http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660Ariel, If I add a new instance, it is blank, right? If I remove an instance, all data is lost, right? Thanks for the clarification, btw. I think that the main issue is still there, in such a system, you can't really rely on the disk http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment16http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment16Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:01:22 GMTYou can reboot an instance with a regular linux command like shutdown -r (through ssh) or using the amazon tools with ec2-reboot-instances. And to terminate an instance shutdown -h or ec2-terminate-instances. Once the instance is terminated, it's gone and can't be restarted. http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment15http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment15Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:55:41 GMTCan you define the difference between termination and restart? http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment14http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment14Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:15:56 GMT"EC2 ...on reboot, all changes to the system are wiped" Actually, this is incorrect. You can reboot and nothing is lost. Data in the instance disk is lost if the instance is terminated, whether intentionally or not. http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment13http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment13Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:03:07 GMTThanks you, writing lot of XML is not part of what I consider as productive activity http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment12http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment12Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:26:08 GMT@Ayende Don't use MS designers, use Boo or whatever you like. BizTalk Services Workflow is just a XOML file. How you create one is up to you. http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment11http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment11Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:54:32 GMTAyende, Great post. I've been doing some R&D on cloud computing for an application I'm designing and have run through a lot of the same thought processes as you have. In my research, I found this company Gigaspaces, which sits a middlelayer on top of EC2 which allows you to run Java and .NET apps (http://www.gigaspaces.com). they even have a program for startups (under $5M) which allow you to run their services for free. I really wish MS woul get into the game with a true cloud/grid computing with their Hyper-V tech, SQL 2k8 and .NET. http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment10http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment10Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:42:11 GMTI wouldn't consider Windows Workflow Foundation to be a goo development environment http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment9http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment9Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:54:33 GMTConsider also Microsoft BizTalk Services hosted workflows: http://labs.biztalk.net/Workflow.aspx. Its model is somewhat close to the Goggle's one. http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment8http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment8Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:48:08 GMTMichael, Thanks for the correction infrastructure vs. computing http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment7http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment7Sat, 02 Aug 2008 08:36:56 GMTAlso consider taking a look at RightScale's features - http://www.rightscale.com/m/features.html - they add a lot of functionality on top of EC2. A (poor) analogy is .NET and P/Invoke. RightScale is .NET. But you can always use EC2 directly (P/Invoke) to get it just right. http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment6http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment6Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:59:48 GMTEC2 has persistent storage - http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2008/04/block-to-the-fu.html - they've had it since April 08. It works really well. http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment5http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment5Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:54:28 GMTI think that one of the concepts of cloud computing is the ignorance of what hardware you are running on. Its just taken care of for you. If your app happen to be needing more resources - that will be allocated. GoGrid/EC2 is more of a hosting service with some add-ons (not that there is anything wrong with that..). http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment4http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment4Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:15:34 GMTKeeping EC2 up-to-date is easy. Just log in once a month, apt-get update, apt-get upgrade, and run a script to burn your new image to S3, done. Also, you setup your instance to pull a shell script off of S3 at boot. That shell script can do things like install updates, start/stop services, configure the machine, pull more files off of S3, you name it. Pretty simple really. It's a fantastic service. The lack of permanent disk storage is somewhat annoying if you're very database heavy. If you're a smaller shop, it can be costly to run multiple instances so that you have database redundancy, but as your company grows it becomes very compelling and isn't really an issue anymore. http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment3http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment3Sat, 02 Aug 2008 04:23:27 GMTIts significant that GAE does not cost a dime for 500 MB disk and approximately 10K unique visitors/mo. The python limitation could be beneficial in that its pushing a lot of developers to learn an interesting language. http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment2http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment2Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:45:20 GMTOren, I liked your internal discussion about the merits of the various services. I can answer some of your concerns about GoGrid. But first, just a bit of framework. Both GoGrid and EC2 are what many people consider (including myself) to be Cloud Infrastructure providers while Google App Engine is more of a Cloud Platform providers. The advantages of choosing an Infrastructure provider is that you have more control (e.g., not being limited to using Python only). EC2 does currently limit you to using Linux (you could do Windows but it woudl be through virtualization on top of virtualization). Some quick things about GoGrid: -Our load balancer is actually hardware-based f5 load balancers. We developed a method to hook the GoGrid infrastructure into the physical f5 boxes. So, your concerns about a true load balancer are pretty much answered. - Cloning - this is a feature that will be coming this year. You will be able to select a particular image and clone instances of it. - API - if you pair our REST-like API with the cloning, you can programmatically script your cloning process which would make it very easy. Feel free to drop me a note if you have further questions. Liked your post! -Michael Technology Evangelist for GoGrid http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment1http://ayende.com/3482/thinking-about-cloud-computing#comment1Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:21:06 GMT