Tag Archives: AWS

Linux

Jorge Castro: Scaling down in the cloud with Juju

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I’ve talked in the past about The Way to Run WordPress in the Cloud. It looked like this:

juju deploy wordpress
juju deploy mysql
juju add-relation wordpress mysql
juju expose wordpress

But the problem with building tools that scale up is that we sometimes forget that people like to scale down too. Counting the bootstrap node that comes out to 3 instances. We default to m1.smalls so that comes out to about about $133 a month for an on-demand WordPress blog. Not very cost effective.

As of Juju 1.11.3 and newer, we can now deploy services to the same instance. How we express this is via the juju deploy --to command. Let’s look at our WordPress example again, this time, let’s save some money and run the entire thing on one node.

juju bootstrap
juju deploy --to 0 wordpress
juju deploy --to 0 mysql
juju add-relation wordpress mysql
juju expose wordpress

Then run a quick juju status to get the public IP of your WordPress installation, and you’re done. On reserved instances that comes down to $61 a year, or $5.08 a month! Commit to three years on AWS and it’s closer to $2.65 a month. Now we’re talking, just don’t forget to add the cost of bandwidth in there.

So what’s the big deal? Running these things on one instance isn’t exactly rocket science. Well ok. Your twitter moment has arrived and now you need to scale your blog. You need on-demand scalability:

 juju add-unit wordpress

Without the --to juju fires up a new instance of wordpress to help you scale. How famous is your new blog post? juju add-unit -n4 wordpress will fire up another 4. Now let’s scale back down, let’s remove units 3 and 4:

juju remove-unit wordpress/4
juju remove-unit wordpress/3

This brings us down back to nodes 0, 1, and 2 running. Keep on going until you’re back to just node 0 running everything. Start on one instance and be able to scale up and down based on traffic. Not bad indeed!

You’re not just getting some out of the box vanilla WordPress and MySQL either. You’re getting a battle-hardened scalable WordPress deployment that’s tuned to scale with nginx. If you want to turn the crank to 11 you can also deploy memcached with it for a really fast blog.

Some caveats; while this works with WordPress right now the individual charms are running on the raw instance, they are NOT in containers yet! That is, if you deploy multiple charms to one box they might collide and stomp on each other. So play with it, but I recommend waiting until the next release of Juju (next month) for containers to land so we have a nice clean seperation of the units on the instance. Work on that continues, along with adding this ability to the GUI. However WordPress works today!

In the meantime here’s how to Get Started with Juju. Happy Orchestrating!

References:

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

Computers

Use of Amazon's cloud approved for Dutch banks

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The Netherlands banking regulator has approved Amazon Web Services (AWS) for use by financial organizations, Amazon said on Monday.

This clears AWS cloud services for use across all areas of Dutch financial operations including websites, mobile applications, retail banking and credit risk analysis solutions, Amazon said. With the approval, Dutch banks join other financial organizations using AWS including Bankinter in Spain, Unicedit in Italy and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Amazon noted.

All levels of data storage and management on the AWS Cloud, as well as the use of technology that runs on top of AWS and is provided by third party vendors, are also included in the approval, Amazon added.

Financial organizations planning to use cloud computing need to first inform banking regulator De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) and provide it with an opportunity to review a risk analysis, said DNB spokesman Remko Vellenga.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

Amazon Web Services files complaint in court over CIA contract

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Amazon Web Services has filed a complaint in a U.S. court after the Government Accountability Office sustained in part a protest by IBM against the award of a contract by the CIA for a cloud computing project.

IBM had challenged the evaluation of proposals and the selection decision in the award of the CIA contract for commercial cloud services to AWS in Seattle, Washington.

The bid protest complaint filed by AWS on Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims is under seal as some of the information contained in it is under a protective order from the GAO.

“We believe strongly that the CIA got it right the first time. Providing true cloud computing services to the intelligence community requires a transformative approach with superior technology,” AWS said in an emailed statement.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Linux

Eric Hammond: Using An AWS CloudFormation Stack To Allow "-" Instead Of "+" In Gmail Email Addresses

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Launch Stack

Launch a CloudFormation template to set up a stack of AWS resources to fill
a simple need: Supporting Gmail addresses with “-” instead of “+”
separating the user name from the arbitrary tag strings.

The CloudFormation stack launched by the template consists of:

  • ELB (Elastic Load Balancer)
  • Auto Scaling Group
  • EC2 instance(s) running Postfix on Ubuntu set up by a user-data script
  • Security Group allowing ELB to connect to the instances
  • CloudWatch CPU high/low alarms
  • Auto Scaling scale up/down policies.
  • SNS (Simple Notification Service) topic for notification of Auto
    Scaling events
  • Route53 Record Set

This basic stack structure can be used as a solution for a large
number of different needs, but in this example it is set up as an SMTP
email relay that filters and translates email addresses for Google
Apps for Business customers.

Because it uses Auto Scaling, ELB, and Route53, it is scalable and able
to recover from various types of failures.

If you’re in a rush to see code, you can look at the CloudFormation
template and the initialization script run from
the user-data script.

Now, let’s look a bit more in depth at the problem this is solving and
how to set up the solution.

Background

If you have a Gmail address of user@example.com, then email messages
sent to addresses of the form user+ANYTHING@example.com will also be
delivered to you. You can use any email address string after the plus
sign.

Google describes this feature in a blog post:

Append a plus (“+”) sign and any combination of words or numbers
after your email address. For example, if your name was
hikingfan@gmail.com, you could send mail to
hikingfan+friends@gmail.com or hikingfan+mailinglists@gmail.com

This is is useful for tracking where you have entered your email
address and findingout which services allow it to be used for spam.
If an email variation starts getting abused, you can automatically
filter it out in Gmail.

The Problem

Unfortunately, many web sites do not allow an email address with a “+”
when registering and will reject any attempts to use this. I don’t
know if they are trying to prevent people from using unique tracking
addresses or if they just don’t know the specification for a valid
email address, but the end result is the same.

If we could just use a dash (-) instead of a plus, we could enter
unique tracking email addresses in each site registration.

Another example for why plus can be bad: My son added “+psat” to his
email address when filling out the written PSAT so he could track who
they sold his email address to (apparently every college out
there). The data entry person typed a “t” instead of a “+”, so
colleges started sending emails to the wrong address.

Prerequisites

The approach presented here works with custom domains set up with
Google Apps for Business. You can’t use it for individual, free
“@gmail.com” addresses without some additional work and a separate
domain name registration.

As currently written, the CloudFormation stack requires that you
already have your domain DNS handled by Route53, as the template will
insert a new DNS entry for the email relay. This functionality could
be removed from the template if you don’t use Route53.

The Solution

This CloudFormation template sets up a stack that will translate email
addresses when Gmail forwards …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

News, Politics, Government

The Blockbuster Microsoft Business That Nobody Ever Seems To Talk About

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By Greg Satell, Contributor

I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I’m a big fan of how has run their business over the past several years. If you operate an enterprise long enough, you’re bound to miss some twists and turns, such as Steve Ballmer’s embarrassing dismissal of the iPhone as a $500 subsidized item in 2007, but it takes a great organization to recognize a mistake, pivot and come out swinging. And it seems like that’s just what Microsoft has done.  Last week, they posted another strong earnings release.  Revenues were up 18% and operating earnings rose 19%, even after its $9 billion per year R&D program was accounted for. Still, Microsoft is a company that inspires a lot of passion on both sides and there is enough data around to please advocates and detractors. While the legacy Windows and Business Divisions (mostly driven by its Office software suite) continue to print money, the high profile entertainment and online divisions that are made up largely of Xbox and Bing, respectively, continue to grow, but aren’t really making any money. So it would be tempting to assume that Microsoft is really two businesses.  One, made up of former monopolies struggling to remain relevant and another made up of nascent products that haven’t proven they can deliver to the bottom line. However, what is often lost in the mix is “Servers and Tools,” Microsoft’s third largest division, which consistently achieves double digit growth and will likely rack up about $20 billion in revenues this year while operating at impressive 40% margins.  It is also where the bulk of that massive R&D budget is probably going. The Servers and Tools unit is hard to describe.  It is really a hodgepodge of different products including server software, Visual Studio, Sharepoint and consulting services.  All in all, it includes no less that six separate billion dollar businesses. Also hidden in the weeds of the Servers and Tools division is Azure, the cloud computing platform that competes with Amazon’s AWS and is likely key to Microsoft’s long term future.  If, as many critics would have us believe, Windows does not survive, it’s not hard to see how Azure could take its place. However, most likely, Azure represents a mere bridge from the present paradigm in which the operating system drives the performance of our devices to the next digital paradigm where our devices become mere conduits for Big Data and artificial intelligence platforms that are run from the cloud. So while Microsoft’s legacy businesses continue to mint cash and its nascent business continue to show potential, the company’s greatest asset may just be the one that nobody ever talks about.

From: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2013/04/22/the-blockbuster-microsoft-business-that-nobody-ever-seems-to-talk-about/

Linux

Ayrton Araujo: Amazon AWS OpsWorks

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Amazon released a platform as service like appfog/heroku for be more attractive to web developers.

They are calling it by OpsWorks, supporting deployment and scale wep apps and setup load balancer layers with a few clicks. Initially the list of stack scripts is not too big, supporting only the following:

  • Load balancer 
  • HAProxy 
  • App Server 
    • Static Web Server 
    • Rails App Server 
    • PHP App Server 
    • Node.js  
  • DB 
    • MySQL 
  • Other 
    • Memcached
    • Gangila
    • Custom (Not tested. I don’t know what is it) 

    Except missing python apps and other dbs, I think this have a lot of potential.

    The cool stuff is the possibility of choose between Apache 2 or Nginx and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS instead Amazon Linux.

    The service if free, but use carefully because it automatically setup EC2 machines, load balancers and other AWS related features to make your stack run. It is also interesting because you can access your machines remotely via SSH and manage it via your AWS panel or API, as a normal EC2 machines.

    If you choose to use Ubuntu Server, you could set up juju for make your stack more powerful, but avoid conflicts with OpsWorks.

    See it in action: 

    And, of course, to test it:
    https://console.aws.amazon.com/opsworks/home?#firstrun

    What do you think about?

    From: http://blog.ayrtonaraujo.net/2013/04/amazon-aws-opsworks.html

    Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

    Ground Control to Amazon: "Seattle, We Have a Problem"

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    By Asit Sharma, The Motley Fool

    Filed under:

    Before reporting its fourth quarter earnings at the end of January, Amazon.com was valued at approximately 3,500 times trailing 12-month earnings. This is a fascinating statistic, the magnitude of which is difficult at first to grasp. Suppose that you took a profitable tech company like Cisco Systems, which makes $9 billion in profit from $47 billion in revenue, and represented its P/E ratio of 12 as an extremely tall building — say the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Apples to apples, how much higher would Amazon’s building be? You would have to stack an equivalent of 290 Giza Pyramids, all the way into the stratosphere, to construct this tower, finally stopping at about 40 kilometers above the Earth, or just the right height to ask Felix Baumgartner to hand you a Red Bull from his Stratos space capsule. Even after Amazon’s earnings for the trailing 12 months turned negative, its stock has remained buoyant. Let’s examine why Amazon’s stratospheric valuation, so long untethered, may soon approach re-entry.

    Elusive profits from “Other Services”
    Over the last 10 years, Amazon’s total gross margin has remained within a fairly predictable band, ranging in most quarters between 20% and 26%. For years, investors have assumed that Amazon’s top-line growth will come from online retail sales, while its margins will rise on the shoulders of what Amazon terms “Other Services,” which includes Amazon Web Services, fulfillment, digital content, publishing, and advertising. You might think that, by now, the boost from other services, especially Amazon Web Services, or AWS, would have kicked in. AWS is the largest provider of public cloud computing services, and has been estimated to have grossed over $2 billion last year. Amazon does not break out results for AWS separately in its financials.

    Some insights can be gained in reviewing how Amazon treats expenditures to build this business. Internal use software is amortized over two years, and the servers used for AWS are depreciated over three years. The short amortization and depreciation periods signal that the infrastructure for web services may be more capital intensive than one might assume. Generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, require that software and equipment are amortized and depreciated over management’s best estimate of their useful lives. Having to replace server infrastructure every few years signals a relatively high fixed cost.

    Couple this fixed cost challenge with Amazon’s penchant for discounting to gain business, and you can see why AWS is not having more of an impact on the company’s net income. AWS tends to cut pricing for server time as it gains efficiencies, and has passed on 20 price cuts to clients over the last few years. This is helping AWS grow and fend off competition from the likes of Oracle, Google, and IBM. But it also helps explain why strategically, AWS may not be much different than Amazon’s media and electronics online retail business, which, incidentally, still comprises roughly 95% of Amazon’s total

    From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/11/ground-control-to-amazon-seattle-we-have-a-problem/

    Computers

    How to make the most of free Amazon business services

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    The best way to think of the free tier to Amazon Web Services is as a stepping-stone. It’s a way to get your feet wet with the basic mechanisms of AWS and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2); to understand Amazon’s way of handling virtual machine instances, storage, data, and networking; and to create something that can eventually be hosted on a full-blown, for-pay AWS instance. It’s also a way to learn how to manage and constrain AWS usage—if you’re not careful you may end up paying for your “free” AWS usage after all.

    In this article, we’ll look at what the free tier offers you and on what terms, then take a closer peek at what’s possible or practical within those constraints. In the long run, any serious AWS user will want to take fuller advantage of what the Amazon cloud has to offer—but why not make the most of the free resources in the meantime? The free tier is a great way to find one’s legs with AWS, start some projects, and maybe even build a functional application or three.

    As a side note, one of the more ominous statements in Amazon’s documentation about the free tier is this little warning: “We may stop accepting new registrations for the Offer at any time.” This may be boilerplate CYA on Amazon’s part, but if you’re thinking about setting up a free-tier account, you might as well do it now and get in on the action while it’s available.

    What do you get for your $0 a month?The AWS Free Usage Tier provides you with a level of usage for many AWS components that is often just enough to get up and running. But even if it doesn’t give you all the resources you might want to create something truly useful, you can certainly create something functional. Just don’t expect it to scale well for unrestricted public use. Here’s a rundown of some of the most useful AWS components and what you get with them on the free tier.

    To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

    Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

    Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

    Amazon and Google Cut Cloud Computing Prices

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    By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

    Filed under:

    E-tail giant Amazon.com (NAS: AMZN) has now announced that it is reducing prices on cloud computing services in its Amazon Web Services division. Instances of Microsoft Windows running on its Elastic Cloud Compute, or EC2, service will receive the price cuts of up to 26% as Amazon continues to reduce costs and pass those savings on to customers.

    Amazon has a long history of reducing AWS pricing. In its last earnings release, the company noted that AWS has lowered prices 24 times since launching in 2006, with 10 price reductions in 2012 alone.

    At the same time, rival Google (NAS: GOOG) similarly said it would lower prices for its Google Compute Engine, nine months after launching the service. Google is dropping prices by 4% across all Compute Engine pricing. Additionally, the search giant has expanded availability and added new features.

    It’s incredible to think just how much of our digital and technological lives are almost entirely shaped and molded by just a handful of companies. Find out “Who Will Win the War Between the 5 Biggest Tech Stocks?” in The Motley Fool’s latest free report, which details the knock-down, drag-out battle being waged by the five kings of tech. Click here to keep reading.

     

    The article Amazon and Google Cut Cloud Computing Prices originally appeared on Fool.com.

    Fool contributor Evan Niu, CFA, has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares Amazon.com and Google. It also owns shares of Microsoft. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

    Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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    Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

    Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

    How AT&amp;T and Verizon Made T-Mobile's iPhone a Reality

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    By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

    Filed under:

    In the wireless war over smartphone subscribers, Apple‘s iPhone has proven to be an invaluable weapon. AT&T‘s initial and risky bet to carry the device sight unseen paid off in spades, as Ma Bell started scooping up lucrative smartphone users en masse. Verizon Wireless took note and once it became an iPhone carrier, it promptly began to outpace its smaller rival in smartphone subscriber growth.

    Yesterday, T-Mobile finally became an official iPhone carrier, making Apple’s device available on all four of the largest domestic wireless carriers. Before that, the iPhone and T-Mobile were kept apart due to technical spectrum incompatibilities that relegated the iPhone to 2G data speeds for unlocked device users.

    Source: T-Mobile.

    As it turns out, both AT&T and Verizon played a part in facilitating their smaller rival getting Apple’s flagship — at long last making the T-Mobile iPhone a reality.

    Ma Bell’s consolation prize
    It seems like just yesterday that AT&T failed in its attempt to acquire T-Mobile, but that was nearly two years ago at this point. It was a jaw-dropping $39 billion deal when it was initially announced in 2011, one that would be heavily scrutinized and eventually vetoed by regulators, since the No. 2 and No. 4 players in the industry joining forces to take down the No. 1 had important and potentially negative implications on the overall competitive landscape.

    That’s a stark contrast to regulator stance on T-Mobile’s proposed merger with MetroPCS , which amounts to the No. 4 and No. 5 players pairing up to put more competitive heat on the top three. Regulatory bodies have chosen not to object and will forever hold their peace regarding the union, so long as shareholders nod in approval.

    The consolation prize for the failed acquisition included a $3 billion breakup fee from AT&T, made payable to T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom, and a negligible roaming agreement, but more importantly the smaller carrier also received Advanced Wireless Service, or AWS, spectrum licenses in 128 markets from Ma Bell.

    Big Red’s big red heart
    Fast forward six months and T-Mobile would separately ink a spectrum agreement with Verizon, purchasing or exchanging additional AWS licenses in 218 markets throughout the country. That greatly benefited T-Mobile’s spectrum position by allowing the carrier create more contiguous blocks of spectrum and realign its airwave holdings in adjacent markets. That boosted T-Mobile’s data performance and throughput speeds in numerous key markets, and was all made possible by the swap with Verizon.

    Naturally, Verizon didn’t agree to the swap out of the kindness of its big red heart. Big Red had been looking to purchase a 20 MHz block of AWS spectrum for $3.9 billion from a handful of cable companies and was getting mean looks from regulators. The AWS swap helped pave the way for Verizon’s larger deal, even if it helped beef up T-Mobile’s network in the process.

    The net result of all of this was that …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

    Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

    Equinix and NetApp Enable Security and Scale for Flexible Cloud Compute Environments

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    By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

    Filed under:

    Equinix and NetApp Enable Security and Scale for Flexible Cloud Compute Environments

    NetApp Private Storage for AWS delivers performance, agility and control for global cloud deployments via Platform Equinix

    REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the global interconnection and data center company, today announced availability of NetApp Private Storage for AWS in Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX ®) data centers where AWS Direct Connect is deployed including the United States and Asia. The new solution enables organizations to leverage on-demand cloud compute services while retaining full control of their data; data remains secure on a private NetApp storage array.

    NetApp Private Storage for AWS allows organizations to balance private and public cloud resources to best meet their business needs. This enables companies to maintain control of their data, comply with the most stringent privacy and security standards, and deliver sub-5ms performance.

    Highlights/Key Facts

    • Customers with heavy storage and compute needs can now combine NetApp Private Storage with AWS Direct Connect, to gain all the cost and agility benefits of public cloud while meeting rigorous compliance and security standards, retaining control over data, and maintaining high-levels of application performance.
    • When located within an Equinix IBX data center, NetApp Private Storage for AWS enables sub-5ms response times on data traveling between the hosted NetApp array and AWS. Other data center providers claiming a “direct connection” to public cloud services use long-haul circuits for the connection, which introduces additional latency and impairs performance.
    • Companies can use NetApp Private Storage for AWS for a wide range of applications, such as disaster recovery, development and test, burst, tiered data back-up and recovery, big data analytics, and more.
    • NetApp Private Storage for AWS has been deployed and tested in Equinix data centers located in Silicon Valley and Ashburn, VA. Demo platforms will be made available for testing and validation by Equinix customers in Singapore, Silicon Valley, and Ashburn IBXs.

    Quotes

    Linux

    Eric Hammond: Replacing a CloudFront Distribution to "Invalidate" All Objects

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    I was chatting with Kevin Boyd (aka Beryllium) on the ##aws Freenode IRC channel about the challenge of invalidating a large number of CloudFront objects (35,000) due to a problem where the cached copies of the objects were out of date and the system had not been designed with versioning in the object path or name.

    In addition to the work to perform all of these invalidations (in batches of up to 1,000 in each request with at most 3 request outstanding) there is also the issue of cost. The first thousand CloudFront invalidations are free in a month, but the remainder of the invalidations in this case would cost $170 (at $0.005 for each object).

    It occurred to me that one could take advantage of the on-demand nature of AWS by using the following approach:

    1. Create a new CloudFront distribution, set up exactly like the existing distribution (except that the new distribution caches would be empty).

    2. Change the application to point to the new CloudFront distribution domain when referring to the objects.

    Step 2 consists of a simple DNS change, assuming that you use your own domain name (e.g., cdn.example.com) when referring to the CloudFront objects in your web site or application, and where that domain name is a CNAME reference to the actual CloudFront distribution.

    As soon as this is completed (preferably with a short DNS TTL) then the new CloudFront distribution will be hit by clients and will be filled up with the new versions of the objects.

    After a while, you would then destroy and stop paying for the original CloudFront distribution that is no longer being referenced or used.

    Simply replacing the CloudFront distribution effectively “invalidates” all of the objects at once, with no charges for invalidation requests and very little effort.

    Once again, AWS wins with the principles of on-demand, pay for what you use, throw away what you don’t need.

    Original article:
    http://alestic.com/2013/03/cloudfront-invalidation

    …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

    News, Politics, Government

    T-Mobile's iPhone 5 is AT&T's iPhone 5, But It's Not

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    By Matt Hickey, Contributor

    T-Mobile’s new iPhone 5 – which is launching on the “uncarrier’s” network on April 12th – is the same model of the iPhone 5 that AT&T customers currently enjoy, except that it will be newer and feature AWS (or Advanced Wireless Services), a newer set of frequencies that T-Mobile is using for its LTE network. …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

    Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

    Can Microsoft Ever Matter in the Cloud?

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    By Richard Saintvilus, The Motley Fool

    Filed under:

    Although I no longer hold the stock, I still find myself defending Microsoft quite a bit. That in and of itself might seem like a problem — when a company of Microsoft’s stature needs so much validation. There’s still a lot of good in this company, however. This despite the fact that it seems the tech world — specifically Apple and Google — has left Mr. Softy in the dust.

    And now Microsoft is looking to make up the difference in the cloud. Will it be enough?

    Will Microsoft remain a cloud underdog?
    Although the popularity of mobile devices has allowed Apple and Google to steal Microsoft’s luster, this has not taken away from Microsoft’s dominance in enterprise and, in particular, Office and Windows. That 80% of the company’s revenue still comes from businesses proves how strong those franchises still are. Nevertheless, with the cloud getting bigger each year, Microsoft has come under considerable pressure.

    In Azure, Microsoft has not been asleep at the wheel. And despite what bears may think, the platform is better than adequate. But even though I’m willing to give Microsoft a “glass half-full” thesis in its efforts, I don’t think Azure is ready for primetime yet. There was a point, though, when I felt Azure would be a significant player, especially since the cloud market is still fairly short on development tools. Plus, I felt the company’s Office 365 solution would have presented a solid software-as-a-service, or SaaS, rival to Salesforce.com and Oracle . Today, I’m not so sure.

    I say this even though Microsoft has recently launched Azure community portal, which invites a wide range of developers to create, thereby increasing a broader adoption of the service. Microsoft also refreshed Azure with a Virtual Machine-centric platform similar to Amazon‘s Elastic Compute Cloud. Going after Amazon is a good strategy, but Azure is still limited in functionality when compared to Amazon’s Web Services, or AWS.

    However, Microsoft does have an advantage over Amazon by having a much bigger footprint among businesses and enterprise. Plus, it certainly benefits Microsoft by coming up with a way to grow Azure and all that goes into building an ecosystem. The question, though, is to what extent will users embrace Azure. And can Azure offset any decline or narrow the gap in mobile weakness against Apple and Google?

    However, there’s also Oracle and Salesforce to contend with. As enterprises continue to transition to more SaaS environments, can Azure measure up against these two giants? Microsoft should be able to compete on price and seamless integration, given its strong lead with business customers. Hopefully, these customers won’t expect or insist that Microsoft be better. Microsoft will just need to be adequate.

    Can the enterprise stay strong?
    The recent 9% growth in the server and tools segment suggests that the company is holding its own against the likes of IBM and Oracle. Likewise, Microsoft’s SQL business still produces solid results, and the company’s Hyper-V product, which rivals VMware‘s vSphere, is …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

    Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

    CloudCheckr and UX World Announce Strategic Partnership

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    By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

    Filed under:

    CloudCheckr and UX World Announce Strategic Partnership

    Partnership to include product integration and co-marketing initiatives

    ROCHESTER, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– CloudCheckr and UX World proudly announce that they have entered into a strategic partnership to deliver customers more effective solutions for optimizing the performance of Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure. The companies will begin joint product development, integrate their technologies, and deliver new capabilities for improving availability and security of cloud infrastructure, which are recognized as major barriers for public cloud adoption.

    “CloudCheckr and UX World share a common goal, lowering the barriers to cloud adoption,” said Aaron Newman, CTO and Co-Founder of CloudCheckr. “Our respective solutions both address the complexity of maintaining uptime and enhancing security on cloud infrastructure.”

    CloudCheckr monitors the underlying Amazon Web Services resources and configurations to provide visibility into a customer’s AWS security and availability posture that is currently unavailable through native AWS functionality. CloudCheckr users can more tightly manage their AWS infrastructure and policies than simply using the native AWS interface. Its cutting edge analytics provide decision support for managing and scaling AWS deployments while optimally balancing performance, risk and spend.

    UX World responds to the cloud-specific problem of impermanent IP addresses for virtual servers, streamlining the process for diagnosing failed cloud servers and rapid re-provisioning. The UX World virtual DNS appliance is the leading solution for maintaining DNS security within the outsourced DNS management environment of cloud computing and invaluable for cloud users. “I am pleased to partner with CloudCheckr. Like us, they recognize the importance of creating cloud-native solutions to solve cloud-unique issues,” said Nick Desai, CEO and Founder of UX World. “We look forward to working with CloudCheckr.”

    About CloudCheckr:

    CloudCheckr is based in Rochester, NY with satellite office in San Francisco and Argentina. CloudCheckr analytics provide decision support for cloud resource control, purchasing and configurations so companies can scale their cloud infrastructure while balancing performance, security, and spend. It is an Amazon Web Services Technology Partner.

    About UX World:

    UX WORLD offers a targeted and secure solution to manage DNS and DHCP. This purpose-built application is being offered as a physical device or a virtual appliance. The OVA distribution is compatible with VMware ESXi, CA AppLogic, Xen, and Amazon Web Services. As part of the core functionality, dnslfy resolves a …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

    Linux

    Eric Hammond: Installing AWS Command Line Tools Using Ubuntu Packages

    Leave a comment

    Here are the steps for installing the AWS command line tools that are
    currently available as Ubuntu packages. These include:

    • EC2 API tools
    • EC2 AMI tools
    • IAM – Identity and Access Management
    • RDS – Relational Database Service
    • CloudWatch
    • Auto Scaling
    • ElastiCache

    Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise, these are also available:

    • CloudFormation
    • ELB – Elastic Load Balancer

    Install Packages

    Enable the multiverse repository. This can be done through the Ubuntu
    Update Manager     or by editing /etc/apt/sources.list Here are some
    commands that will enable multiverse on a new installation:

    # 12.04 LTS Precise, 11.10 Oneiric
sudo perl -pi.orig -e 
  'next if /-backports/; s/^# (deb .* multiverse)$/$1/' 
  /etc/apt/sources.list

# 10.04 LTS Lucid
sudo perl -pi.orig -e 
  's/^(deb .* universe)$/$1 multiverse/' 
  /etc/apt/sources.list

    Enable the awstools PPA and update the apt package index:

    sudo apt-add-repository ppa:awstools-dev/awstools
sudo apt-get update

    Install available AWS command line tool packages:

    sudo apt-get install ec2-api-tools ec2-ami-tools iamcli rdscli moncli ascli elasticache

# Also available on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise
sudo apt-get install aws-cloudformation-cli elbcli

    Some of these tools support passing in credentials on the command
    line, but for regular use, you will want to store the AWS credentials
    in files.

    Set up AWS Credentials

    Create a place to store the AWS credentials:

    mkdir -m 0700 $HOME/.aws/

    Copy your AWS X.509 certificate and private key to
    this subdirectory. These files will have names that look something
    like this:

    $HOME/.aws/cert-7KX4CVWWQ52YM2SUCIGGHTPDNDZQMVEF.pem
$HOME/.aws/pk-7KX4CVWWQ52YM2SUCIGGHTPDNDZQMVEF.pem

    Create the file $HOME/.aws/aws-credential-file.txt with your AWS
    access key id and secret access key     in the following
    format:

    AWSAccessKeyId=YOURACCESSKEYIDHERE
AWSSecretKey=YOURPRIVATEACCESSKEYHERE

    Add the following lines to your $HOME/.bashrc file so that the AWS
    command line tools know where to find the above files:

    # AWS credentials
export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=$(echo $HOME/.aws/pk-*.pem)
export EC2_CERT=$(echo $HOME/.aws/cert-*.pem)
export AWS_CREDENTIAL_FILE=$HOME/.aws/aws-credential-file.txt

    Make sure these are set in your current shell(s):

    source $HOME/.bashrc

    Test

    Make sure that the command line tools are installed and have
    credentials set up correctly. These commands should not return
    errors:

    ec2-describe-regions 
ec2-ami-tools-version
iam-accountgetsummary
rds-describe-db-engine-versions
mon-version
as-version

# Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise and higher
cfn-list-stacks
elb-describe-lb-policies

    AWS Command Line Tools

    The table below shows some of the various AWS products, whether Amazon
    publishes command line tools, and whether these are available in key
    Ubuntu releases. Some of the packages are available in the standard
    apt repositories, some require adding multiverse, and
    some are published in the awstools PPA. The awstools PPA also
    has newer versions of some of the packages released by Amazon after
    the official Ubuntu release.

    …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu
    AWS Service Amazon Command Line Tools Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid
    EC2 API Tools AWS CLI multiverse multiverse
    PPA updates    		 multiverse
    PPA updates
    EC2 AMI Tools AWS CLI multiverse multiverse
    PPA updates    		 multiverse
    PPA updates
    Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

    Netflix Isn't as Dependent on Amazon as You Think

    Leave a comment

    By Tim Beyers, The Motley Fool

    Filed under:

    For all the complaints about Netflix , the most legitimately worrisome may be its dependence on chief competitor Amazon.com .

    By most accounts, the streaming sensation couldn’t deliver as much video as it does without the help of Amazon Web Services. Trouble is, AWS has gone wobbly in recent months. A Christmas Eve outage took out Netflix, too, resulting in a lot less holiday cheer.

    Whatever issues were at work then appear to have been solved. But Netflix also isn’t taking chances. The company is slowly moving core pieces of infrastructure off Amazon, including infrastructure that controls the way users managers their “queue” of streamed shows and to-be-shipped DVDs. (Find the details in this admittedly technical blog post.)

    Should investors expect Netflix and Amazon to part ways this year? What will it mean if they do? Tim Beyers of Motley Fool Rule Breakers and Motley Fool Supernova addresses these questions and more in the video below. Please watch, and then be sure to leave a comment to let us know what you think.

    Netflix’s fortunes increasingly depend on success in international markets. Can the streaming sensation expand globally even as deep-pocketed competitors attack here at home? This is a must-know issue for investors, which is why we’ve released a brand-new premium report on Netflix. Inside, you’ll learn about the key opportunities and risks facing the company, as well as reasons to buy or sell the stock. We’re also offering a full year of updates as key news hits, so make sure to click here and claim a copy today.

    The article Netflix Isn’t as Dependent on Amazon as You Think originally appeared on Fool.com.

    Fool contributor Tim Beyers is a member of the 
    Motley Fool Rule Breakers
    stock-picking team and the Motley Fool Supernova Odyssey I mission. He owned shares of, and had a long-term call options position in, Netflix at the time of publication. Check out Tim’s web home and portfolio holdings or connect with him on Google+, Tumblr, or Twitter, where he goes by @milehighfool. You can also get his insights delivered directly to your RSS reader.The Motley Fool owns shares of Netflix and Amazon.com. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Netflix and Amazon.com. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.

    Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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    Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

    Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

    Is Netflix's Monkey the Next Cloud Vaccine?

    Leave a comment

    By Richard Saintvilus, The Motley Fool

    Filed under:

    I’m beginning to realize that nobody truly knows what the cloud is. But they sure as heck understand that they need some form of it if they care to survive. And according to Netflix , a part of that survival is failure and doing so as often as possible.

    To that end, the company has created Chaos Monkey, a service that runs in the Amazon Web Services, or AWS, that seeks out to terminate what is called Auto Scaling Groups. For those unfamiliar with the cloud, this is an absolutely brilliant tool. Netflix designed the software to be flexible enough to work with other cloud providers and can scale to any existing network. And you thought all Netflix did was stream movies.

    However, this underscores my frustration with calling writers thinking they have fully grasped this cloud concept, to the extent that they can distinguish between what is real and what is fake, which made no sense at all. I’ve recently felt the urge to come to Oracle‘s defense after a barrage of stories surfaced launching accusations at the company’s service delivery model. The nerve it requires to discredit what is still essentially a theory didn’t sit well with me. Understandably, it didn’t sit well with many Oracle supporters, either.

    In the case of Netflix and Amazon, these two companies have a lot more in common than their high-priced stocks. They are brilliant innovators with revolutionary visionaries running their businesses. While everyone focuses on their heated streaming movie battles, behind the scenes they are eating bananas together and swinging on vines. Amazon, which has arguably one of the best cloud services on the market with AWS, has Netflix as one of its biggest customers.

    Similarly, when Amazon has recently suffered severe service outages, it reached out to Netflix’s Chaos Monkey for a solution. Meanwhile, conventional thinking would have you wondering, “Why would Netflix not try to capitalize on Amazon’s struggles and use it as leverage for their streaming battles?” After all, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has an ambitious goal of 60 million to 90 million domestic subscribers. It would make sense to steal what Amazon has.

    Netflix is smart enough to realize that the capacity requirements of this goal would be pretty aggressive. To that end, if it can help Amazon’s 121 million worldwide users stay connected, then it means Netflix would have likely figured out how to prevent its own outages in the future. Essentially, you hire a bank robber to help prevent bank robberies. It’s the same concept. But now we’re back to that word again.

    The cloud concept is so strong that it even brings rival companies together. We are seeing this all the time. Citrix and Cisco‘s partnership serves as the perfect example. While these strategic alliances do further the interest of each company, it is ultimately the customer who draws the most benefit. As Netflix pointed out, “Failures happen and they inevitably happen when least …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance