Intro to Cloud Computing

Fred Stluka
Bristle Software, Inc.
Sep 28, 2010

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
Java/Web/Ajax/SQL programmer
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

What is Cloud Computing?

"Next big thing" (Internet, Web, Cloud, etc.)
Sharing large server computers
Information System Utility
- 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"
- 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.
- May still have availability and QoS issues, if not dedicated servers and dedicated comm lines

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 pubic 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
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
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:
- Inside a browser
  - 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)
- 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, Pyton, etc.
- Google App Engine:
  - Was: Python only
  - Now: Also JVM (Java, Groovy, JRuby, Scala, Clojure, AspectJ)
  - Now: BigTable, GQL only
  - Future: 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)
- Joyent (hosts Aptana, LinkedIn, FaceBook apps, etc.)
- Rackspace, GoGrid, FlexiScale
- 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

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
  - No GUI or binary installs, no point/click all day
  - Simply copy config files to a new server
Ideal user: Sys admin, who may be a programmer and/or user
More info:
http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm#iaas_intro
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 in Mac OS X
- 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: $32/month vs $120/month just for DSL line
- 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 (1/2)

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
Disposable servers
- Spin one up to run an experiment, then terminate
- Wipe training server after each session by terminating and allocating another
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 (2/2)

Disaster Recovery "fire drills"
- Backups done regularly, but restores often fail under stress
- Pretend PROD servers are gone
- Re-create them, then compare with actual
Proactive Security
- Rotate a server out of PROD occasionally for forensic analysis
  - Proactively detect corruption or intrusion
- Intrusion Recovery "fire drills"
Was that file/userid already there?
- Fire up a new vanilla server for 8.5 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

Paid service to create virtual Linux, Solaris, and Windows servers
Specific Amazon services:
- S3 -- Simple Storage Service
- EC2 -- Elastic Compute Cloud
  - "On demand" vs. "spot" vs. "reserved" instances
  - EBS -- Elastic Block Store (maps EC2 to S3)
    - Map some/all EC2 files to S3
    - Can even boot directly from S3
  - VPC -- Virtual Private Cloud
  - CloudWatch -- monitoring, metrics, reports
  - ELB -- Elastic Load Balancing
  - Auto Scaling -- Automatically allocate more resources
  - Create and sell subscriptions to your own AMIs
- CloudFront
  - High-speed data caches at edges of cloud
  - Put large files (images, videos, etc.) there for speed
  - Supports audio/video streaming
- RDS -- Relational DB Service
  - MySQL (like Oracle, Postgres, MS SQL Server, etc.)
- SQS -- Simple Queue Service
  - Like JMS, IBM MQ Series, Oracle AQ, 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
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