O'Reilly News & Commentary

Your Cloud Needs a Sys Admin

By George Reese
October 16, 2009

I've attended a number of CloudCamps around the world, and the question as to whether systems administrators are relevant in the post-cloud world always seems to come up. Let's put this silly question to bed: your cloud needs a sys admin. A mature IT ecosystem has both systems administrators and developers. The cloud has a nasty habit of deluding programmers into thinking they no longer need sys admins.

Upcoming Webcasts: Architecting Applications for the Cloud - Meet Experts Online

By O'Reilly Media
October 12, 2009

The specifics of a cloud's computing architecture may have an impact on application design. This is particularly important in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud environments. This presentation by expert Jorge Noa analyzes aspects of the Amazon EC2 IaaS cloud environment that differ from a traditional data center and introduces general best practices for ensuring data privacy, storage persistence, and reliable DBMS backup. Attendance is limited for this October 13th event, so register now! More Upcoming Webcasts: Augmented Reality in One Hour Nuclear Energy: Future Directions MurderBoarding: It's not about the ideas you keep, but the ones you kill Check out our Webcast page for on-demand videos of past webcasts and more upcoming live events!

Another Big Step Forward for Cloud Computing

By Tim Mather
September 17, 2009

Cloud computing took another big step forward this week with an announcement from Vivek Kundra, the federal Chief Information Officer, that the Federal Government would begin using cloud computing. The symbolism of his announcement being made in Silicon Valley should...

Cloud API Wars - Where is the security arsenal?

By Subra Kumaraswamy
September 11, 2009

Last week was an exciting week for the Virtualization and Cloud customers and potential adopters. During VMWorld 2009, a handful of announcements by the cloud computing "picks" and "shovel" providers marked the beginning of the "Cloud API War". Folks, what's at stake here is vendor-lock in (for provider) and interoperability and portability for customers. Cloud API standards when adopted by providers can also enable zero barrier to exit and allow customers to freely move their workloads across public (e.g. Amazon EC2) and private clouds (customer virtualized internal platform).

Four short links: 3 September 2009 - Smarter Eyes, Urinal Protocol Efficiency, Petabytes on a Budget, and LocaLondon

By Nat Torkington
September 3, 2009

Many Eyes Make All Bugs Shallow, Especially When The Eyes Get Smarter (David Eaves) -- Are bug reporting systems getting smarter? David Eaves thinks so, noting an analysis of bug reporting systems that shows more effective information gathering may lead to more efficient bug fixing. This and more in today's Four Short Links.

Five Things to Consider When Buying a Netbook - Tips from J.D. Biersdorfer, Author of Netbooks: The Missing Manual

By Sara Peyton
September 2, 2009

People buy new gadgets for every imaginable reason. In J.D. Biersdorfer's case, an apartment renovation prompted her to purchase one. "I wanted to have an extremely portable PC with me when I was living out of a duffel bag and sleeping on people's couches while my own place was unlivable," explains the author of O'Reilly's Netbooks: The Missing Manual. "It turned out to be a great solution because many of my friends have wireless networks (or neighbors that have unsecured wireless networks), so I could stay linked to the Internet even while couch surfing all over the city." Based on her personal experiences and research for the book, J.D. offers five important things to consider when buying a netbook.

Big Security Improvement for Cloud Computing

By Tim Mather
September 2, 2009

As I've written about previously, there has been a great deal of hype about cloud computing. There has also been considerable angst about the security afforded by cloud computing. Most of that concern has focused on public clouds. (By definition,...

An Interesting Time-Sliced Cloud

By David Collier-Brown
August 24, 2009

In this month's IEEE Computer, there's an interesting article about using a Cloud in a non-business critical environment, mixed academic and high-performance computing. In their cloud, a professor can book a set of machines for a particular time each week for a lab, or a student can book a particular configuration of machine to do their homework. Time not booked goes into the general HPC pool, and is used for non-instructional computing. A commercial entity could use the same tactic: allow people to book time from a set of machines, but pre-book the whole of the machine or machines for the more business-critical quarter- and year-end processing.

The Dasein Cloud API

By George Reese
August 17, 2009

The Dasein Cloud API is the next step in the drive towards Open cloud programming standards. If you want to support multiple clouds or if you simply want to support the possibility of switching cloud providers, you are faced with supporting different programming models. This Open Source API enables programmers to write cloud management applications in Java against a single API that supports multiple clouds.

Cloud computing perspectives and questions at the World Economic Forum

By Andy Oram
July 10, 2009

The World Economic Forum started a research project at Davos 2009 concerning cloud computing, which they broadly define to include all kinds of remote services, from Software as a Service to virtual machines.

Pre-OSCON, Free Webcast Lineup - And a special offer - Save 40% off registration pricing

By Kathryn Barrett
July 2, 2009

The theme of this year's OSCON is "Open for Business." Times are tough, making open source technology a smart choice for staying competitive. It gives you the means to drive down costs while increasing system and staff efficiencies. In anticipation of the conference, we've lined up three free webcasts featuring OSCON speakers. And if you're planning to attend OSCON, you can save 40% off registration pricing right now. In celebration of Independence Day—and freedom from commercial software—we're offering the discount code os09jul4, good through July 7.

The First Step into the Cloud: Which Kinds of Applications Make the Most Sense?

By George Reese
June 24, 2009

A key to successfully integrating the public cloud into your IT infrastructure is identifying a first application that will provide you with measurable results and learnings that can apply to future deployments without putting your business at risk. IT annoyances make the ideal first cloud projects.

3D Glasses: Virtual Reality, Meet the iPhone

By Mark Sigal
June 5, 2009

A light flickers from two distinct points in time. As a child in the early-1970s, one of my toys was a View-Master, a binoculars-like device for viewing 3D images (called stereograms), essentially a mini-program excerpted from popular destinations, TV shows, cartoons, events and the like. Flash forward to the present, and we are suddenly on the cusp of a game-changing event; one that I believe kicks the door open for 3D and VR apps to become mainstream. I am talking about the release of iPhone OS version 3.0.

A Quick Look at Amazon CloudWatch, Load Balancing, and Auto-Scaling

By George Reese
June 2, 2009

Amazon recently made available to the public three new services that will have a huge impact on the way people architect systems to be deployed in the Amazon cloud. I have put together my first look thoughts on these new offerings. . All three pieces significantly enhance what you can do with an infrastructure deployed in AWS, but they have their limitations.

Google's Unique Position and Imperative Need for Browser Interactivity

By Timothy M. O'Brien
May 28, 2009

Google's clarion call for HTML 5 and rich interactive browser applications marks an interesting fork in the road for technologists. Will we invest our time in learning more proprietary, native APIs to create better iPhone and Adobe AIR applications, or will everything start to move toward a standards-based browser as the underlying platform for interactivity. Despite Google's influence in the market, this isn't a foregone conclusion. Just how long will it take for the content generators to adopt HTML 5? And, what's in it for Google?

MySQL 2009 conference wrap-up: news flash about Flash and other notes from the experts

By Andy Oram
April 24, 2009

MySQL conference wrap-up: Flash, cloud computing, managing large installations, the value of community, and how to fumble your way to winning the presidency.

Transparency: The Key to Cloud Security

By George Reese
April 20, 2009

If your cloud provider refuses to answer any specific question about their security architecture related to your security requirements, run--don't walk--away from that vendor. Security is one of the first things businesses mention when discussing fears about cloud computing. Cloud computing represents a loss of control for customers and these fears are therefore very valid.

[AWS:EC2] EC2 Reserved Instances Launched In EU Data Center

By M. David Peterson
April 18, 2009

As per a recent post to the EC2 forums, there's now support for reserved instances inside the EC2 EU Data Center.

Using the Cloud for Disaster Recovery

By George Reese
April 13, 2009

Few companies have a solid disaster recovery plan and fewer companies actually verify their DR plans are working. One of the often missed benefits of cloud computing is that it makes rapid disaster recovery with minimal data loss extremely cost effective and enables the automation of those processes that can be tested often using automated tools.

Google Introduces Comprehensive, Standards-based Java Support in AppEngine

By Timothy M. O'Brien
April 8, 2009

Google's announcement of Java support in AppEngine is more than just the announcement of support for a second language. Java on AppEngine changes the dynamics of the Java ecosystem and redefines the concept of Write Once Run Anywhere.

O'Reilly Week in Review for March 29th, 2009

By James Turner
April 1, 2009

This week, we talk to Eric Gunderson about opening up access to government data, and the mashups you can create once you do. Editor Andy Oram discusses what open Cloud Computing might look like. And, of course, we have last...

Open Cloud Manifesto: about openness, standards, and the vitality of SMTP

By Andy Oram
March 30, 2009

Thanks to George Reese, I learned about the bruhaha over an Open Cloud Manifesto. Let's put the debate in the context of some basic and perennial issues about openness and standards.

The Varieties of Openness Worth Wanting in the Cloud

By George Reese
March 27, 2009

All of the vendors in the cloud space have paid lip service to the idea of Openness in the cloud; and most everyone believes that being "Open" is a "good thing". In an environment in which few people agree on the specifics of defining the term "cloud computing", what exactly does it mean to have an Open Cloud?

Blue Sun? What an IBM acquisition of Sun means for software

By Kurt Cagle
March 24, 2009

However, Sun's software side of the acquisition ledger, especially by IBM, has been rather oddly overlooked, given that it will likely have major implications for software development and cloud computing for years. Sun's software holdings cover five primary areas - Java, Solaris, mySQL, Open Office, and Sun's recently acquired QLayer cloud infrastructure. Understanding how IBM could potentially ramp up (or destroy) each of these gives some interesting insight into the real value of IBM's potential software acquisitions.

The Weakness of Commodity Server to Cloud Server Cost Comparisons

By George Reese
March 20, 2009

Though the conventional wisdom on the Internet is that the economic benefits of cloud computing fail for applications with steady usage needs, the reality is that the commodity-server to cloud-server comparisons on which this wisdom is based are flawed. The reality is that the cloud often provides compelling economic benefits even when you have an application with consistent resource demands.

AWS:EC2 Introduces Reserved Instances; Massive Potential Cost Reduction

By M. David Peterson
March 13, 2009

What's the best way to jump start a stalling economy? Provide reasons for people to spend money by reducing costs for goods they're already paying for, freeing up capital to be invested into places they otherwise would not be invested into. Enter Amazon Web Services and the introduction of EC2 Reserved Instances.

Blame the Credit Card Franchise: Criminals on Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)

By Nitesh Dhanjani
March 11, 2009

Amazon EC2 is an extraordinarily powerful infrastructure available to anyone with a stolen credit card. Even if someone is able to use the EC2 platform for a few hours with a stolen credit card, he or she will be able to initiate a vicious cycle that may become impossible to halt.

Quick Video Survey of Vivek Kundra's Policy and Experience as DC CTO

By Timothy M. O'Brien
March 5, 2009

Who is Vivek Kundra? This article assembles a few representative videos from YouTube that give you a sense of the policies and experience that Vivek Kundra brings to the newly created office of the Federal Chief Information Officer. From Google Apps to radically transparent interactions with vendors, Kundra has set a new standard for a City's IT infrastructure.

PCI in the Cloud

By George Reese
February 26, 2009

Compliance is the most significant issue confronting organizations looking at a move into the cloud. Here are a number of recommended architectures that should provide PCI compliance for pure-cloud infrastructures.

Karmic Koalas Love Eucalyptus

By Simon Wardley
February 26, 2009

Mark Shuttleworth recently announced that the release of Ubuntu 9.10 will be code-named Karmic Koala. Whilst many of the developments around Ubuntu 9.10 are focused on the desktop, a significant effort is being made on the server release to bring Ubuntu into the cloud computing space. The cloud effort begins with 9.04 and the launch of a technology preview of Eucalyptus, an open sourced system for creating Amazon EC2-like clouds, on Ubuntu.

Cloud Computing defined by Berkeley RAD Labs

By Artur Bergman
February 13, 2009

I am pleased to finally have found a paper that manages to bring together the different aspects of cloud computing in a coherent fashion, and suggests the requirements for it to develop further. Written by the Berkeley RAD Lab (UC Berkeley Reliable Adaptive Distributed Systems Laboratory) the paper succinctly brings together Software as a Service with Utility Computing to come...

Email letter from 2019

By Kurt Cagle
January 21, 2009

I miss a few things - we don't get oranges this far North as often as we used to, and coffee and cocoa have become considerably more dear. Shipping has gone way up on them and because a lot of the cacoa growing areas were overfarmed in the last decades, but overall I'm not hauling around an extra fifty kilos of fat due to lack of exercise and processed fast food - can't argue the beneft of that.

Why the AWS Console is Good for Cloud Tool Vendors

By George Reese
January 9, 2009

The release of the Amazon Web Services console has had a number of people predicting doom for cloud tools providers. On the contrary, by removing a barrier to experimentation that has kept people out of the cloud, the Amazon Web Services console should bring more people in the cloud and benefit tools providers whose value propositions are beyond Amazon's core value proposition.

SOA Still Alive and Well--Sell it to the Business

By David A. Chappell
January 9, 2009

In case you need to catch up, Anne Thomas Manes of Burton Group declared that "SOA met its demise on January 1, 2009, when it was wiped out by the catastrophic impact of the economic recession!". I'm not against finding a new name for this thing that we have been until-recently-referring-to-as-SOA but I still am looking for a reason why....

Analysis 2009: IT Departments Disappear into the Cloud

By Kurt Cagle
January 6, 2009

While other IT sectors may be struggling, one area that will likely be quite hot will be in the cloud computing/hosted services market. This particular market has been the subject of a great deal of hype over the last...

Microsoft's Cloud Tax

By George Reese
December 25, 2008

The importance of the differences among web application platforms like .NET, JSP, PHP, etc. drops dramatically under the cloud computing paradigm. Which architecture you choose really comes down to one question: what kind of programming and support resources do you have? If the answer is "Microsoft technologies", however, you should be aware of the Microsoft cloud tax.

But What Exactly "Is" Cloud Computing?

By Kurt Cagle
December 17, 2008

The past decade saw many centralized architectures move to distributed ones. Where previously the applications stopped at the server boundary, they moved to three-tier architectures with messaging, and then n-tier architectures. This is the architectural idea behind cloud computing.

How I Ended Up in the Cloud

By George Reese
December 13, 2008

Like most of us, I have been in the cloud longer than I have thought about being "in the cloud". But it took the need for a significant capital investment in hardware to drive Valtira into cloud computing using Amazon Web Services like Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3. Our journey into the cloud began with a new product offering and an attempt to avoiding shelling out huge up-front cash on hardware. Today, we have a complex infrastructure that saves us money over other options and provides greater flexibility.

EUC2?

By M. David Peterson
December 10, 2008

Proving yet again that attempting to boil the ocean results in nothing more than a few dead fish, Amazon Web Services continues its "one customer at a time" assault on the utility computing marketplace, this go round bringing EC2 a little closer to home for customers based in Europe.

Three Criteria for Being a Cloud Service

By George Reese
December 8, 2008

The expression "cloud computing" is confusing a lot of people. I use three criteria when talking about cloud computing to separate cloud services from other kinds of services. I think they capture the essence of what excites people about cloud services as opposed to other kinds of technology services.

On Why I Don't Like Auto-Scaling in the Cloud

By George Reese
December 7, 2008

Cloud environments like Amazon EC2 have the ability to dynamically add and remove capacity based on your actual demand. Some tools extend this capability into auto-scaling. Auto-scaling, however, can be dangerous and often serves as a crutch for poor capacity planning.

Key Security Issues for the Amazon Cloud

By George Reese
December 1, 2008

This follow-on article to the Twenty Rules for Amazon Cloud Security examines six real security concerns that gave rise to the 20 rules.

Twenty Rules for Amazon Cloud Security

By George Reese
November 30, 2008

The Amazon EC2 cloud computing model introduces new classes of security concerns as you look to deploying web applications into the cloud. These twenty rules for Amazon Cloud security will help you protect the integrity of your cloud deployments from many different kinds of security threats.

Are Computer Languages Irrelevant?

By Kurt Cagle
November 24, 2008

Consider this - I spend a significant amount of my working day staring at a web window pane within a browser. Now, that browser may be written in C++ (which would certainly have been the case even five years ago) but is increasingly likely to be written in JavaScript or Python of even Java, not necessarily because these languages are any faster (even with some of the most startling improvements in JavaScript, there's still an order of magnitude or two separating performance) but because these languages are generally easier to work with.

Increasing Availability in the Amazon Cloud

By George Reese
November 10, 2008

If you have done any experimentation in the cloud, you have likely realized that virtual server instances in the Amazon cloud are much less reliable than their real world counterparts. How do you compare availability in the cloud to a physical infrastructure and leverage the cloud to increase overall availability?

Network Effects in Data

By Tim O'Reilly
October 28, 2008

Nick Carr's difficulty in understanding my argument that cloud computing is likely to end up a low-margin business unless companies find some way to harness the network effects that are the heart of Web 2.0 made me realize that I use the term "network effects" somewhat differently, and not in the simplistic way many people understand it. Here's Nick: Let's...

The Perfect Cloud

By Eric Larson
October 28, 2008

We haven't quite found the sweet spot for deploying apps to the cloud; the dependence on traditional databases and relatively complex environments make something like dropping a Pylons app on some random service pretty troublesome.

Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing

By Tim O'Reilly
October 27, 2008

A couple of months ago, Hugh Macleod created a bit of buzz with his blog post The Cloud's Best Kept Secret. Hugh's argument: that cloud computing will lead to a huge monopoly. Of course, a couple of weeks ago, Larry Ellison made the opposite point, arguing that salesforce.com is "barely profitable", and that no one will make much money...

The Economics of Cloud Computing

By George Reese
October 25, 2008

Cloud computing has been "the next cool thing" for at least the past 18 months. The current economic climate, however, may be the thing that accelerates the maturity of the technology and drives mainstream adoption in 2009.

Considerations in Building Web Applications for the Amazon Cloud

By George Reese
October 18, 2008

I have been helping several clients lately migrate part or all of their infrastructure over into the Amazon Cloud. The biggest concern I am seeing relates to whether or not their existing web applications will work OK in the cloud. You need to consider some things.

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