BurnPC.com

I’ve recently become very interested in Cloud Computing with things like Google AppEngine, Amazon EC2, and even Salesforce. I think there are some very compelling benefits to running your apps in The Cloud. All the hardware stuff that software developers should not need to worry about (although many of us do because we LIKE hardware), such as performance, scalability, redundancy, and the like, are addressed by letting someone else handle those pieces.

How is this different from say, hosting your servers at a data center with super bandwidth, monster generators, multiple OC192 hookups from different providers?

• Low cost of entry - You don’t need to get a cabinet,  1/4 cabinet, etc like you do with a colo facility. Maybe I just want to test the waters with my app, and if it gets big it gets big.
• Almost Immediate scalability in computing power - In a colo you would most likely need to buy more machines, get them set up etc.
• Stability - the restriction of having your code work within the confines of the cloud also confines you to using some well tested APIs in an environment known to do well executing them.
• Somebody else gets to worry about the servers, database, etc

Of course this is not all unidirectional. There are some drawbacks:

• Less flexible for software design  - You are restricted to use the code and development models the cloud supports. Goes back to the stability argument.
• Less control over the server environment - They are not your servers. The benefit is that although it may not be done exactly how you would like, you don’t have to worry about it.
• “Lock-in” to their environment - This is the idea  that if you build it on EC2, it will only work on EC2. The Appscale project is working to address this issue by providing for code portability, and even an environment to run multiple nodes locally google-style.

So where does this leave me, the software developer who has been into hardware as much as most for supporting his ‘habits’ ?? Well, I think I’m going to get rid of the 38U enclosed server rack. It had it’s glory days, when I needed to prove that I was a nerd. But I no longer run my email server, I use gmail which supports all my domain email addresses. I no longer run my web server. I currently host all my sites (including this one) at HCoop, an internet hosting cooperative. The only server I have on-site is my Asterisk PBX which will need to stay local for now. As for the other apps, I may move off of HCoop and go to App Engine for my web hosting, but we’ll see which blogging software may work well for that (Bloog, cpedialog).

I think I’m ready. I’m moving to the clouds!