SkyRocket computing not Cloud!

calendar Jul 21, 2011 · 3 min read · cloud-computing ideas software-architect wisp  ·
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As you know, we at Gioorgi are not so Cloud-Computing enthusiastic.

Anyway, we watch every buzz-word, every good idea also if it born in an evil empire :) Cloud computing is SOA and huge. As software architect, Cloud computing is doomed to fail for some simple reasons:

  • Amazon and other Cloud solutions give you the freedom to build virtualized environment. Big players like to build their Virtual Machines, and often they have tons of Citrix and VMware license in it. But big players like Financial institutions (i.e. Banks) and Telecom-based business (Vodafone, Verizon, Wind, Telecom Italia and so on) will never leave their business to a third entity: for safety and for business reasons!
  • Small player will be lucky to enter in the Cloud big-buzzword but they need a cheap application platform. And Cloud is not easy to deploy neither cheap!

On a SkyRocket instead then on Clouds

These two companies are very different examples of what we called a "Web applIcation Service Provider" (WISP). WISPs provide an API to build applications. I have chosen this two one because they are very different, but the result is the same. You get a way to install pre-configured web application, with a fix-schematic. This schema has the following highlights:
  • It asks to us to have less freedom  on the operating system side (for instance, you cannot pretend to choose the operating system version, like you can do on a linode).
  • Require less constraints on disk space and bandwidth usage. For instance, Linode asks about 1$ per Gb/mo while WebFaction starts from $0,10 per Gb/mo. Customer asks about ten the space for giving the WISP the freedom on operating system image!
  • Security is a concern, because often the web application service provider (WISP) will scale keeping on the same web farm more applications. But Security is a concern also on Cloud Computing, so the difference surely is there, but for your business the risks are the same.
  • the proposed webapps are often LAMP stack, for instance:
    • WordPress
    • Drupal
    • Joomla
    • RubyOnRails Stack
    • Django Stack
    • Multi version PHP, Python
    • Databases like MongoDB, MySQL etc.
    • System-like utilities like WebDav Apache pre-configurations, Awstats
    As you see this schema mix some  typical infrastuture application (like awstats or webmail, for instance) with totally different software like databases (MongoDB, MySql...)  and CMS (drupal, joomla...).
A lot of this tool can be centralized and the security managed in a very unix-like fashion.

So what is your experience? Would you rather by a Linux Box virtualized with Xen, an Amazon Cloud or a WISP-like solution?

 

 

Comment by WISP Manifesto | Gioorgi.com on 2011-08-15 01:01:15

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