Getting Started..

[Nishant Modak]

Cloud Computing has been a buzz for quite sometime now. Especially after the launch of Amazon Web Services.
I have seen, people discussing about the similarities between the earlier technology of Grid Computing and the latest -  Cloud Computing.

Here are the points which I think differentiate the two.

1. Grid Computing -> This is specifically intended for HPC (High Performance Computing). Best example is http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ . Its about using many computers (Processing units) to solve a single problem at the same time.

2. Cloud Computing -> Though very similar to Grid Computing... the elasticity / scalability of this virtual environment is the key. Its more like - the entire IT as services . A culmination of Infrastucture and software - both AAS [as a service!! :) ]


what are you thoughts?

--
Nishant Modak

[Rohit Ghatol]

Hi Nishant,

You are quite right here.

Let me take example of what Amazon does for cloud computing and then we will also look at Google App Engine to understand how things can be

Amazon Services

1. Amazon S3 - Since Amazon EC2 requires virtual images to start instances (called AMIs), S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a pre requiste. It is a simple service which allows you to store from 1 byte to 5GB of files

2. Amazon EC2 - (Elastic Computing) Think about VMware images, its similar, but you can do this from command line, web interface and even programitically. You can just select one running instance and say, I want to start 10 more such instances. This is why Amazon uses the word Elastic. However a draw back of EC2 is the images once removed lose any state, just like VMWare images

3. Amazon EBS - (Elastic Block) - Now you may want to keep one EC2 Instance at the minimum running for web server, but for your database, you need a persistent block. This is what EBS, its meant for file system or database. You even if you don't have any EC2 instances running, your database is persistent. More over, EBS blocks can be attached (more like mounting) to any running EC2 Instance

Then there are other Amazon Service like Elastic IP to get static IPs and SimpleDB to get a database

Summary - Amazon Services are more of infrastructure services

Advantages - You are free to load what ever you want on the instances, you can open ports as you like

Drawback - Only one private IP given, you have to use DNS (Option use elastic IP)

Google App Engine

This one is totally different in approach, it is infact what is a running scalable, distributed, secured python runtime. Here you simply upload python code.

Here you upload your python code and it runs on google infrastructure. You can use App Engine's datastore apis to load or store data.

You don't have to worry about tuning and scalability issues, all you do is write business logic and let Google take care of the rest.

Summary - Google App Engine is more of a scalable python runtime hosted at Google

Advantages - Concentrate on business logic only

Disadvantage - Marry your code to Google App engine infrastructure. Python is not so popular.

Then there are no. of SAAS/PAAS coming for Java namely stax.net, longjump etc and most of these are based on Amazon EC2.

We can talk more about these. If any one has any questions feel free to answer.

Thanks,

Rohit Ghatol

--
Project Manager at Synerzip Softech
Phone no - 020 30226720
Mobile - 9923085006

http://www.linkedin.com/in/rohitghatol

[Shyamal Pandya]

Check out the following PDF : Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing

http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2009/EECS-2009-28.pdf

It's very interesting read.. clearly talks about what each of offerings is all about and what in share for the end user/consumer.

Regards,

Shyamal

http://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamalpandya

[Atul Kulkarni]

they have their video as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJCxqoh5ep4

--
Regards,
Atul Kulkarni
Teaching Assistant,
Department of Computer Science,
University of Minnesota Duluth
Duluth. 55805.
www.d.umn.edu/~kulka053

[Rohit Ghatol]

Hey Atul and Shymal,
Thanks for sharing the PDF and Video, it is really helpful. It gives a
very good summary of Cloud Computing.

Keep them coming guys :)

Cheers,
Rohit Ghatol

On Mar 17, 9:27 am, Atul Kulkarni <atulskulka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> they have their video as well.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJCxqoh5ep4
>
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:24 PM, Shyamal Pandya

> <shyamal.pan...@gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
>
> > Check out the following PDF : Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of
> > Cloud Computing
> >http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2009/EECS-2009-28.pdf
>
> > It's very interesting read.. clearly talks about what each of offerings is
> > all about and what in share for the end user/consumer.
>
> > Regards,
> > Shyamal
> >http://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamalpandya
>

> > On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 8:03 AM, Rohit Ghatol <rohitsgha...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >> Hi Nishant,You are quite right here.

> >> On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 7:49 AM, Nishant Modak <modak.nish...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >>> Cloud Computing has been a buzz for quite sometime now. Especially after
> >>> the launch of Amazon Web Services.
> >>> I have seen, people discussing about the similarities between the earlier
> >>> technology of Grid Computing and the latest -  Cloud Computing.
>
> >>> Here are the points which I think differentiate the two.
>
> >>> 1. Grid Computing -> This is specifically intended for HPC (High
> >>> Performance Computing). Best example is

> >>>http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/. Its about using many computers

> >>> (Processing units) to solve a single problem at the same time.
>
> >>> 2. Cloud Computing -> Though very similar to Grid Computing... the
> >>> elasticity / scalability of this virtual environment is the key. Its more
> >>> like - the entire IT as services . A culmination of Infrastucture and
> >>> software - both AAS [as a service!! :) ]
>
> >>> what are you thoughts?
>
> >>> --

> >>> Nishant Modak <http://twitter.com/nishantmodak>

[Nishant Modak]

Thanks for all the in depth information.

Are there any existing *standards* or working groups for Cloud ? as
setup by a community.. like.. Worldwide Web Consortium / OASIS.. etc.
Standards which every vendor should follow - guidelines..

I think.. cloud interoperability will be a key issue.. for the clouds
to evolve into a seamless layer - providing all the needed
information.. Hence, standards (guidelines) would play a very
important role.. down the road...

Silos of cloud wont make much sense.. in the long run..

what are your views?

Thanks
Nishant

[Rohit Ghatol]

Hi Nishant,

What you say about "*standards*" would be the future direction in cloud computing? Right now, cloud computing is at its very beginning stage.

This always happens when there is a new technology or marketing "buzz" word introduced. At such times, no one is inclined towards one standard, as they want their vision to be proven and winning.

Eventually, a time comes when standards are required, and then a community will come together and document the standards.

Right now, the reality is you will have to more or less marry your application to the cloud computing platform you intend to launch it on. The only advice a good architect would give is to make these married components pluggable, so tomorrow you can move on to another cloud computing environment.

So in short, what you say is required, but these standards would only come in future, hopefully not so distant one.

Although the basic concept will remain the more or less the same across platform, these basic concepts will form the essence of future standards. Things like Map Reduce algorithms, Distributed Architecture, Distributed Cache management (e.g Memcache) should be the part of the one standard that will come. Hence it is very important, we know about these more than being a expert in one or two cloud computing platforms.

Guys, feel free to add or correct me :)

Cheers,
Rohit Ghatol

[Vishwesh Jirgale]

Rohit, my 2 cents

For standards you need to have a user base and find patterns in that base. Unless you have a governing body who publishes/proposes standard way in which you can use a particular technology. So I feel it will require some time to get to that stage.

- Vishwesh

--
Vishwesh Jirgale.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Man Can Do As He Will,
BUT Not Will As He Will.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Nishant Modak]

I just found that there is a Cloud Forum. (Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum) whose key focus will be placed on the creation of a common agreed upon framework / ontology that enables the ability of two or more cloud platforms to exchange information in an unified manor.

They also have a Google Group - http://groups.google.com/group/cloudforum

Though at early stages - this is body - which is very much trying to standardize things.

Thanks

Nishant Modak

2009/3/23 Vishwesh Jirgale <vishw...@gmail.com>