Cloud Computing : The Definitive Guide (Proposal)

[Reuven Cohen]

I've been asked to put together an outline for the creation of a cloud
computing book by a major publisher. The book is meant to be a
practical guide to cloud computing covering technical challenges,
opportunities, methodologies, deployment strategies, platforms,
security as well as any other relevant information needed in the
creation of cloud. Needless to say I am extremely busy, so I would
like to solicit this groups help in defining the outline of the book
and invite anyone interested in getting involved to get in touch. My
goal is to make this book a collaborative effort.

Here is my very rough outline..

Introduction
A Brief History of Cloud Computing
Platform Vs Infrastructure
Benefits & Challenges
Cloud Architectures
Deployment Methodologies (Private Vs Public Clouds)
Data Center Management
Cloud Provisioning
Command & Control (XMPP etc)
Virtualization (Xen, KVM, OpenVZ, HyperV etc)
VM Management and Creation
Federation & Clustering
Authentication
Storage (Commodity Vs Enterprise)
Network Management (VPN, DNS, WAN, etc)
Securing the cloud
Patching and Updating
Cloud Monitoring
Long Haul Migration / Geotargeting
PXE Booting
Scaling in the Cloud
Cloud Desktops / Thin Computing
Overview of key platform Enablers (enomalism, 10gen, cohesiveFT,
3tera, rightscale, elastra, appistry, gigaspaces, eucalyptus,
workspaces)
Cloud Providers Overview (AWS, Google Salesforce, Mosso, GoGrid,
Flexiscale, BT, Microsoft,)
Looking Forward
Closing
Appendix : Source Code, examples etc

--
--

Reuven Cohen
Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.

blog > www.elasticvapor.com
-
Get Linked in> http://linkedin.com/pub/0/b72/7b4

[Ian]

(disclosure- I work for Skytap)

You might want to include some coverage of transient environments supported
by cloud providers. These include environments such as test/QA, training,
demo, disaster recovery, IT prototyping etc. If you believe the IDC numbers,
these workloads can represent as much as 25% of server workloads - a great
opportunity for an on-demand cloud environment.

Also, a discussion of management and automation of cloud environments and
how to integrate these with on-site infrastructure is an interesting topic.
For instance, moving environments throughout the lifecycle is a problem that
needs to be solved, e.g. taking a test environment into production and out
again for support resolution is a scenario that has huge benefits. Different
environments could be in the cloud or in-house, but over time, it's likely a
good percentage will be cloud-based.

Finally, looking into proprietary clouds vs. those that can run any existing
application could be worth exploring. Microsoft and Google are taking an
approach to allow certain types of apps to run in the cloud - what about
existing apps? What recommendations do you have for companies wanting to
port legacy apps to the cloud?

-Ian

[Jim Peters]

How about one or more chapters on persistence, transactions and handling outages?

--
Jim Peters
+415-608-0851

[ohri...@gmail.com]

Hi Jim,

How about a chapter on metrics and analysis for business value driven
from cloud.
How would you calculate (in financial and technology terms) to go
ahead and try a cloud or stay with existing server solutions.

This is just a thought as I am new to the group.

Regards,
Ajay
www.decisionstats.com

[Donal]

451 Group released a good paper or two on clouds recently. Grab a
copy.... $$ though...

D.

--
________________________________________________________________________________
Donal ( http://bsdosx.blogspot.com/ )

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move
in the opposite direction." E. F. Schumacher

[Subhasis Dasgupta]

This is a very good framework to understand the cloud. I am interested in following topics .

1. Formal definition of cloud
2. More on automation and configuration management.
3. Automatic scale up and auto recalibration according to SLA
4. Classification of Clouds (may be Computation Cloud , data cloud)
5. Access control in cloud (Possible incorporation of provisions and obligations in service oriented  model)
6. Practical aspects of cloud computing in Scientific domain and high performance computing
7. Classification of Key provider GoGrid , enomaly , flexisacle , EC2 , Kaavo, RIghtScale
8. Economic benefits

I don't know weather my ideas will be useful or not. But this is a very good initiative , I am looking for a copy of the document as it finished.

-regards,
Subhasis

2008/7/23 Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com>:

--
Subhasis Dasgupta
Indian Representative
Kaavo Inc
Stamford
CT, USA
www.kaavo.com
Phone : +919830282548
skype : subhasis.dasgupta

[Marc Evans]

It looks like an interesting outline. I suspect that references to
vendors will need to be maintained on a web site in some form, as it is
changing quickly and I personally believe that we will be seeing a rapid
growth and then consolidation/fallout in the vendor space. I will be
very interested to see how security is addressed..

- Marc

[bcinque]

Agreed that it will be very interesting.. but on the thread of security what about Governance, Risk & Compliance aspects to the cloud model?

[Reuven Cohen]

I have a copy of the 451 group paper, forresters and merril's
research paper. The problem with all these papers is they're focused
on research and not practical technical deployment of cloud services.

Reuven

--
--

www.enomaly.com :: 416 848 6036 x 1
skype: ruv.net // aol: ruv6

[Reuven Cohen]

I think just about every major technical book these days has a
website. Technology changes quickly. Building the website is probably
going to be the easiest part of the exerice, if choose to do it.

Reuven

--
--

Reuven Cohen
Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.

www.enomaly.com :: 416 848 6036 x 1
skype: ruv.net // aol: ruv6

blog > www.elasticvapor.com

[Reuven Cohen]

I've also received a couple direct emails that "private clouds" would
be off topic?

As well possibly including a chapter on SaaS or Grid. But both seem
more like applications ideal for clouds, not the cloud itself which
would be the focus.

Really the idea would be to create a kind of guide to "How to Create
your own Cloud" be it platform focused or infrastructure.

Reuven

--
--

www.enomaly.com :: 416 848 6036 x 1
skype: ruv.net // aol: ruv6

blog > www.elasticvapor.com

[Khazret Sapenov]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 9:27 AM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:

I think just about every major technical book these days has a
website. Technology changes quickly.  Building the website is probably
going to be the easiest part of the exerice, if choose to do it.

Reuven

 

 

Very often hardcopy books already have websites, provided by publisher (e.g. O'Reilly),

but community/authors-supported website for the book would have quicker turnaround cycle

for updates and corrections.

 

Also the latter publisher has nice feature to sell book by chapters (nota bene - cloud computing approach) - http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520106/toc.html

This is, of course, only for electronic version. 

 

 

 

 

[Marc Evans]

I personally believe that "private clouds" will be dominant fro several
years, and therefore believe that it would be wise to address them.

- Marc

[Kevin L Jackson]

Cloud computing is about how technology is deployed and used. I
believe that private clouds, especially in view of the cloud being
built by DISA and the DoD, should definitely be addressed. The private/
public and public/public cloud interface challenge are important
aspects that need to be addressed.

> Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.www.enomaly.com:: 416 848 6036 x 1

> skype: ruv.net // aol: ruv6
>
> blog >www.elasticvapor.com
> -

> Get Linked in>http://linkedin.com/pub/0/b72/7b4- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Derek Sedlack]

Mr. Cohen,

Our venture fits nicely into a section that contrasts market segment
approaches to cloud utilization. We have a start-up company that is focusing
on leveraging cloud structures specifically to enable non-profits.

When this section demands expansion let me know.

Derek Sedlack

-----Original Message-----
From: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:cloud-c...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Reuven Cohen

Reuven

--
--

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com
Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.5.5/1568 - Release Date: 7/23/2008
6:55 AM

[Paul Kamp]

web-site?  I think it would be better to have a wiki to which we can all contribute.  Based upon the volume of discussion on a number of topics I think, as a group, we can put something very substantial together. Hmmm, who should moderate. ;-) Regards, Paul Kamp --- On Wed, 7/23/08, Khazret Sapenov <sap...@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Khazret Sapenov <sap...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Cloud Computing : The Definitive Guide (Proposal)

[Geva Perry]

Reuven -- an interesting section would be real-life case studies of cloud
usage by companies from different industries and different sizes (e.g., NY
Times TimesMachine, NASDAQ Market Replay, SmugMug, etc.)

[Reuven Cohen]

In terms of writing the guide, I was thinking we could use something
like Zoho or Google Apps for a collaborative environment. I would
invite 5 - 10 contributors, each would be given a particular section
or chapter of the book to focus on. Myself a couple of key authors
would help in defining the tone as well as trying to keep the guide
bias free.

The publisher has also offered an experienced writer to assist with
the book development as well as access to an editor.

reuven

> --- On Wed, 7/23/08, Khazret Sapenov <sap...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Khazret Sapenov <sap...@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Cloud Computing : The Definitive Guide (Proposal)
> To: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
> Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2008, 11:02 AM
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 9:27 AM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
>>
>> I think just about every major technical book these days has a
>> website. Technology changes quickly. Building the website is probably
>> going to be the easiest part of the exerice, if choose to do it.
>>
>> Reuven
>
>
>
> Very often hardcopy books already have websites, provided by publisher (e.g.
> O'Reilly),
> but community/authors-supported website for the book would have quicker
> turnaround cycle
> for updates and corrections.
>
> Also the latter publisher has nice feature to sell book by chapters (nota
> bene - cloud computing approach) -
> http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520106/toc.html
> This is, of course, only for electronic version.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>

--

[William Newport]

I think in the corporate world this will be the case but I think
consumers will be and are on the bleeding edge for public shared clouds.

Billy Newport
IBM eXtreme Scale | http://www-306.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/extremescale/

[Sam Charrington]

Some discussion of applications would be important for setting the context and establishing the importance of the topic. Chapter 1/2 material.

[Ray Nugent]

A section on Applications seems to be in order. After all, what's the use of all this infrastructure if there are no apps to bring value to users?

Reuven, whom would the royalties for this book go to?

Ray

----- Original Message ----
From: Geva Perry <geva...@gmail.com>
To: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 8:52:07 AM
Subject: RE: Cloud Computing : The Definitive Guide (Proposal)


Reuven -- an interesting section would be real-life case studies of cloud
usage by companies from different industries and different sizes (e.g., NY
Times TimesMachine, NASDAQ Market Replay, SmugMug, etc.)



>

[C Wegrzyn]

I wonder about public shared clouds in the consumer space. Is this what
you would consider Facebook or does Del.icio.us fall into that category?

Chuck Wegrzyn

[C Wegrzyn]

Do things like SETI et al have a place in this compendium?

CW

Sam Charrington wrote:
> Some discussion of applications would be important for setting the
> context and establishing the importance of the topic. Chapter 1/2
> material.
>
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 8:32 AM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com
> <mailto:r...@enomaly.com>> wrote:
>
>
> I've also received a couple direct emails that "private clouds" would
> be off topic?
>
> As well possibly including a chapter on SaaS or Grid. But both seem
> more like applications ideal for clouds, not the cloud itself which
> would be the focus.
>
> Really the idea would be to create a kind of guide to "How to Create
> your own Cloud" be it platform focused or infrastructure.
>
> Reuven
>
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 1:59 AM, Subhasis Dasgupta

> <dasgupta...@gmail.com <mailto:dasgupta...@gmail.com>>

> wrote:
> > This is a very good framework to understand the cloud. I am
> interested in
> > following topics .
> >
> > 1. Formal definition of cloud
> > 2. More on automation and configuration management.
> > 3. Automatic scale up and auto recalibration according to SLA
> > 4. Classification of Clouds (may be Computation Cloud , data cloud)
> > 5. Access control in cloud (Possible incorporation of provisions and
> > obligations in service oriented model)
> > 6. Practical aspects of cloud computing in Scientific domain and
> high
> > performance computing
> > 7. Classification of Key provider GoGrid , enomaly , flexisacle
> , EC2 ,
> > Kaavo, RIghtScale
> > 8. Economic benefits
> >
> > I don't know weather my ideas will be useful or not. But this is
> a very good
> > initiative , I am looking for a copy of the document as it finished.
> >
> > -regards,
> > Subhasis
> >
> >

> > 2008/7/23 Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com <mailto:r...@enomaly.com>>:

> >> blog > www.elasticvapor.com <http://www.elasticvapor.com>

> >> -
> >> Get Linked in> http://linkedin.com/pub/0/b72/7b4
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Subhasis Dasgupta
> > Indian Representative
> > Kaavo Inc
> > Stamford
> > CT, USA

> > www.kaavo.com <http://www.kaavo.com>

> > Phone : +919830282548
> > skype : subhasis.dasgupta
> > >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> --
>
> Reuven Cohen
> Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.

> www.enomaly.com <http://www.enomaly.com> :: 416 848 6036 x 1
> skype: ruv.net <http://ruv.net> // aol: ruv6
>
> blog > www.elasticvapor.com <http://www.elasticvapor.com>

[Robert Stinnett]

It appears from your outline that you are focusing on the corporate/business side of the house.   From a high level, it does appear you may be biting off a lot to cover in a book.  Some of the topics you listed below (such as Virtualization, Thin Computing, etc.) could easily be a book in themselves.  I guess it all depends on how in-depth you plan on going.
 
Right now I see cloud computing at the very beginning starting with consumers.  Most of cloud activity going on right now is on the consumer side (Windows Mesh, Jungle Disk, etc.) or on the small business side (image hosting, etc.).  I've yet to see a large organizational push for the cloud (though there may be projects I am unaware of).
 
Personally, if you were to ask me what will be a driver towards the cloud it will be cost:  server costs, energy costs and staffing.  
 
The benefits are going to be nice, but I think will be secondary to the cost factors.
 
My two cents,
Robert



 

---

> Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:22:59 -0400
> From: r...@enomaly.com
> To: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Cloud Computing : The Definitive Guide (Proposal)

[Suman Chaudhuri]

I agree with Robert. Whereas your ToC is somewhat comprehensive, it is also intimidating to a lot of people and quite honestly, it is a lot to cover (with some of those topics being pretty new and with not much "practical" usage in the industry, or maybe even theoretical matter at this point).

The way I look at it, a guide to building apps in the cloud that touches on a lot of the introductory matter, but then goes in to clarifying the different buzzwords (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, HaaS, Utility, etc) and sets the stage for how to create a reference architecture for cloud computing and then map the products, vendors, technology and business use cases to this reference architecture will very helpful for the initial audience that are at a VERY novice stage and all the more complex stuff likethin computing, network management, etc will go over their head.

Although the book needs to go in to business model discussions, deployment options (completely cloud based vs. hybrid models, etc), security challenges and solutions, data challenges and solutions, and other important topics such as how virtualization can play a role with CC, how to give thought to monitoring your apps, testing you apps in the cloud, much more advanced topics should be kept to a minimum (maybe for part of Volume 2?) in my opinion since it will serve little purpose at this point but to confuse B2C and B2B readers.

So in essence, figuring out who the real readers will be (in my opinion, CIOs, CTOs, sales people, architects) is important.

Again, this is just my 2 cents....

Suman

---

From: rob...@robertstinnett.com
To: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Cloud Computing : The Definitive Guide (Proposal)
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:39:56 -0500

> </html

---

Time for vacation? WIN what you need. Enter Now!

[Reuven Cohen]

Robert, my vision for the book is to be a guide to getting started
with cloud computing. By no means do I think we can give an indepth
review of all the aspects of deploying a cloud architecture. I think
this book should be a reference for anyone looking for some help
getting started. As for an enterprise focus, most of my personal
experience is working with enterprise customers, so I suppose I should
stick with what I know best.

Reuven

--
--

www.enomaly.com :: 416 848 6036 x 1
skype: ruv.net // aol: ruv6

[Jenny Ure]

Would be nice to include some of the non -technical pros and cons - have
been developing case studies on Grids as socio-technical systems -
building technical infrastructure around social systems to leverage the
information and agency in distributed local communities.

Your comment about systems of systems and fractals resonated with some
of that , given the way it has evolved through different abstractions of
how technical and distributed human information systems can be aligned
to advantage ..as in wikinomics fro example..or misaligned

Cases are on HealthGrids, and distributed supply chains where main
issues impacting on performance were about how the technology leveraged
distributed communities, or how it failed to take account of them.

Jenny

Research Fellow
School of Informatics/Social Informatics Cluster
Univ. of Edinburgh

--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

[Barr, Bill]

I completely agree, Marc. Private clouds will reign as long as N.I.H. is
a prevalent though pattern and safety/security concerns are addressed.

-----Original Message-----
From: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:cloud-c...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Marc Evans
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 6:49 AM
To: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com

[Chris Sears]

Is there a tentative title?

 - Cloud Computing for Dummies
 - Learn Cloud Computing in 24 Hours
 - Cloud Computing - The Missing Manual

Only half joking. A working title might help everyone understand the content and audience your shooting for.

The most valuable thing I get from non-web sources these days are in-depth examples and first hand experiences that give you a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Perhaps a model where you could do a survey of several real organizations each using a particular cloud computing product/service/technology and go into why it was a good fit for their business needs and explain the technical work done to get it to the point where it was delivering value for them. Illustrations like that would appeal to both business types and technical types looking to get into cloud computing.

I'd be glad to get involved. Good luck with the project.

 - Chris

[Salem Khan]

Jenny,
Totally agreed.
I think there should be a section that focuses on Use-Cases.
I have found the concept of defining a use case and building your products based on use-cases to be the winning formula. Each use case should address a pain point. The higher the pain, more likely it will be successful adoption. This may be very "consulting" based approach, but this has worked for my teams over last 15+ years.

 

Regards,

Salem Khan
Personal Email Address : sale...@yahoo.com

----- Original Message ----
From: Jenny Ure <ju...@inf.ed.ac.uk>
To: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:21:49 AM
Subject: Re: Cloud Computing : The Definitive Guide (Proposal)

[Khazret Sapenov]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 2:10 PM, Salem Khan <sale...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Jenny,
Totally agreed.
I think there should be a section that focuses on Use-Cases.
I have found the concept of defining a use case and building your products based on use-cases to be the winning formula. Each use case should address a pain point. The higher the pain, more likely it will be successful adoption. This may be very "consulting" based approach, but this has worked for my teams over last 15+ years.

 

Regards,

Salem Khan
Personal Email Address : sale...@yahoo.com

 

 

I know there's quite a lot of non-technical people here, and would like to encourage them to make suggestions(or ideas) on what they might see valuable in proposed book (from their point of view) for themselves and their businesses.

[Suman Chaudhuri]

On the same thread, does anyone have a list of use cases that they have collected of real implementations of apps (either consumer or enterprise focused)?

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: Salem Khan <sale...@yahoo.com>

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:10:19
To: <cloud-c...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: Cloud Computing : The Definitive Guide (Proposal)

Jenny,
Totally agreed.
I think there should be a section that focuses on Use-Cases.
I have found the concept of defining a use case and building your products based on use-cases to be the winning formula. Each use case should address a pain point. The higher the pain, more likely it will be successful adoption. This may be very "consulting" based approach, but this has worked for my teams over last 15+ years.

 
Regards,

Salem Khan
Personal Email Address : sale...@yahoo.com

>>> From: r...@enomaly.com <mailto:r...@enomaly.com>

>>> Cloud Providers Overview (AWS, Google <http://www.google.com/> Salesforce, Mosso, GoGrid,

>>> Flexiscale, BT, Microsoft,)
>>> Looking Forward
>>> Closing
>>> Appendix : Source Code, examples etc
>>>
>>> --
>>> --
>>>
>>> Reuven Cohen
>>> Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.
>>>

>>> blog > www.elasticvapor.com <http://www.elasticvapor.com>
>>> -
>>> Get Linked in> http://linkedin.com/pub/0/b72/7b4 <http://linkedin.com/pub/0/b72/7b4>

[Rich Wellner]

Subhasis Dasgupta wrote:
> This is a very good framework to understand the cloud. I am interested
> in following topics .
>
> 1. Formal definition of cloud

Another one? Aren't the 20 that have been offered here enough? :-)

rw2 (who spent 10 years, so far, fighting this same battle regarding the
term 'grid')

[Chris Sears]

Two good sources of info on real world cloud implementations are the Amazon Web Service blog (http://aws.typepad.com) and High Scalability (http://highscalability.com).

 - Chris

[Botchagalupe]

Here is one I did of Top 10 enterprises using the cloud...

http://www.johnmwillis.com/other/top-10-entperises-in-the-cloud/

On Jul 23, 2:14 pm, "Suman Chaudhuri " <suman_chaudh...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> On the same thread, does anyone have a list of use cases that they have collected of real implementations of apps (either consumer or enterprise focused)?
>
> Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Salem Khan <salemk...@yahoo.com>
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:10:19
> To: <cloud-c...@googlegroups.com>
> Subject: Re: Cloud Computing : The Definitive Guide (Proposal)
>
> Jenny,
> Totally agreed.
> I think there should be a section that focuses on Use-Cases.
> I have found the concept of defining a use case and building your products based on use-cases to be the winning formula. Each use case should address a pain point. The higher the pain, more likely it will be successful adoption. This may be very "consulting" based approach, but this has worked for my teams over last 15+ years.
>
>  
> Regards,
>
> Salem Khan

> Personal Email Address : salemk...@yahoo.com

[SRINIVASAN GANESAN]

This is a great initiative and i look forward to the book already !!!
I really wish there is a book on building on-demand BI applications, focussing especially on model, ETL best practices...Does anyone on this group know such a book?
Ramesh.

----- Original Message ----
From: Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com>
To: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 6:32:45 AM
Subject: Re: Cloud Computing : The Definitive Guide (Proposal)

I've also received a couple direct emails that "private clouds" would
be off topic?

As well possibly including a chapter on SaaS or Grid. But both seem
more like applications ideal for clouds, not the cloud itself which
would be the focus.

Really the idea would be to create a kind of guide to "How to Create
your own Cloud" be it platform focused or infrastructure.

Reuven

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 1:59 AM, Subhasis Dasgupta

<dasgupta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a very good framework to understand the cloud. I am interested in
> following topics .
>
> 1. Formal definition of cloud

> 2. More on automation and configuration management.
> 3. Automatic scale up and auto recalibration according to SLA
> 4. Classification of Clouds (may be Computation Cloud , data cloud)
> 5. Access control in cloud (Possible incorporation of provisions and
> obligations in service oriented  model)
> 6. Practical aspects of cloud computing in Scientific domain and high
> performance computing
> 7. Classification of Key provider GoGrid , enomaly , flexisacle , EC2 ,
> Kaavo, RIghtScale
> 8. Economic benefits
>
> I don't know weather my ideas will be useful or not. But this is a very good
> initiative , I am looking for a copy of the document as it finished.
>
> -regards,
> Subhasis
>
>

> 2008/7/23 Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com>:

>> Cloud Providers Overview (AWS, Google Salesforce, Mosso, GoGrid,

>> Flexiscale, BT, Microsoft,)
>> Looking Forward
>> Closing
>> Appendix : Source Code, examples etc
>>
>> --
>> --
>>
>> Reuven Cohen
>> Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.
>>
>> blog > www.elasticvapor.com

>> -
>> Get Linked in> http://linkedin.com/pub/0/b72/7b4
>>
>>
>
>
>

> --
> Subhasis Dasgupta
> Indian Representative
> Kaavo Inc
> Stamford
> CT, USA
> www.kaavo.com

> Phone : +919830282548
> skype : subhasis.dasgupta

> >
>



--
--

Reuven Cohen
Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.

www.enomaly.com :: 416 848 6036 x 1
skype: ruv.net // aol: ruv6

blog > www.elasticvapor.com

[alexband]

Reuen ， I would like to support from a reader's perspective , I would
be honor to be the first batch readers and give suggestions and
feedbacks.
So I suggest to collaborate using Google docs. Feel free to contact
me

[Sanjai Narain]

Dear Mr. Cohen: A good addition to this book might be on principles underlying cloud configuration, e.g., what are fundamental cloud architectures satisfying security, performance and reliability requirements, and how are these composed, precisely specified and transformed into detailed component configurations. I am a network person and this area has a lot of momentum in network design. However, it seems relevant to the cloud too. What do you think? Best regards. -- Sanjai

[Rajkumar Buyya]

Dear All,

During Cloud Computing definition discussion, I mentioned about an
article I was writing:
"Market-Oriented Cloud Computing: Vision, Hype, and Reality for
Delivering IT Services as Computing Utilities"

The full article can be downloaded from:
http://www.gridbus.org/~raj/papers/hpcc2008_keynote_cloudcomputing.pdf

Bibliographical details are as follows:
-----------
R. Buyya, C. S. Yeo, and S. Venugopa, Market-Oriented Cloud Computing:
Vision, Hype, and Reality for Delivering IT Services as Computing
Utilities, Keynote Paper, Proceedings of the 10th IEEE International
Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC-08),
IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA, USA, 2008.
---------

I hope you will find this article useful.

Best regards
Raj
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Rajkumar Buyya
Associate Professor and Reader
Grid Computing and Distributed Systems (GRIDS) Lab
Dept. of Computer Science and Software Engineering
The University of Melbourne
ICT Building, 111, Barry Street, Carlton
Melbourne, VIC 3053, Australia
Phone: +61-3-8344 1344 (office); +61-0403710138 (home)
Fax: +61-3-9348 1184; Email: r...@csse.unimelb.edu.au
URL: http://www.buyya.com | http://www.gridbus.org/~raj
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Kevin L Jackson]

IBM has a couple of use cases in their latest cloud computing
whitepaper.

http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/dw/wes/hipods/CloudComputingNEDC_wp_28May.pdf

[Tross]

Ruv,
I'd like to help on a few fronts. But first, I think you really need
to keep the content close to you, your experience, and your nature.
That closeness will come through the words. Just like any speaker,
teacher, lecturer, the more they live and breath their topic the
better and more captivating it will be to listen to. Similarly, I
think if you keep the content close to _you_, you'll end up with a
much better book.

Having said that, here's a comment you can take or leave. A key
analyst told me that while most people that contact him (generally
large enterprises) to learn about public clouds, the conversation
usually ends up talking about internal private "fog". This is
primarily due to all the risks related to the immaturity of these
services. Therefore, I think your notion of "getting started with
clouds" should include some potential baby steps with internal fog and
possibly some experimentation with public clouds. Know any good open
source tools that help bridge these worlds? ;-).

As you know I've been doing a lot in the desktop cloud space for a few
years now. I would like to offer myself to help with that section of
the book. Please let me know what you think.

Personally I am a long time user of zoho wiki and find it well suited
for this kind of collaboration. I'm not sure google docs is as
appropriate in the early days b/c wiki's seem to evolve more
dynamically which is good for a collaborative book - in the
beginning. Once you have a fairly stable flow for the book, then
google docs would make more sense than a wiki - IMHO.

Lastly, just a comment about open collaboration. I dig that sh_t, but
I think it must be balanced with strong leadership and a clear vision,
otherwise we risk the book being little more than an incoherent
collage sub-set of the world wide web. I think one of the greatest
reasons people like to hear from you, frankly is you and your
perspective - don't forget that.

Just my 2c

Tross

[Tross]

Ruv,
I forgot to mention another potential topic, even though it's
something you're not as into in practice. We get a lot of people
interested in hadoop, not just for map-reduce, but also hfs and
couchdb. At the very least it's well known and often asked about. If
you do want to include a chapter on this I could help or possibly
enlist one of my colleagues - lemme know.

Tross

> Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.www.enomaly.com:: 416 848 6036 x 1

[Reuven Cohen]

Hadoop seems more of an application well to suited to be deployment on
a cloud. I'd like to focus on the core building blocks associated with
the development of a cloud infrastructure.

I'm working on finishing off the proposal this week. If anyone is
interested in collaborating, send me a private message with your
credentials and relevant experience. I've received about 30 or so
requests and will probably end up choosing 10 or so collaborators.

r/c

--
--

www.enomaly.com :: 416 848 6036 x 1

[Sam Johnston]

On Jul 22, 11:22 pm, "Reuven Cohen" <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
> I've been asked to put together an outline for the creation of a cloud
> computing book by a major publisher. The book is meant to be a
> practical guide to cloud computing covering technical challenges,
> opportunities, methodologies, deployment strategies, platforms,
> security as well as any other relevant information needed in the
> creation of cloud.

This sounds interesting, and is something I would probably like to
contribute to. My main question though is with the topic being such a
moving target, would it not be better to start with a web based
repository (wiki?) and following on from that, would this be something
that could be sensibly licensed, updated regularly, etc. (I guess that
depends how traditional your 'major publisher' is). Then there's the
question of royalties which Ray has already asked...

Sam

[Reuven Cohen]

A quick update on the book proposal. The book proposal has been
submitted and is expected to be approved next week. We've had about 30
people volunteer as book contributors which we'll need to bring down
to about 10. (I haven't had a chance to respond to every ones emails,
but i did get them) Each potential contributor will be asked to submit
a writing sample (blogs, articles, etc), resume and description of
what they would like to cover and why. Myself and Khaz will then make
the final selection. Each contributor will have approx 3 months to get
their section completed with by weekly progress meetings. The goal is
to have the book ready for print by February 2009.

A few people have asked about compensation, we have yet to determine
this. It will either be a royalty share or donated to a non profit
"cloud alliance". This book won't be making anyone any kind of
significant amount of money. What this book will do is give you an
opportunity to be involved in a major cloud book in a new and
expanding area of technology. The book will be published by a major
publisher (which I'll disclose upon acceptance of the proposal). The
book will have a world wide distribution, a rare opportunity in this
day and age.

I've also received some interest from several major technology
companies interested in sponsoring and promoting the book which could
lead to some great opportunities for contributors.

[Randy Bias]

I think this is a *much* better approach. Anything published will be
obsolete by the time it hits shelves.

I'm going to go so far as to say I think a guide is foolish at this
point. I know that's probably controversial, but I would far prefer
to see a Wiki where we could start to nail down the things we agree on
vs. those we disagree on. That would provide far more value than a
book written by 10-35 authors with as many different voices with
outdated information in it.

My $2.45...

--Randy

Randy Bias, Founder, CloudScale
(877) 636-8589, ran...@cloudscale.net
blog: http://neotactics.com/blog

[Khazret Sapenov]

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 7:58 PM, Randy Bias <ran...@cloudscale.net> wrote:

I think this is a *much* better approach.  Anything published will be
obsolete by the time it hits shelves.

I'm going to go so far as to say I think a guide is foolish at this
point.  I know that's probably controversial, but I would far prefer
to see a Wiki where we could start to nail down the things we agree on
vs. those we disagree on.  That would provide far more value than a
book written by 10-35 authors with as many different voices with
outdated information in it.

My $2.45...


--Randy

Randy Bias, Founder, CloudScale
(877) 636-8589, ran...@cloudscale.net
blog: http://neotactics.com/blog

 

 

Perhaps this is good (neo)tactics, but not strategy :). 

Why can't we have both paper/electronic version of the book and online sources like wiki et al, hosted in a cloud (in fact, we already have people collecting small bits of relevant information in their blogs, websites etc)? IMO, they would complement each other.

[Reuven Cohen]

I agree that that the information in the book will become quickly
outdated. We will certainly include a wiki. But it is a certainty that
a book will be written if not by us, then someone else.

Reuven

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 7:58 PM, Randy Bias <ran...@cloudscale.net> wrote:
>

--
--

Reuven Cohen
Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.

www.enomaly.com :: 416 848 6036 x 1
skype: ruv.net // aol: ruv6

blog > www.elasticvapor.com

[Sam Johnston]

On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 1:58 AM, Randy Bias <ran...@cloudscale.net> wrote:

I think this is a *much* better approach.  Anything published will be
obsolete by the time it hits shelves.

I'm going to go so far as to say I think a guide is foolish at this
point.  I know that's probably controversial, but I would far prefer
to see a Wiki where we could start to nail down the things we agree on
vs. those we disagree on.  That would provide far more value than a
book written by 10-35 authors with as many different voices with
outdated information in it.

My $2.45...

What, you mean something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

I've been very busy last few days and finally have something presentable... the previous article was completely unreferenced and basically a copy of a (still referenced) paper written by a bunch of fellow aussies who are working on (surprise, surprise) grids.

At least when writing a book you don't have to worry about backing your statements up with reliable sources :)

Sam

--
Sam Johnston
Australian Online Solutions
http://www.aos.net.au/

[Paco NATHAN]

+1, Khaz

Books are great for reaching the masses, but the reality is that your
book will be a trade title, on the shelf six months before getting
pulped. Take advice from a writer, instructor, and former bookstore
owner: book projects sounds much more glorious while the publisher is
presenting a contract... not so pretty later. As an author, teachers
who specify required textbooks are your friends.

Nice work Sam - Wikipedia is great for reference, but the editing
process is a wee bit too tight (by design) for a dynamic community to
get in there and produce substance.

Leveraging a public wiki is probably the best approach. Write the
book as a "versioned point release" of distilled practice from the
wiki. Pack the books with history, case studies, examples -- and
they'll become useful as texts. The Visual Quickstart series from
PeachPit is a great example, as are many O'Reilly titles. Most
anything from New Riders is a bad example.

In sum, avoid a proposal where the strategy become dated... and pulped.

Paco

[Alexis Richardson]

I think the approach that Paco recommends is a good one.

In this day and age, people may buy books, but then they put them on
the shelf and look at the latest info on the web.

I think printing and selling a book is a good idea but following it up
with a 'living' version on a wiki is even better.

My 2c worth..

alexis

[Sam Johnston]

On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 3:34 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sap...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 7:58 PM, Randy Bias <ran...@cloudscale.net> wrote:

I think this is a *much* better approach.  Anything published will be
obsolete by the time it hits shelves.

I'm going to go so far as to say I think a guide is foolish at this
point.  I know that's probably controversial, but I would far prefer
to see a Wiki where we could start to nail down the things we agree on
vs. those we disagree on.  That would provide far more value than a
book written by 10-35 authors with as many different voices with
outdated information in it.

My $2.45...

 

Perhaps this is good (neo)tactics, but not strategy :). 

Why can't we have both paper/electronic version of the book and online sources like wiki et al, hosted in a cloud (in fact, we already have people collecting small bits of relevant information in their blogs, websites etc)? IMO, they would complement each other.

That's essentially the idea (eg Subversion book)... and the beauty of nailing down the concepts in Wikipedia is that the existing framework of policies et al is (or at least can be) reasonably resilient to BS. The content is licensed under GFDL though so any traditional type publishing would be able to pull the concepts but not the content; hence the earlier question about the publisher.

In any case I'm happy to contribute to either or both efforts, and have already made some headway.

Sam

[Mohamed El-Refaey]

Wiki is a good idea and have lots of pros, one of them is to have the most up-to-date info and also the valuable field experience for those who contribute to the Wiki editing.

But still, having a guiding framework for the cloud concepts from different perspectives is still good idea for those who like to read hard copy books and have reference for tech concepts, and for sure this reference will be followed with the most updated info into the wiki.

Also a published book will go through lots of editorial and technical reviews which IMHO might not be intensively valid in case of wiki.
One last comment concerning the different authors with different voices might not be exactly valid, because though different authors with some different perspective will contribute, but still there will be regular meetings for those authors to review and have a 'one theme' for the entire book that will avoid the different voices that might confuse the readers.

Regards,
Mohamed