Intro to Cloud Computing

Fred Stluka
Bristle Software, Inc.
May 23, 2021

fred@bristle.com
http://bristle.com

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Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Who is Fred Stluka?

Founder/CEO of Bristle Software, Inc.
http://bristle.com
Python/Web/Ajax/Java/DB programmer
- Currently using Python/Django, jQuery, MySQL, etc.
Agile
- Agile/Lean software development
- Agile (bite-sized) learning

Mailing lists and Web sites
http://bristle.com/invite.htm
Cloud Computing Tips mailing list and Web page
http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm
This presentation
http://bristle.com/Talks/CloudComputing
This presentation software (open source JavaScript)
http://bristle.com

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Who uses Cloud Computing?

Which of you are already using it?
What do you do with it?
What is it?

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing?

"Next big thing" (Internet --> Web --> Cloud)
Sharing large server computers
IT as a utility
- Like water, sewer, electric, phone, cable TV
Old technology
- 1970's: "mainframe", "time-sharing", "virtual machine",
  "virtualization", "hypervisor"
- 1980's: "network", "LAN", "WAN", "Internet"
- 1990's: "World-Wide Web", "hosting service", "groupware", "ASP"
- 2000's: Virtualization on Intel CPUs (VMWare, Xen, Parallels)
- Mix them together, plus a jazzy new name
- Technology is already mature
Why now? Broadband!
- Everyone has it, and it's not expensive
- Distance to data storage is irrelevant
- Distance to the CPU running the app is irrelevant
More info:
http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm#intro_to_cloud_computing

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Why Cloud Computing? (1/3)

Lower cost (economies of scale)
- Few large computers instead of many small ones
  - Less idle CPUs consuming electricity
  - Less heat generated, so less air conditioning cost
  - Less physical space
- Centralized IT staff and support equipment
  - File backups
  - Software upgrades/patches/re-patches/re-re-patches
  - Software configuration/policies
  - Hardware upgrades/repairs (RAM, disk, UPS)
  - Virus scanners, signature files
  - Security (firewalls, tripwire, logwatch, fail2ban)
  - Account creation/monitoring
  - Disk space quotas
You focus on business needs, not computer infrastructure
- Producing products
- Selling products
- Paying invoices
- Collecting payments
- Communicating (e-mail, shared docs and spreadsheets, etc.)

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Why Cloud Computing? (2/3)

Scalable
- Allocate more virtual servers as needed
- Instantly -- no purchasing and shipping delay
- Pay only for what you use
  - Don't pay to maintain peak capacity
  - Most IT resources world-wide are used less than 15%
  - "Surge computing"
    - Handle the typical load with your own servers
    - Use the cloud to handle usage spikes, planned or unplanned
Disaster Recovery
- Super thin client
  - Smart version of "dumb terminal"
  - Possibly no local hard drive
  - Viruses are not possible -- power off/on wipes it clean
  - No need for client computer backup
    - Computer dies, computer stolen, facility burns down?
      - No problem!
      - Plug in a new client computer
      - Connect to server via Web browser
      - Resume work immediately
  - No data theft from laptops
- Robust server
  - Redundant data
  - Cloneable servers
  - Hot swap

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Why Cloud Computing? (3/3)

Instant client computer setup
- Computer for a new employee or consultant
- Upgrade to a new computer
Mobile workers
- Work from any client computer
  - Home, office, friend's house, Internet cafe, cell phone
Collaborate
- Share files
- Concurrent editing, not mailing files back and forth
More info:
http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm#intro_to_cloud_computing

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Why NOT Cloud Computing?

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Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Why NOT Cloud Computing?

Lack of control
- Limited options offered by Cloud vendor
- Intellectual Property rights
  - Who owns the data stored in the cloud? You or the vendor?
    - Amazon explicitly says you do
    - Facebook tried to claim ownership, but failed
  - Who owns the programs you develop and deploy in the cloud?
    - Amazon explicitly says you do
- Data security
  - Is the Cloud vendor trustworthy? Do your customers think so too?
  - Is the Cloud vendor competent to keep others out?
    - If not, how to explain to your customer w/o "Passing the buck" or "Pointing fingers"
  - Can the Cloud vendor be forced to reveal your data?
    - US law vs. foreign law vs. international law
    - Where does the data physically reside?
  - Is the line to the Cloud server secure?
- Resiliency (24x7, "5 nines")
  - Is the Cloud vendor competent to ensure it?
  - Amazon promises 99.95% uptime ("3.5 nines")
    - http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/
- Long-term viability
  - What if the Cloud vendor goes bankrupt?
  - Will data remain secure? Or tapes tossed in a dumpster?
  - Will data be returned? In what format? Easily imported to another vendor?
- Beware vendor lock-in
  - Look for open standards
  - Look for "import" and especially "export"
  - Look for growing flexibility
  - Beware Microsoft's "Fog Computing"
    - A cloud that never got off the ground
    - Vapor-ware
    - Blinds, disorients, and confuses customers
    - No visible exit strategy
    - Creeps in
    - Wraps itself around things, insinuating tendrils into every nook and cranny
    - Dissipates when exposed to the light of day
    - Customers lost in a fog
- More info:

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Where is Cloud Computing? (1/4)

Public Cloud
Private Cloud
Hybrid Cloud
More info:
http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm#public_private_hybrid

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Where is Cloud Computing? (2/4)

Public Cloud

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- Outside of your building
- Accessible to public
- Any valid login has access
- Convenient
- Secure?
  - Traditional security concerns:
    - Password-cracking, line sniffing, code injection, cross-site scripting, other security exploits
  - New cloud-related (virtualization) security concerns
    - Side-channel attacks (from within the same cloud server)
      - Access to shared physical RAM?
      - Keystroke monitoring?

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Where is Cloud Computing? (3/4)

Private Cloud

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- Same technology, same advantages
- Secure, not accessible to public security exploits
  - Large companies
    - In your building, behind your firewall, on your cloud servers
  - Mid-size companies
    - At a colocation facility, logically behind your firewall, on dedicated cloud servers
  - Small companies
    - Outside of your building
    - Secure comm lines (dedicated line, encryption, VPN, SSL)
    - Restricted set of client computers, IP addresses, etc.
  - The CIA uses Amazon Web Services:
    - http://fcw.com/articles/2013/03/18/amazon-cia-cloud.aspx
- May still have availability and QoS issues, if not dedicated servers and dedicated comm lines
- Can easily move virtual servers private to public and vice versa
  - Eucalyptus, OpenStack, and CloudStack all use Amazon AWS API
  - Dell Servers ship with Eucalyptus

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Where is Cloud Computing? (4/4)

Hybrid Cloud

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- Recent innovation
- Cloud with public and private parts
- Efficient communication between parts
  - Not routed to your building, through your firewall, and back out to the cloud
- Put non-sensitive large data (images, etc.) in the public cloud
- More info:
  http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm#public_private_hybrid

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

How to do Cloud Computing?

SaaS -- Software as a Service
- DaaS -- Desktop as a Service
PaaS -- Platform as a Service
IaaS -- Infrastructure as a Service
- DBaaS -- Database as a Service (aka DaaS)
- FaaS -- Functions as a Service
Other services:
- Replication of storage
- Cloning of slow processors (especially phones)
The rest of this talk is about "How"

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

SaaS -- Software as a Service

Examples:
- Web e-mail, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
- Google Search/Maps/Docs/Apps, Zoho
- CRM, SalesForce.com
- DropBox, Google Drive, Box.net, iCloud
No install, software runs remotely
- Thin client, no hard drive
- No patching, upgrading, etc.
- No backups (disk crash, house fire, etc.)
- Power on computer, run browser, be productive
- Readonly boot drive
- No virus scanner
- No data theft from laptops
Access from anywhere
- Home, office, friend's house, Internet cafe, cell phone
- Share files, collaborate on writing documents
Pro: Convenience, ease of use, powerful apps
Con: Inflexible usage models, no programming, vendor lock-in
- Most offer import/export
Ideal user: Computer user, not programmer or sys admin
More info:
http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm#saas_intro

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

DaaS -- Desktop as a Service (1/2)

Examples:
- Note that some have vanished recently.
  Remember "Long-term viability" on the "Why NOT" slide?
- Inside a browser (no client software required)
  - Amazon WorkSpaces
    - http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces
  - EyeOS
  - Xcerion iCloud
    - http://iCloud.com
    - Demo: http://databasewisdom.com/videos/2009-02-01-icloud.swf
  - G.ho.st (Global Hosted Operating SysTem)
    - http://G.ho.st
    - Demo: http://databasewisdom.com/videos/2009-02-01-ghost_os.swf
  - Zoho
    - http://www.zoho.com
- Client software required
  - VMWare View
  - Citrix XenDesktop
Complete Desktop ("Webtop")
- File Management (move, copy, delete, print, unzip)
- Office (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations)
- Productivity (contacts, calendar, note pad, clock)
- Internet (browser, e-mail, RSS, FTP, IM)
- Multimedia (photos, music, videos, streaming radio)
- Finances (calculator, checkbook)
- Games

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

DaaS -- Desktop as a Service (2/2)

SaaS for entire desktop
- No install, software runs remotely
  - Thin client, no hard drive
  - No patching, upgrading, etc.
  - No backups (disk crash, house fire, etc.)
  - Power on computer, run browser, be productive
  - Readonly boot drive
  - No virus scanner
  - No data theft from laptops
- Access from anywhere
  - Home, office, friend's house, Internet cafe, cell phone
  - Share files, collaborate on writing documents
- Pro: Convenience, ease of use, powerful apps
- Con: Inflexible usage models, no programming, vendor lock-in
- Ideal user: Computer user, not programmer or sys admin
Pro/Con: Everything runs inside a browser
- Including the browser
Con: Slow?
Con: Can't do anything w/o Internet connection
More info:
- http://clouddb.info/category/cloud-computing
- http://clouddb.info/2009/02/01/3-cloud-operating-systems-you-can-use-right-now/

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

PaaS -- Platform as a Service

Examples:
- Google App Engine (different from Google Apps)
- Force.com (hosts Salesforce.com)
- CloudBees, Heroku, Jelastic, CloudFoundry, Database.com, Engine Yard, Coghead, Aptana, Azure, etc.
SaaS for programmers, instead of users
- Fewer apps, more development tools
- Also a runtime environment for users of your apps
- No install, software runs remotely
  - Thin client, no hard drive
  - No patching, upgrading, etc.
  - No backups (disk crash, house fire, etc.)
  - Power on computer, run browser, be productive
  - Readonly boot drive
  - No virus scanner
  - No data theft from laptops
Access from anywhere
- Home, office, friend's house, Internet cafe, cell phone
- Share files, collaborate on writing programs
Pro: Convenience, ease of use, powerful tools
Con: Inflexible programming models
- Microsoft Azure
  - Microsoft .NET only
  - No Java, Ruby, PHP, Python, etc.
- Google App Engine:
  - Was: Python only
  - Then: Also JVM (Java, Groovy, JRuby, Scala, Clojure, AspectJ)
  - Now: Any language (bring your own compiler even, via Docker)
  - Was: BigTable only
  - Now: Also SQL
Con: Vendor lock-in
- Is there any way to export your code?
- If so, will it run in any other environment?
Ideal user: Computer programmer, not sys admin
More info:
http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm#paas_intro

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

IaaS -- Infrastructure as a Service (1/2)

Examples:
- Amazon Web Services (hosts G.ho.st)
- Rackspace
- Google Compute Engine (different from Google Apps or Google App Engine)
- Joyent (hosts Aptana, LinkedIn, FaceBook apps, etc.)
- GoGrid, FlexiScale, Azure, etc.
- Lots of others
Simulation of a server
- Just like a physical server w/o:
  - Hardware cost, electricity, Internet connection cost
- Install and configure yourself
- Hypervisor runs OSs, like OS runs programs (IBM VM)
- Less electricity/AC overall, sits idle less
- Allocated Disks, RAM, CPU
Apps/tools
- Standard apps/tools bundled with the OS
- Other standard apps/tools may be preconfigured
- Install/write your own apps/tools
- Buy/rent apps/tools (AWS Marketplace)

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

IaaS -- Infrastructure as a Service (2/2)

Cons:
- Installs
- Patching, upgrading, etc.
- Security (virus scan, tripwire, logwatch, fail2ban)
- But, you can farm out all of these
Pros:
- Vendor does backups, data duplication, etc
- Access from anywhere
  - Home, office, friend's house, Internet cafe, cell phone
  - Share files, collaborate on docs, apps, etc.
- Control: No unexpected buggy patches, version upgrades, etc.
- Portability!!!
  - Standard OS, standard admin skills
  - With Unix/Linux
    - No GUI or binary installs, no point/click all day
    - Simply copy config files to a new server
    - One rsync away from a new Cloud provider
Ideal user: Sys admin, who may be a programmer and/or user
More info:
http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm#iaas_intro

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Other Services

Replication of storage
- Examples:
  - DropBox
  - MobileMe
  - Lots of others
- Install software on your local computer and it automatically syncs files with the cloud
  - Backup
  - File sharing
Cloning of slow processors (especially phones)
- Examples:
  - CloneCloud
    - http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/22571/
- Entire phone synced with clone in the cloud
  - Backup
  - Slow processes choose to run on the cloud clone instead
    - Pros:
      - Faster
      - Longer battery life
    - Examples:
      - Facial recognition
      - Virus scan of entire phone

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

IaaS

The rest of this talk is about IaaS

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

IaaS Use Cases

Large companies reducing total number of servers
- But, personally, I don't have hundreds of servers
VMWare, Parallels, etc. as way to run Windows inside Mac OS X or Linux
- Might be useful sometimes, if I paid for the Windows license
So why did I bother?
- DSL modem resets
- Electricity/phone line outages
  - AFTER a Verizon residential service repair of lawnmower damage
- Hardware updates (new UPS every couple years)
- Aging server -- major hardware upgrade looming
- Cost:
  - Physical server
    - $120/month just for DSL line, plus hardware costs
  - Amazon:
    - $72 62 58 47 43 32 19/month
    - $32 26 18 13/month (reserved)
    - $15/month (micro, first year free)
    - $4.75/month (nano)
- Much bigger/better/faster
- Easily scalable
  - Client bidding a huge new contract
  - Scale as needed, within minutes, instead of buying max hardware just in case

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

New Possibilities (1/6)

Scale up/down
- Stop all servers during off hours (and stop paying)
- Spin up 100 more servers for holiday shopping weekend
- Spin up servers for monthly or quarterly tasks
- Spin up servers to run software builds and tests
Disposable servers
- Spin one up to run an experiment, then terminate
- Wipe training server after each session by terminating and allocating another
- Wipe server after running software tests

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

New Possibilities (2/6)

Snapshot servers for disaster recovery
- Easily create a snapshot of a fully configured server
- Re-create server from snapshot after disaster
Snapshot servers before upgrades
- Easily create a snapshot of a server's current state
- Perform software upgrade or other experiment
- Restore server to previous state if necessary

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

New Possibilities (3/6)

Cutting over from DEV to TEST to PROD
- Cycle through 3 sets of servers
- Cutover is risk-free
- Cutover is fast -- reduced "maintenance window"
- Better yet, 4 sets -- old PROD still there for rollback

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

New Possibilities (4/6)

Disaster Recovery "fire drills"
- Backups done regularly, but restores often fail under stress
- Pretend PROD servers are gone
- Re-create them
- Compare with actual via diff command
Proactive Security
- Rotate a server out of PROD occasionally for forensic analysis
- Diff with a known good clone
- Proactively detect corruption or intrusion
- Practice until detection is fast, easy, and misses nothing
Intrusion Recovery "fire drills"
- Let security audit team choose a PROD server
- Rotate it out of PROD
- Give them root access and let them intentionally corrupt it
- Can forensic analysis team find all of the injected problems?

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

New Possibilities (5/6)

Automate sys admin tasks
- Hardware is now software
- Write scripts to automate admin tasks:
  - Launching a new server
  - Adding another hard drive to a server
  - Plus all the usual automated stuff like upgrading a software package on all servers
  - This is now called IaC (Infrastructure as Code)
Granular servers
- Can easily create and administer many more servers
- Now makes sense to allocate a new server for each purpose
- No need to share servers across purposes and teams
- Simpler servers w/fewer interactions
- Simpler permissions on each server

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

New Possibilities (6/6)

Was that file/userid already there?
- Fire up a new vanilla server for 2 cents and find out
- So cheap that employees will buy their own, like pencils
Mirroring thin clients at server
- Phone can decide on the fly whether it is faster and less energy to do a computation itself or to delegate it to a cloud "mirror" of the phone:
  - http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/22571/
More info:
http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm#aws_intro

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

AWS -- Amazon Web Services

http://aws.amazon.com
Paid service to create virtual Linux, Solaris, and Windows servers
Managing Costs:
- Price list, calculator, TCO calculator
- Current charges to within a couple of hours
- Billing Alerts
- CloudWatch monitors to release underutilized resources
- http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm#aws_manage_billing
Specific Amazon services:
- S3 -- Simple Storage Service
  - Including static Web sites
    - Root domains (your_domain.com)
  - Regular and "Glacier" storage
- EC2 -- Elastic Compute Cloud
  - On demand instance (hourly)
  - Reserved instance (prepaid plus hourly)
    - Light, medium, and heavy utilization rates
    - Reserved Instance Marketplace
  - Spot instance (auction)
  - Micro and nano instance (cheap, handles surges)
  - Free micro instance (EC2, RDS, S3, others)
  - Dedicated instance (dedicated hardware)
  - EBS -- Elastic Block Store (maps EC2 to S3)
    - Map some/all EC2 files to S3
    - Can even boot directly from S3
    - Easy to move a disk from one server to another
  - Create and sell subscriptions to your own AMIs
  - VM Import/Export
- RDS -- Relational DB Service
  - Uses MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL Server, PostgreSQL
  - Aurora (MySQL-compatible, optimized for AWS, highly replicated)
- SimpleDB and DynamoDB
  - NoSQL databases
- SQS -- Simple Queue Service
  - Like JMS, IBM MQ Series, Oracle AQ, etc.
- SNS -- Simple Notification Service
  - Publish/subscribe via e-mail, HTTP, SQS, etc.
- SES -- Simple Email Service
  - Reliable outgoing e-mail, including bulk mailings
- CloudWatch -- Monitoring, metrics, reports
  - Graphs, charts, etc.
  - E-mail alerts
  - Actions (terminate instance, etc.) based on usage levels
- ELB -- Elastic Load Balancing
- Auto Scaling -- Automatically allocate more resources
- Elastic Beanstalk -- Deploying/managing Web apps
  - Manages S3, EC2, SNS, CloudWatch, ELB, Auto Scaling
- CloudFormation
  - Templates for configurations of:
    - EC2 Servers
    - ELB -- Elastic Load Balancing
    - Elastic Beanstalk environments
    - RDS -- Relational DB Service
    - SNS -- Simple Notification Service
- CodeStar
  - Manage Web dev environment -- Git, JIRA, CI/CD (Jenkins?)
  - CodeCommit, CodeBuild, CodePipeline, CodeDeploy
- CloudFront
  - High-speed data caches at edges of cloud
  - Put large files (images, videos, etc.) there for speed
  - Supports audio/video streaming
- ElastiCache -- Caching
  - Uses Memcached or Redis
- Data Pipeline
- Elastic MapReduce
  - Google-style Map/Reduce
- VPC -- Virtual Private Cloud
- Storage Gateway -- On/off-premises replicated storage
- SWF -- Simple Workflow Service
- IAM -- Identity and Access Management
- Route 53 -- DNS
- CloudSearch -- Full text search
- ECS -- EC2 Container Services
  - Docker containers
- ECR -- EC2 Container Registry
  - Docker container repo
- Lambda -- Serverless API (FaaS)
- IoT -- Internet of Things
- Config Rules -- Governance
- Redshift -- Data Warehousing
- AWS Marketplace -- Rent software hourly
- AWS Console -- Web GUI for the above
  - https://console.aws.amazon.com/
  - Alternatives to the Web GUI:
    - Command Line Interface (CLI)
    - Programming Language APIs: Java, C#, Ruby, Python, JavaScript, PHP, Objective C, Go
    - REST API directly via HTTP
- Amazon WorkSpaces -- Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
- Amazon Device Farm -- Testing against various phones, tablets, etc.
- Glue, FPGA, Blox, X-Ray, Rekognition, Athena, Lambda@Edge, Snowball, Snowball Edge, Snowmobile, Pinpoint, Polly, etc., etc., etc.
- FWS -- Amazon Fulfillment Service
  - Store products at Amazon warehouses and ship from there.
- FPS -- Flexible Payments Service
  - Inexpensive "micro payments" for products
- DevPay
  - FPS for people leasing your custom AMIs and Web apps
Complete list of services
- http://aws.amazon.com/products/
Features
- Inexpensive
- Convenient
- Scalable
- New possibilities
More info:
http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm#aws_intro

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Getting Started at AWS EC2

Bristle Software Cloud Computing

Questions?

This presentation:
http://bristle.com/Talks/CloudComputing
More detail:
http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm
Invitation to use my Web sites and mailing lists:
http://bristle.com/invite.htm
Corporate site, with resume, links, tips, etc:
http://bristle.com
E-mail:
fred@bristle.com
Available for:
- Custom Java/Web/Ajax/SQL programming
- Training
- Tutoring