equal in programmability.

via Microsoft Azure vs. Amazon Web Services: Which is Best For You?.

NASA uses Amazon’s cloud computing in Mars landing mission

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Using AWS’s cloud to operate the mars.jpl.nasa.gov website, Shams noted, enables JPL to get images, videos and developments to the public quickly, without having to build and operate the infrastructure in-house.

According to Amazon, AWS enabled JPL to construct a scalable Web infrastructure in only two to three weeks instead of months.

via NASA uses Amazon’s cloud computing in Mars landing mission – chicagotribune.com.

Cloud Security: What You Need to Know to Lock It Down

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“The most important thing to remember when you’re storing or processing sensitive data in the cloud is that you are still fully responsible for the security of the data, and you are fully accountable if that data is lost or stolen,” Shaul concluded. “Even if your cloud provider offers some security services or indemnifies you for losses resulting from a breach, if your data is stolen, it’s still your problem.”

via Cloud Security: What You Need to Know to Lock It Down.