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Posts Tagged 'Cloud Computing'

Code Not Clicks

Published February 24, 2012 Cloud Computing Leave a Comment
Tags: Cloud Computing

“Clicks not Code.”

That is one of the latest marketing slogans from Force.com. Now, I have nothing against Force.com. In fact I think it is a great platform. But what, if I may ask, is so bad about code? And why are clicks better?

First off, I am a programmer. Secondly, I program mostly in C#. Full disclosure, acknowledging the last set of negative comments I got. Yeah, I know I should program in Java or Python or Ruby or Kotlin or something else because it is obviously way cooler … but I don’t. I program in C#. Stop reading now if that causes you some religious reaction.

I think that code, no matter what language you program in, is the best way to express your intention. Code gives you the flexibility to say exactly what you mean and what you want to have happen. Yes, there is a learning curve. But after you climb that curve you are way better off.

With “clicks” you supposedly get increased productivity. I am not sure that is true in the long run. Those of us that have actually tried to develop an application using a platform abstraction like Force (or even SugarCRM, for that matter – which I think is a great product) are often disappointed with the result. Initial productivity gains are often negated by the need to go back in and create (using code) what it was you really wanted in the first place.

Clicks have limited flexibility. With code you have great flexibility. That is the tradeoff. Productivity vs. Flexibility. For me it is all about control. As an application developer I want to have control over what my application does. For me actually coding the application achieves that goal.

The cloud offers many options for developers. Platform as a Service, for example, is all about giving developers a place to deploy custom applications. Those applications may be created in the traditional manner by writing code or may, in some cases, be created by using a point and click interface. While vendors may tout the productivity benefits of the latter I would encourage all developers to look beyond the marketing hype. Actually writing program code (in the language of your choice) is, in many cases, the best way to create an application.

Happy coding,

Kevin Kell

Top 11 Reasons I Prefer Office 365 Over Google Apps

Published February 9, 2012 Cloud Computing 5 Comments
Tags: Cloud Computing, Google Apps, Office 365

Warning: This post is subjective and highly opinionated!

I will admit to having a Microsoft bias as that is the technology I tend to use most often. That said I think all of the following are valid. I welcome comments and discussion.

11. Office 365 works seamlessly with the Office 2010 software installed on my desktop. Google Apps has no desktop version.

10. There are more subscription options available for Office 365 than Google Apps. I can choose the right subscription for my staff ranging from high-powered knowledge workers and development teams right through to clerical workers.

9. As a systems administrator I believe I have more control over Office 365 than I do with Google Apps.

8. Office 365 Exchange Online has a robust set of features for archiving, compliance, discovery and policy management.

7. If I already have Active Directory on premises I can configure Office 365 for single sign on.

6. Office 365 gives me the ability to synchronize my on premises Active Directory objects to the cloud. This allows me to continue to maintain user and group profiles exactly as I currently do.

5. Office 365 subscriptions can include SharePoint Online. SharePoint Online gives me and my team a common workspace to share documents and to otherwise collaborate.

4. Office 365 subscriptions can include Lync Online. Lync Online’s Integrated Presence feature allows me to see which of my contacts are online right from within my Office applications. With one click I can send email, IM or start a voice/video session with a document’s author from right within that document.

3. There are clearly defined migration paths from my current on-premises email solution to Office 365 and Exchange Online. I can choose to migrate some or all of my users all at once or over time.

2. Office 365 gives me the ability to continue to transparently co-exist with my on-premises solution indefinitely. I can continue to have some users on premises and some users in the cloud for as long as I want.

And last, but not least:

1. I already know Microsoft Office products. The transition to Office 365 is easy and I am comfortable with the interface.

To learn more about Office 365 and how it can be used in your organization consider attending Learning Tree’s new course entitled Deploying Microsoft Office 365.

Kevin Kell

Get a New File Server in 15 Minutes

Published January 18, 2012 Cloud Computing Leave a Comment
Tags: Amazon S3, Cloud Computing, cloud computing training

Last week, a customer sent me an email that included the following. “The file server is full and slowing everyone down, and I’m tired of having to clean files off of it. Maybe we should get a new one.”

So, I went to Dell’s Web site and found the cheapest file server they had. It cost $1395, which doesn’t include the charge for installing it.

I quoted her the price, and then showed her my file server in the cloud. I demonstrated how to create drives and folders. I explained how we could map cloud drives as drives in Windows Explorer. I showed her what software had to be installed on everyone’s computers. I also showed her how to access files from a Web browser.

The cost for this server is $4 per account, which includes 10 GB of storage. Additional storage is charged at the rate of 15 cents per GB per month. We figured it will be about $20 per month given the number of accounts we need and the amount of storage required. Plus, the first 2 weeks are a free trial. If for some reason they don’t like it, they just have to cancel the account. So, the risk is $0.

Do the math. $2000 for a server that they have to backup and administer, or $20 a month and someone else even pays the electric bill.

Where do you get this file server you may be wondering? Go to www.jungledisk.com. Sign up for a business account and choose either the Workgroup or Server edition. We used the Workgroup edition.

Once you have the account, you can create drives. Drives can be created using Amazon S3 storage or using RackSpace. The cost is the same either way.

Finally, install the Jungle Disk client software. This is not strictly required, as the files can be accessed through the browser. However, the software provides three useful features. First, cloud drives can be mapped as a drives in Explorer. Second, local folders can be synchronized with cloud storage. Third, scheduled backups to the cloud can be set up. The client software runs on Mac and Windows. There is even an iPhone app.

The whole process takes about fifteen minutes.

This is an example of the cloud not only making computing cheaper, but also easier and better. If you would like to learn how to use the cloud to benefit your users, take one of the courses in Learning Tree’s Cloud Computing curriculum.

Doug Rehnstrom

Compare Cloud Security to Your Security

Published January 11, 2012 Cloud Computing Leave a Comment
Tags: Amazon EC2, Azure, Cloud Computing, cloud security

There’s an assumption people make that if they put their data in the cloud it is less secure. There are three aspects to security: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. They are known as the CIA security model.

Confidentiality

Private data is kept confidential using encryption. This might require encrypting the data in the database. When transporting data across the internet, it requires using the HTTPS protocol. Whether using the cloud or local servers this does not change. It is our responsibility to secure our data no matter where it is physically stored.

Integrity

Integrity is maintained in distributed systems by verifying messages sent between computers have not tampered with. This is also achieved by using the HTTPS protocol. Again, this does not change when using the cloud.

Availability

Data should only be made available to those who are allowed to see it. This is done through some sort of authentication process, along with rules that govern access to the data. Authentication can be done using passwords, digital certificates, biometrics, passcodes, keys etc.

Securing the Infrastructure

Without a secure infrastructure, you can’t achieve the CIA’s of security. Servers must be patched, firewalls need to be configured, access to physical hardware needs to be limited, intrusion-detection systems need to be put in place, etc. Securing the infrastructure is very expensive and requires a great deal of administration.

This is where we can take advantage of a cloud provider’s economies of scale and expertise, to make our systems more secure! The fact is, very few people can afford to do what Microsoft and Amazon do to secure their data centers. And even if you can afford it, do you have the people who know how to do it?

To better understand why this is so, read the links below which describe what Microsoft and Amazon do to secure their data centers. Then, compare what they do, to what your organization does. You will likely realize that your data would be considerably MORE secure in the cloud than it is in your computer room.

Links

Windows Azure Security Overview – Microsoft

AWS Security and Compliance Center – Amazon Web Services

If you want to learn more about cloud computing and how it can benefit your organization, come to one of the courses in Learning Tree’s Cloud Computing curriculum.

Doug Rehnstrom

Office 365 Service Requests: Customer Service in the Cloud

Published December 27, 2011 Cloud Computing 1 Comment
Tags: Cloud Computing, Microsoft, Office 365

Season’s greetings!

Seems like forever ago since my last post. I have been heads-down working on the upcoming Learning Tree Office 365 course.

As part of writing the course I have had to provision multiple Office 365 subscriptions. The development team is using Office 365 as a way to collaborate on the course documents. It is perfect for us since we have team members from Los Angeles to France! I have also had to create accounts to develop and test the hands-on exercises. Finally, we need multiple subscriptions on an ongoing basis to accommodate our students during class.

Last week I discovered that I had oversubscribed and I had an account I was paying for and not using. Even worse was that I had inadvertently requested a year’s subscription not the normal month to month that I usually do. Since there appeared to be no way to cancel the subscription from the Office 365 portal I worried that I was going to have to eat the cost.

That is until I decided to use the portal to submit a service request to Microsoft. I had not done that before and I have to admit I was a bit skeptical as to how well it would work, if at all. Well, to my pleasant surprise I received a phone call from a Microsoft Customer Service representative within 24 hours. Since I was not at my office when the call occurred she left a voice-mail and followed up with an email requesting that I confirm some details about the account. Within a couple hours after that I received another phone call and confirmation that my subscription was cancelled and that I would no longer be charged for the service.

I have to say that I had a perception of anything in “the cloud” as being largely impersonal and difficult when you needed to actually talk to a human. That most certainly was not the case in this instance. It seems like the Service Request mechanism in Office 365 actually does work; at least it did in this case. So, now I can get back to writing the course and not have to worry about that subscription anymore.

Keep a lookout for Learning Tree’s Office 365 course. We are targeting May, 2012 for our first public event. It should be a good one, even if I do humbly say so myself! J

Kevin Kell

Using the AWS SDK for .NET is Fun, Easy and Productive!

Published November 7, 2011 Cloud Computing Leave a Comment
Tags: .NET, Amazon Web Services, Cloud Computing

As a programmer, one of the things I really like about Amazon Web Services is that there is SDK support for a variety of languages. That makes it easy to get started automating AWS solutions using tools you are already familiar with. My recent programming experience has been primarily with C#. I chose the Amazon SDK for .NET for my latest project since it was somewhat time critical (when are they not!?) and I had to go with a language I already knew pretty well.

The SDK download from Amazon includes a library for .NET, code samples and a Toolkit for Visual Studio. Once installed the toolkit provides a New Project template in Visual Studio that gives you a good place to start. You also get the AWS Explorer which makes it very easy to manage your Amazon resources right from within Visual Studio.

Figure 1 Visual Studio with AWS Toolkit installed

The library provides an intuitive object wrapper over the Amazon APIs. If you have used the Amazon command line tools or management console you should feel pretty comfortable with the .NET implementation. For example to use EC2 from within a C# application you create an instance of an EC2 client using the AWSClientFactory. You can then call methods on the AmazonEC2 object you create. These methods correspond to the command line commands and API calls you have already been using. The wizard even creates some sample code to get you going.

A simple method to launch an EC2 instance might look like this:

Figure 2 Simple Method to Launch an EC2 Instance

By providing support for multiple languages Amazon opens up AWS to developers from many backgrounds. Whether you program in Java, Ruby, PHP, Python or C# you will find an SDK that will get you started building solutions that leverage the many services offered by Amazon in the Cloud.

Kevin Kell

The End of the IT Department

Published October 20, 2011 Cloud Computing Leave a Comment
Tags: Cloud Computing, IT

Much has been said about the possible end of the IT department as organisations move to cloud computing. The drag on business progress due to the IT department has often caused frustration for both business and IT personnel. Machines cannot be provisioned as quickly as required, applications cannot be developed as quickly as is necessary are just two of the areas of frustration. The argument for the end of the IT department has often centred on the role of system administrators but I would like to consider it from the perspective of software development/developers.

In an effort to develop software faster and in a way that better meets the end user needs, agile development practices and techniques have been increasingly applied to the development process. A significant trend today is towards releasing software both regularly and frequently so as to get feedback from the end users. Sometimes release cycles can be as low as hourly. If these applications are hosted ‘in the cloud’ the developers can be located anywhere. Where is the best place for a developer to be located ? Maybe its next to/ with the end user so that on a frequent deployment cycle they can write the code, deploy and get immediate feedback from the end user.

This model of development has many advantages, and some disadvantages too, but the key is that it significantly changes the role of the IT department and software developers. Rather than being an isolated island(s) in an organisation that software trickles out of, the developers are scattered around the organisation, working with the end users to best provide a solution for the business that really meets their requirements.

In summary, rather than working in ‘batch mode’ for software delivery, software features released one by one as they are ready with real time input and feedback from end users can be a significant benefit to organisations. Working in this way has significant business advantages too. It will be interesting to see if it becomes reality for organisations in the near future – some are using this mode already. If you would like to learn about how cloud computing can impact software development, why not consider attending the Learning Tree cloud computing course, where the latest tools and products from the major vendors are discussed and evaluated.

Chris Czarnecki

Use Cloud Bursting to Handle Unexpected Spikes in Demand

Published October 19, 2011 Cloud Computing 1 Comment
Tags: cloud bursting, Cloud Computing

I am not a Republican, nor am I a Democrat. I am, however, an American voter interested in the issues. I am also a techie.

Tonight I am watching the latest Republican primary debate in Las Vegas. How many more are there left to go?

Anyway, the first part of the debate basically became a discussion of Herman Cain’s “9-9-9″ plan. It seemed that there was much confusion among the candidates. There were multiple analyses that each was citing. To his credit, Herman Cain himself said that everyone should “do their own math” and check out the analysis on his website.

The analysis may or may not be interesting, but right now I don’t know. What is more interesting to me is this:

Figure 1 – Service Unavailable

Now I’m no expert in political strategy but this, to me, seems like a bad thing. Obviously the goal of the site is to get the message out to as many people as possible. This implementation falls short.

Could this problem have been avoided using “the Cloud”? Absolutely. Is there any issue with security or data privacy on this site? No.

This is exactly the type of problem that can be solved by “Cloud Bursting”. That is using public cloud resources to handle anticipated or unanticipated spikes in demand. Had this site used this technique it could have made use of elastic scalability to quickly provision additional resources and avoid this outage. Tomorrow, when everyone has forgotten about tonight’s debate, the solution deployment could be scaled back in to avoid paying for unused resources.

All of this is tangential, of course, to the actual debate that is going on right now. As I am typing this the debate has taken a bit of a negative turn. I hope that a fist fight does not break out between the Governor of Texas and the former Governor of Massachusetts. I guess that is why I am more interested in technology than in politics.

Kevin Kell

Fast Growing Companies Benefit From Cloud Computing

Published October 16, 2011 Cloud Computing Leave a Comment
Tags: Cloud Computing

Every year here in the UK a list of the 100 fastest growing technology companies is published. This year, a fifth of the top 100 are offering or using cloud computing services. For these innovative companies, cloud computing can bring the capacity, platforms and applications to compete with much larger companies but without having to make large upfront investment in both hardware, software and IT staff.

It is interesting to note the number of these organisations that are using Microsoft cloud computing technologies. Microsoft was not and has not been considered an innovator in cloud computing, yet, with a massive investment and product release over the last two years now has one of the most comprehensive and powerful cloud computing offerings of any organisation. From end user applications offered through Office365 to platforms and infrastructure Microsoft has a rich product offering. An advantage they have over say Amazon or Google in selling their cloud computing products is that Microsoft have a large worldwide network of resellers and technology partners. It will be interesting to see how the market and vendor share of the market evolves over the next two or three years.

An example of a company that is using Microsoft Azure to develop new services is airline easyjet. They have a development programme to produce a system that will allow ground staff to upgrade customers seats or take payments for excess baggage using mobile terminals. This system is linked to a backend running on Microsoft Azure. The benefits to the customer are improved service and to easyjet, Azure means no new installation of servers, automatic scaling up and down of costs based on usage and a low cost of delivering this service.

To summarise, cloud computing is growing at a phenomenal rate, both in the range of services offered by cloud vendors and also in the way companies are using these services to improve their own business. This is highlighted in the list of fastest growing companies here in the UK. If you would like to know more about cloud computing, why not consider attending one of Learning Tree’s courses. Details can be found here.

Chris Czarnecki

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