Sunday, June 28, 2009

Stunning pictures of the volcano that blew a hole in the sky as astronauts witness eruption from International Space Station

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A plume of smoke, ash and steam soars five miles into the sky from an erupting volcano.

Framed by a circle of clouds, this is a stunning illustration of Nature's powerful force.

The extraordinary image was captured by the crew of the International Space Station 220 miles above a remote Russian island in the North Pacific.The round hole in the clouds is thought to have been caused by the shockwave of the initial explosion. At the centre lies the billowing mushroom tower of grey and brown ash.For volcano experts, the most exciting part of the image is the layer of smooth white cloud that caps the plume - a little like a layer of snow on a mushroom.This cap of condensed air is created from the rapid rising and then cooling of the air directly above the ash column. When moist, warm air rises quickly it creates a cloud.

This cap, which meteorologists call a pileus cloud, is already beginning to break up in these images - and would have vanished soon afterwards.

Far below, a thunderous line of light grey cloud can be seen falling down the sloping sides of the volcano. 




This is a deadly pyroclastic flow - a mixture of hot gas and ash that destroys everything in its path. 

Reaching temperatures of 600C (1,112F) and moving at 130mph, a pyroclastic flow is the most dangerous part of a volcanic eruption.

You've seen the hole in the clouds - now see the hole in the universe:


A hole in the clouds is one thing, but a hole in the fabric of the universe is quite another.

With interstellar matter evenly distributed across the skies, this black anomaly is a bit of a head-scratcher - is it a black hole? A worm-hole? A stairway to Heaven? Or just the start of the collapse of the universe, which doomsayers assure us will start in 2012?

No, it's none of these things. Instead, its a dark molecular cloud - a mass of of dust and gases which combine to blank out all the visible light from the background stars.

Many of these 'dark absorption nebulae' have been discovered across the galaxy, with this one called Barnard 68 in the Ophiuchus constellation.

NASA's picture of the 'hole in the sky' - now known to be a dark molecular cloud absorbing all the visible light from stars behind it

Measurements place this at a relatively close 500 light years away - much further away and the odds are there would be stars visible in front of Barnard 68.

It is calculated to be about half-a-light year across (a light-year being the distance light can travel through a vacuum in the course of a year).

How they are formed is unknown, but clouds such as this are thought to be a birthing place for new stars.


 

 

 

 

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Saturday, June 27, 2009

Cloud Hosting vs. Standard Hosting

credit: laughingsquid

Here are some of the advantages of our new cloud hosting service over our standard hosting:

  1. increased reliability, reducing the risk of downtime due to hardware failure
  2. better scaling during high traffic or load spikes
  3. increased monthly disk space and bandwidth
  4. reduced pricing for monthly disk space and bandwidth overages
  5. the ability to access and update billing information via the control panel
  6. email is hosted on separate, dedicated mail servers
  7. email storage quota increased to 1GB per mailbox
  8. support for secure email
  9. an enhanced webmail service
  10. improved anti-spam protection
  11. anti-virus protection included with email service
  12. daily snapshot backups
  13. an automatic Media Accelerator that static caches images for optimal performance
  14. the ability to do secure file transfers using SFTP

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Friday, June 26, 2009

Amazing Edelweiss PC Combines Art and Function

Holy crap, is this an awesome looking computer. The Edelweiss, created by Pius Giger in Switzerland, is one of the coolest custom rigs The Edelweiss PC by Million-Dollar-PC is one of the first computers we've come across that seamlessly combines art and function. 

credit: million $ pc

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Amazing Edelweiss PC Combines Art and Function

Holy crap, is this an awesome looking computer. The Edelweiss, created by Pius Giger in Switzerland, is one of the coolest custom rigs The Edelweiss PC by Million-Dollar-PC is one of the first computers we've come across that seamlessly combines art and function. 

<a href="http://www.techeblog.com/elephant/gallery-154746-photos.phtml">

 

credit: million $ pc

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The SixthSense

ABOUT
'SixthSense' is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

We've evolved over millions of years to sense the world around us. When we encounter something, someone or some place, we use our five natural senses to perceive information about it; that information helps us make decisions and chose the right actions to take. But arguably the most useful information that can help us make the right decision is not naturally perceivable with our five senses, namely the data, information and knowledge that mankind has accumulated about everything and which is increasingly all available online. Although the miniaturization of computing devices allows us to carry computers in our pockets, keeping us continually connected to the digital world, there is no link between our digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. Information is confined traditionally on paper or digitally on a screen. SixthSense bridges this gap, bringing intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand gestures. ‘SixthSense’ frees information from its confines by seamlessly integrating it with reality, and thus making the entire world your computer. 

The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction. 

The SixthSense prototype implements several applications that demonstrate the usefulness, viability and flexibility of the system. The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed on a nearby surface using hand gestures, similar to gestures supported by Multi-Touch based systems, letting the user zoom in, zoom out or pan using intuitive hand movements. The drawing application lets the user draw on any surface by tracking the fingertip movements of the user’s index finger. SixthSense also recognizes user’s freehand gestures (postures). For example, the SixthSense system implements a gestural camera that takes photos of the scene the user is looking at by detecting the ‘framing’ gesture. The user can stop by any surface or wall and flick through the photos he/she has taken. SixthSense also lets the user draw icons or symbols in the air using the movement of the index finger and recognizes those symbols as interaction instructions. For example, drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map application or drawing an ‘@’ symbol lets the user check his mail. The SixthSense system also augments physical objects the user is interacting with by projecting more information about these objects projected on them. For example, a newspaper can show live video news or dynamic information can be provided on a regular piece of paper. The gesture of drawing a circle on the user’s wrist projects an analog watch. 

The current prototype system costs approximate $350 to build. 


PICTURES


          

          

          

          



 

CREDIT:: http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/

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Interface Messages

REFERENCE: com.google.gwt.i18n.client 

All Superinterfaces:
Localizable, LocalizableResource

public interface Messages
extends LocalizableResource

A tag interface that facilitates locale-sensitive, compile-time binding of messages supplied from various sources.UsingGWT.create(class) to "instantiate" an interface that extends Messages returns an instance of an automatically generated subclass that is implemented using message templates selected based on locale. Message templates are based on a subset of the format used byMessageFormat.

Locale is specified at run time using a meta tag or query string as described for Localizable.

Extending Messages

To use Messages, begin by defining an interface that extends it. Each interface method is referred to as a message accessor, and its corresponding message template is loaded based on the key for that method. The default key is simply the unqualified name of the method, but can be specified directly with an @Key annotation or a different generation method using @GenerateKeys. Additionally, if plural forms are used on a given method the plural form is added as a suffix to the key, such as widgets[one] for the singular version of the widgets message. The resulting key is used to find translated versions of the message from any supported input file, such as Java properties files. For example,
public interface GameStatusMessages extends Messages {  /**  * @param username the name of a player  * @param numTurns the number of turns remaining  * @return a message specifying the remaining turns for a player  */  String turnsLeft(String username, int numTurns);    /**  * @param numPoints the number of points  * @return a message describing the current score for the current player  */  String currentScore(int numPoints);  }  
expects to find properties named turnsLeft and currentScore in an associated properties file, formatted as message templates taking two arguments and one argument, respectively. For example, the following properties would correctly bind to theGameStatusMessages interface:
turnsLeft = Turns left for player ''{0}'': {1}  currentScore = Current score: {0}  

The following example demonstrates how to use constant accessors defined in the interface above:

public void beginNewGameRound(String username) {  GameStatusMessages messages = (GameStatusMessages) GWT.create(GameStatusMessages.class);    // Tell the new player how many turns he or she has left.  int turnsLeft = computeTurnsLeftForPlayer(username);  showMessage(messages.turnsLeft(username, turnsLeft));    // Tell the current player his or her score.  int currentScore = computeScore(username);  setCurrentPlayer(username);  showMessage(messages.currentScore(currentScore));  }  

 

The following example shows how to use annotations to store the default strings in the source file itself, rather than needing a properties file (you still need properties files for the translated strings):

public interface GameStatusMessagesAnnot extends Messages {  /**  * @param username the name of a player  * @param numTurns the number of turns remaining  * @return a message specifying the remaining turns for a player  */  @DefaultMessage("Turns left for player ''{0}'': {1}")  String turnsLeft(String username, int numTurns);    /**  * @param numPoints the number of points  * @return a message describing the current score for the current player  */  @DefaultMessage("Current score: {0}")  String currentScore(int numPoints);  }  

 

Defining Message Accessors

Message accessors must be of the form
String methodName(optional-params)
and parameters may be of any type. Arguments are converted into strings at runtime using Java string concatenation syntax (the '+' operator), which uniformly handles primitives, null, and invoking toString() to format objects.

Compile-time checks are performed to ensure that the number of placeholders in a message template (e.g. {0}) matches the number of parameters supplied.

Integral arguments may be used to select the proper plural form to use for different locales. To do this, mark the particular argument with @PluralCount (a plural rule may be specified with @PluralCount if necessary, but you will almost never need to do this). The actual plural forms for the default locale can be supplied in a @PluralText annotation on the method, such as@PluralText({"one", "You have one widget"}), or they can be supplied in the properties file as methodkey[one]=You have one widget. Note that non-default plural forms are not inherited between locales, because the different locales may have different plural rules (especially default and anything else and those which use different scripts such as sr_Cyrl and sr_Latn [one of which would likely be the default], but also subtle cases like pt and pt_BR).

Additionally, individual arguments can be marked as optional (ie, GWT will not give an error if a particular translation does not reference the argument) with the @Optional annotation, and an example may be supplied to the translator with the@Example(String) annotation.

Complete Annotations Example

In addition to the default properties file, default text and additional metadata may be stored in the source file itself using annotations. A complete example of using annotations in this way is:
 @Generate(format = "com.google.gwt.i18n.rebind.format.PropertiesFormat")  @DefaultLocale("en_US")  public interface MyMessages extends Messages {  @Key("1234")  @DefaultText("This is a plain string.")  String oneTwoThreeFour();    @DefaultText("You have {0} widgets")  @PluralText({"one", "You have one widget")  String widgetCount(@PluralCount int count);    @DefaultText("No reference to the argument")  String optionalArg(@Optional String ignored);    @DefaultText("Your cart total is {0,number,currency}")  @Description("The total value of the items in the shopping cart in local currency")  String totalAmount(@Example("$5.00") double amount);    @Meaning("the color")  @DefaultMessage("orange")  String orangeColor();    @Meaning("the fruit")  @DefaultMessage("orange")  String orangeFruit();  }  

Binding to Properties Files

Interfaces extending Messages are bound to resource files using the same algorithm as interfaces extending Constants. See the documentation for Constants for a description of the algorithm.

Required Module

Modules that use this interface should inherit com.google.gwt.i18n.I18N.
<module>    <inherits name="com.google.gwt.i18n.I18N"/>    </module>  

Note

You should not directly implement this interface or interfaces derived from it since an implementation is generated automatically when message interfaces are created using GWT.create(Class)

 

Thank you:gotapi

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Monday, June 22, 2009

The team behind Twitter: Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams

 

Twitter, which launched in August 2006, was co-founded by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone.

Jack Dorsey

Dorsey came up with the idea of Twitter because he wanted to find a better way to stay connected to friends. The software engineer, who is in his early 30s, grew up in St Louis, Missouri, and studied at New York University, where he had a part time job designing dispatching software for taxi companies.

He abandoned his studies to move to California, the cradle of technology start-ups, and approached a small company, Odeo, where Biz Stone worked, with the idea of a communication service that helped friends keep in touch through status updates. Together, the pair made a working protoype of Twitter, and as chief executive of the new microblogging company, Dorsey was responsible for seeking investment and funding from venture capitalists.

Dorsey became chairman of the board in October 2008, and turned his attentions to improving Twitter's scalability and reducing downtime, with some success. Dorsey has hinted that next year could be the year when Twitter unveils a robust business model, and ways of generating revenue.

Jack Dorsey's most recent Twitter update reads: "Taking delivery of a big work table".

Evan Williams

 

Williams hails from Nebraska. The 36-year-old entrepeneur has founded several successful technology start-ups, including Pyra Labs, which designed the Blogger blogging platform that boasts millions of users and was acquired by Google in 2003 for an undisclosed sum. He left Google in 2004 to co-found Odeo, an RSS syndication service and podcast-creation site, with Noah Glass.

By 2006, Williams had joined forces with colleagues Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey and several other Odeo veterans to form Obvious Corp, the enterprise from which Twitter was eventually born. Williams has been named one of the 25 most influential people on the web by Time magazine. He is currently Twitter's CEO, and lives in San Francisco with his wife and cat.

Evan Williams' most recent Twitter update reads: "Though I didn't get that excited when reviewing it at TC50, we're now using @dropbox at Twitter, and it's pretty great".

Biz Stone

 

Biz Stone is a serial Silicon Valley entrepeneur, having had a hand in a range of tech start-ups, including Xanga and Odeo, where he helped to develop Twitter alongside Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey. He remains creative director of Twitter, and has published two books about the growth of social media. He says that Twitter really took off at the SXSW music festival in August 2006, when festival-goers used the platform to discuss acts, plan meet-ups and generally get in touch with fellow music and technology fans at the event.

Biz Stone's most recent Twitter update reads: "Having a hummus wrap at Heathrow".

 

 

 

 

Posted via web from swathidharshananaidu's posterous

The team behind Twitter: Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams

Twitter, which launched in August 2006, was co-founded by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone.

Jack Dorsey

Dorsey came up with the idea of Twitter because he wanted to find a better way to stay connected to friends. The software engineer, who is in his early 30s, grew up in St Louis, Missouri, and studied at New York University, where he had a part time job designing dispatching software for taxi companies.

He abandoned his studies to move to California, the cradle of technology start-ups, and approached a small company, Odeo, where Biz Stone worked, with the idea of a communication service that helped friends keep in touch through status updates. Together, the pair made a working protoype of Twitter, and as chief executive of the new microblogging company, Dorsey was responsible for seeking investment and funding from venture capitalists.

Dorsey became chairman of the board in October 2008, and turned his attentions to improving Twitter's scalability and reducing downtime, with some success. Dorsey has hinted that next year could be the year when Twitter unveils a robust business model, and ways of generating revenue.

Jack Dorsey's most recent Twitter update reads: "Taking delivery of a big work table".

Evan Williams

Williams hails from Nebraska. The 36-year-old entrepeneur has founded several successful technology start-ups, including Pyra Labs, which designed the Blogger blogging platform that boasts millions of users and was acquired by Google in 2003 for an undisclosed sum. He left Google in 2004 to co-found Odeo, an RSS syndication service and podcast-creation site, with Noah Glass.

By 2006, Williams had joined forces with colleagues Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey and several other Odeo veterans to form Obvious Corp, the enterprise from which Twitter was eventually born. Williams has been named one of the 25 most influential people on the web by Time magazine. He is currently Twitter's CEO, and lives in San Francisco with his wife and cat.

Evan Williams' most recent Twitter update reads: "Though I didn't get that excited when reviewing it at TC50, we're now using @dropbox at Twitter, and it's pretty great".

Biz Stone

Biz Stone is a serial Silicon Valley entrepeneur, having had a hand in a range of tech start-ups, including Xanga and Odeo, where he helped to develop Twitter alongside Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey. He remains creative director of Twitter, and has published two books about the growth of social media. He says that Twitter really took off at the SXSW music festival in August 2006, when festival-goers used the platform to discuss acts, plan meet-ups and generally get in touch with fellow music and technology fans at the event.

Biz Stone's most recent Twitter update reads: "Having a hummus wrap at Heathrow".

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Saturday, June 20, 2009

Webinar: Bringing Cloud Computing Inside the Enterprise

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Intel - Sponsors of Tomorrow

Intel, the silicon innovator and computer chipmaker, has launched an integrated branding campaign using the theme, “Sponsors of Tomorrow”. The global advertising campaign, scheduled to start on May 11, is being rolled out first in the USA, Germany and the UK, with teaser ads launched on the newly established Intel YouTube channel.

Intel Rock Star TV commercial

 

Rock Stars

The Rock Stars print advertisement is driven by the line, “Your rock stars aren’t like our rock stars.” A grunge rock ‘n roll band, in sunglasses and jeans behind bright stage lights, is contrasted with two bespectacled computer engineers in white lab coats in their techy environment. These guys are the designers of the very first microprocessor. “Back in 1969,” the ad says, “their Intel® 4004 blew people’s minds wide open – a tradition that’s still very much alive” at Intel. Mentioned by name is Ted Hoff (Marcian Edward Hoff, Jr) who designed the computer-on-a-chip microprocessor in 1968, that came on the market in 1971 as the Intel® 4004.

Intel Rock Star TV commercial

“Rock Star” also is the basis of a video for broadcast and online, this time focusing on Ajay Bhatt, one of the engineers responsible for developing the USB (Universal Serial Bus) port.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

 

For this concept and other creative in which Intel engineers are identified, the engineers are personified by hired actors. A bio of each engineer portrayed in the ads will be added to the campaign Web site, www.sponsorsoftomorrow.com. The employees may be part of future campaign elements.

“Several of the engineers we’re personifying confided that acting isn’t within their comfort zone,” said Sandra Lopez, Intel’s global consumer marketing manager. “We respect that and in the spirit of developing tomorrow’s ‘normal’ we appreciate that their focus is on winning patents, not Clios.”

Oops

“Oops,” is set at a technology convention where Intel is about to reveal a new microprocessor to a packed auditorium. As the dramatic unveiling is about to happen onstage, Intel employees and reporters struggle to find the tiny chip on the floor. The tagline: “Our big ideas aren’t like your big ideas.”

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

 

Clean Room

“Clean Room”, another two-sided print ad, shows a little girl clearly proud of her tidy bedroom. To the right is another photo of lab technicians wearing “bunny suits” that help keep Intel’s cleanrooms 10,000 times cleaner than a hospital operating room, a critical step to reduce the chance of airborne particles harming the chips.

Intel Clean Room TV commercial

Text For Tomorrow

Digital billboards in New York, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco and other locations will show texts from the public around the world.

The campaign Web site, intel.com/tomorrow, ties the “Text for Tomorrow” effort together.

Traditional billboards and bus stop shelters in various markets will bear witty factoids along with the “Sponsors of Tomorrow” slogan next to the Intel logo. Examples are “Today is so yesterday” and “Our sandbox is the size of a fingernail. And 41,000 engineers play in it.”

To ring in the new campaign a group of Intel employees will ring the ceremonial opening bell for the NASDAQ Stock Market at 9:30 a.m. EDT on May 11. The ceremony will be broadcast live in Times Square on the video screen of the seven-story NASDAQ building and atwww.nasdaq.com.

Retail campaigns include merchandising materials and in-store demos to online ads and training for retail salespeople. The essence of “Sponsors of Tomorrow” will also be incorporated into Intel’s online materials developed to assist consumers researching PC purchases. A heavy internal campaign is already underway at Intel campuses throughout the world.

Credits

The Sponsors of Tomorrow campaign was developed at Venables Bell & Partners, San Francisco, the first since the agency was awarded the Intel account in January 2009.

“Most of the world knows Intel as a huge, multi-national chipmaker, but the company is much more than that,” said Paul Venables, the agency’s founder and co-creative director. “The more we learned about Intel, the more we realized how narrow our perception had been. This company is forging the future in so many unfathomable ways, and what a shame it is that the general consumer has no idea.”

Global media planning was handled by OMD.

 

 

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Penguin Behind That Silverlining

Cloud computing with Linux

Cloud computing platforms and applications

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cloud computing is really nothing more than the provisioning of computing resources (computers and storage) as a service. Along with that comes the ability to dynamically scale the service to additional computers and storage in a simple and transparent way. All this is similar to the ideas behind utility computing, in which computing resources were viewed as a metered service, as is the case for more traditional utilities (such as electricity or water). What's different is not the goal behind these ideas but the existing technologies that have come together to make them a reality.

One of the most important ideas behind cloud computing is scalability, and the key technology that makes that possible is virtualization. Virtualization allows better use of a server by aggregating multiple operating systems and applications on a single shared computer. Virtualization also permits online migration so that if a server becomes overloaded, an instance of an operating system (and its applications) can be migrated to a new, less cluttered server.

From an external view, cloud computing is simply the migration of computing and storage outside an enterprise and into the cloud. The user defines the resource requirements (such as computing and wide area network, or WAN, bandwidth needs), and the cloud provider virtually assembles these components within its infrastructure, as shown in Figure 1.


Figure 1. Cloud computing migrates resources within the Internet 
Cloud computing migrates resources within the Internet

But why would you willingly relinquish control over your resources and allow them to virtually exist in the cloud? There are many reasons, but two that I believe are most important are cost and scalability. The goal of cloud computing is to make these resources less expensive than what you can provide for and manage yourself. Along with this reduction in cost comes greater flexibility and scaling. A cloud computing provider can easily scale your virtual environment for greater bandwidth or computing resources with the provider's virtual infrastructure.

The green advantage to cloud computing is the ability to virtualize and share resources among different applications for better server utilization. Figure 2 shows an example. Here, three independent platforms existed for different applications, each running on its own server. In the cloud, servers can be shared (virtualized) for operating systems and applications to better use the servers, resulting in fewer servers. Fewer servers means less required space (minimizing the data center footprint) and less power for cooling (minimizing the carbon footprint).


Figure 2. Virtualization and resource use
Virtualization and resource use

But there are trade-offs, and cloud computing is not without its warts. This article explores some of these issues later. But now, let's dig deeper into cloud computing to explore what it's all about.

Anatomy of cloud computing

As you peer inside the cloud, you find that it's actually not just a single service but a collection of services, as shown in Figure 3. These layers define the level of service provided.


Figure 3. The layers of cloud computing
The layers of cloud computing

Let's start at the lowest level of service provided, which is the infrastructure (Infrastructure-as-a-Service, or IaaS). IaaS is the leasing of infrastructure (computing resources and storage) as a service. This means not only virtualized computers with guaranteed processing power but reserved bandwidth for storage and Internet access. In essence, it's the capability of leasing a computer or data center with specific quality-of-service constraints that has the ability to execute an arbitrary operating system and software.

The value of cloud computing

Besides reducing the management cost associated with cloud computing resources, there are other advantages. For example, when you separate yourself from your resources by the Internet, it doesn't really matter where those resources reside. They could be, for example, in a climate that offers ambient (natural) cooling and therefore minimizes energy usage.

Moving up the stack, the next level of service is the platform (Platform-as-a-Service, or PaaS). PaaS is similar to IaaS but includes operating systems and required services that focus on a particular application. For example, a PaaS in addition to virtualized servers and storage provides a particular operating system and application set (typically, as a virtual machine, or VM, file, such as VMware's .vmdk format) along with access to necessary services such as a MySQL database or other, specialized local resources. In other words, PaaS is IaaS with a custom software stack for the given application.

Finally, at the top of Figure 3 is the simplest service that can be provided: the application. This layer is called Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and it is the model of deploying software from a centralized system to run on a local computer (or remotely from the cloud). As a metered service, SaaS allows you to lease an application and pay only for the time used.

That's the 30,000-foot view of cloud computing. This view ignores some of the other aspects of the cloud, such as data-Storage-as-a-Service (dSaaS), which provides storage as a metered service in which the consumer is billed based on used capacity (the amount of storage used) and utilization (bandwidth requirements for the storage). Cloud services have also emerged, which provide internal mechanisms for interoperability as well as external application program interfaces (APIs), such as Web services.

The cloud computing landscape

In recent months, there's been an explosion of investment into cloud computing and related infrastructure. This massive investment indicates that there is demand for virtualization of resources inside the cloud. The past year has seen many new services, some of which are shown in Figure 4.


Figure 4. Cloud computing layers with offerings 
Cloud computing layers with offerings

This is by no means an exhaustive list of offerings, as it changes quite frequently. However, it does provide an overview of some of the offerings and how they are differentiate

 


 

 

credit: IBM

 

Summary:  Cloud computing and storage convert physical resources (like processors and storage) into scalable and shareable resources over the Internet (computing and storage "as a service"). Although not a new concept, virtualization makes this much more scalable and efficient through the sharing of physical systems through server virtualization. Cloud computing gives users access to massive computing and storage resources without their having to know where those resources are or how they're configured. As you might expect, Linux® plays a huge role. Discover cloud computing, and learn why there's a penguin behind that silver lining.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linux and open source in the cloud

Let's now explore how Linux and the open source community contribute to the world of cloud computing. As you might have guessed, Linux and open source technologies play a huge role.

Software-as-a-Service

SaaS is the ability to access software over the Internet as a service. An early approach to SaaS was the Application Service Provider (ASP). ASPs provide subscriptions to software that is hosted or delivered over the Internet. The ASP delivers the software and charges fees based on its use. In this way, you don't purchase the software but simply lease it on an as-needed basis.

Example SaaS

An interesting example of traditional versus SaaS applications is the application life cycle management tool from SoftwarePlanner.com. This company offers their tool using the traditional model, where customers host the application suite within their enterprise, or as SaaS, where customers host the application suite and make it available over the Internet.

Another perspective on SaaS is the use of software over the Internet that executes remotely. This software can be in the form of services used by a local application (defined as Web services) or a remote application observed through a Web browser. One example of a remote application service is Google Apps, which provides several enterprise applications through a standard Web browser. Remotely executing applications commonly rely on an application server to expose needed services. An application server is a software framework that exposes APIs for software services (such as transaction management or database access). Examples include Red Hat JBoss Application Server, Apache Geronimo, and IBM® WebSphere® Application Server. 

Another recent example of SaaS is Google's Chrome browser. The browser is an ideal environment as a new desktop through which applications can be delivered (either locally or remotely) in addition to the traditional Web browsing experience. 

Platform-as-a-Service

PaaS can be described as an entire virtualized platform that includes one or more servers (virtualized over the set of physical servers), operating systems, and specific applications (such as Apache and MySQL for Web-based applications). In some cases, these platforms can be predefined and selected; in others, you can provide a VM image that contains all the necessary user-specific applications.

One interesting example of a PaaS is Google App Engine. App Engine is a service that allows you to deploy your Web applications on Google's very scalable architecture. App Engine provides you with a sandbox for your Python application that can be referenced over the Internet (and additional languages will be supported in the future). App Engine provides Python APIs for persistently storing and managing data (using the Google Query Language, or GQL) in addition to support for authenticating users, manipulating images, and sending e-mail. The sandbox in which the Web application runs restricts access to the underlying operating system. Although App Engine limits the functionality available to your application, it supports the construction of useful Web services. Check out Resources for more information.

Note: Deploying applications in App Engine is free within certain bandwidth and storage constraints. To build production Web sites with App Engine, usage fees are assessed.

Another example of a PaaS is 10gen, which is both a cloud platform and a downloadable open source package for creating your own private cloud. A software stack similar to App Engine, 10gen provides similar functionality to App Engine—with certain differences. With 10gen, you can develop applications in Python as well as the JavaScript and Ruby programming languages. The platform also uses the sandbox concept to isolate applications and provide a reliable environment over a large number of computers (built, of course, on Linux) using their own application server.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service

IaaS is the delivery of computer infrastructure as a service. This layer differs from PaaS in that the virtual hardware is provided without a software stack. Instead, the consumer provides a VM image that is invoked on one or more virtualized servers. IaaS is the rawest form of computing as a service (outside of access to the physical infrastructure). The most well-known commercial IaaS provider is Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). In EC2, you can specify a particular VM (operating system and application set), and then deploy your applications on it or provide your own VM image to execute on the servers. You're then billed simply for compute time, storage, and network bandwidth.

The Eucalyptus project (Elastic Utility Computing Architecture for Linking Your Programs To Useful Systems) is an open source implementation of Amazon EC2 that is interface-compatible with the commercial service. Like EC2, Eucalyptus relies on Linux with Xen for operating system virtualization. Eucalyptus was developed at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for the purpose of cloud computing research. You can download it from the university's Web site , or you can experiment with it via the Eucalyptus Public Cloud with certain restrictions.

Another EC2 style of IaaS is the Enomalism cloud computing platform. Enomalism is an open source project that provides a cloud computing framework with functionality similar to EC2. Enomalism is based on Linux, with support for both Xen and the Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM). But unlike other pure IaaS solutions, Enomalism provides a software stack based on the TurboGears Web application framework and Python.

Other cloud developments

In addition to the developments already discussed, several other Linux-based open source packages are useful in cloud environments. Hadoop is an open source Java™ software framework similar to PaaS but focused on manipulating large data sets over a set of networked servers (inspired by Google MapReduce, which enables parallel processing of large data sets). As such, it finds use in Web search and advertising applications—in particular, at Yahoo! Hadoop also provides several sub-projects, mimicking Google applications. For example, HBase provides Google BigTable database-like functionality, and the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) provides similar functionality to Google File System (GFS).

Issues and challenges

The issues of cloud computing are clear—with privacy and security being two of the most important. Privacy can be combated with encryption, but due diligence is required when selecting a cloud computing service. Even e-Commerce was viewed in a skeptical light when the Web started to grow. Worldwide, trillions of dollars-worth of e-Commerce transactions occur annually, so cloud computing will benefit from all the technologies (such as Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL) that make the Web safe today.

Going further

The cloud computing rush has just begun, and so has the open source development on Linux that will drive it. Given the massive investment being made in cloud computing, it's clear that a shift is occurring back to centralized data centers. It will be interesting to see the new technologies and architectures that are around the corner.

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