Technology as a service

Cloud computing concept is transforming the IT industry and shaping the IT service delivery into a pay-as-you-grow model. Here’s a whitepaper from Cisco on Cisco-powered “network clouds”. Thought I’d share some keypoints / highlights…

Abstraction of physical hardware (virtualization) & the ability to share common resources among users (multi-tenancy) are at the heart of cloud computing. It is with virtualization & multi-tenancy that various utility-based approach can be realized and built onto one another:

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): the abilityy to buy servers, data center resources, network equipment as an outsourced service delivered through the network cloud. Amazon, Joyent, GoGrid and FlexiScale are some examples of providers in this arena.

Platform as a service (PaaS): provides developers access to development tools for various software platforms that the developer needs to develop on. Some examples of development platforms currently out there:

• AppEngine from Google: based on Python and Django
• Force.com from SalesForce: based on the SalesForce SaaS infrastructure and Apex language
• Bungee Connect: visual development studio based on Java
• LongJump: based on Java/Eclipse
• WaveMaker: visual development studio based on Java and hosted on Amazon EC2

Software as a service (SaaS): enables service subscribers to access a software application from a software vendor through the web. Many traditional off-the-shelf application providers are transitioning to a SaaS model. The most well known SaaS provider is probably salesforce.com. WebEX is another example of SaaS.

IT as a service (ITaaS) encompasses IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. It is a service model where an organization or individual contracts with a service provider to provide individual or bundled services. (more…)

tuning apache and a different perspective on web app performance

Here’s another article that I can really relate to. Typically a standard install of Apache has lots of extra (often unused) features and won’t take full advantage of all system resources. There are all sorts of things you can do (like recompiling to support more concurrent connections, which is what I’ve had to do). (more…)